Did you feel the pinch when you had to cough up money for the tax man this year? Plenty of hugely successful companies didn’t — or even got refunds — despite raking in billions. The 19 businesses listed here from an analysis by the Center for American Progress are just the companies in the Fortune 100 with the tiniest (or nonexistent) tax bills — other profitable businesses, like Salesforce and Netflix, also paid next to nothing. Here’s a primer on what these corporations paid, if anything, and what they earned in the U.S. in 2021.
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Charter Communications
Effective tax rate: -0.2%
Charter Communications, the corporation behind major TV and Internet provider Spectrum, had earnings of $6 billion but reported that it received a tax refund of $12 million.
Related: What If You Bought 100 Shares of These Companies at the Start?
AIG
Effective tax rate: -2.2%
This massive insurance company certainly can’t complain about its $98 billion in earnings, or its hefty tax refund of $216 million.
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Dow
Effective tax rate: -3.1%
This chemical giant not only didn’t owe taxes on its $1.5 billion in earnings, it got a refund to the tune of $46 million.
Related: 31 of the Biggest Lawsuit Settlements Against Companies
AT&T
Effective tax rate: -4.1%
AT&T also got a nice gift from Uncle Sam despite just under $30 billion in earnings — a tax refund of a whopping $1.2 billion.
Companies That Paid Less Than 5% in Taxes
Plenty of other companies didn’t get refunds, but their tax rate is still a far cry from what average Joes are forced to fork over. Here are several big names that X found had an effective tax rate of under 5%.
- General Motors: Effective tax rate of 0.2% on $9.4 billion in earnings
- Ford: Effective tax rate of 1% on $10 billion in earnings
- MetLife: Effective tax rate of1.3% on $4.8 billion in earnings
- Chevron: Effective tax rate of 1.8% on $9.5 billion in earnings
- ExxonMobil: Effective tax rate of 2.8% on $9.3 billion in earnings
- Bank of America: Effective tax rate of 3.5% on $1.1 billion in earnings
- Merck: Effective tax rate of 4% on $1.9 billion in earnings
- FedEx: Effective tax rate of 4.2% on $4.7 billion in earnings
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Companies That Paid Less Than 10% in Taxes
These big names still paid under 10% in taxes despite raking in the billions:
- JP Morgan Chase: Effective tax rate of 5.9% on $48.2 billion in earnings
- Nike: Effective tax rate of 5.9% on $5.6 billion in earrings
- Amazon: Effective tax rate of 6.1% on $35.1 billion in earnings
- Verizon: Effective tax rate of 6.9% on $27.2 billion in earnings
- Coca-Cola: Effective tax rate of 7.1% on $3.4 billion in earnings
- Microsoft: Effective tax rate of 9.7% on $33.7 billion in earnings
