Perhaps I'm ignorant, but this seems like and insane corporate tax burden compared to what many (most?) large organizations are reported to be paying. Can anyone explain if my assumption is wrong or why they pay so much?
It's not an insane tax burden in the US, it's common. Most corporations get socked with a high rate; most can't dodge taxes as effectively as some multi-nationals.
Exxon paid $86 billion in corporate income taxes the last three fiscal years. They generated $118 billion in net income by comparison. Talk about a tax hammer. Chevron is roughly the same.
Facebook had a $1.25 billion income tax last year, and generated $1.49 billion in net income.
It's popular in the media to pretend corporations evade taxes universally. The fact is, very few are able to. If you remove about 50 huge corporations from the pool that avoid taxes very skillfully and have large incomes, the average corporate income tax rate in the US is typically closer to 27% to 30%, versus the more often quoted 22% to 25%.
Because you only hear about the outliers that have gigantic losses that they carry forward to reduce their tax burden in future years (like GE). Most corporations don't avoid taxation to the extent that the popular consciousness seems to think.
Even gigantic, evil Exxon Mobil paid a lot of taxes. In 2013 they paid $24 billion in taxes on $57 billion in pre-tax income.
http://investor.bk.com/download_arquivos.asp?id_arquivo=C0B7...