Corporate Taxes: Are US Multinational Corporations really paying their fair share?

There has been extensive coverage in this blog about how US Multinational Corporations are not paying their fair share by utilizing Transfer Pricing, Inversions and Earnings Stripping to reduce their effective tax rates below the statutory 35%.

Some examples are: Pfizer tried to invert a couple of times to avoid paying the US tax rate, Apple and its Irish transfer pricing, Google with its double Dutch Irish sandwich transfer pricing, Caterpillar with its Swiss structure, and on and on.

Some of these USMNCs have argued that despite utilizing these accounting maneuvers, they still pay their fair share of taxes (See Apple CEO Tim Cook's comments on 60 Minutes).  Others question whether the USMNCs are actually paying their fair share and whether they are contributing to the overall tax gap.

In contrast to USMNCs trying to shift profits offshore to avoid US Tax, there is one USMNC that is paying its fair share.  Disney, yes that Disney, and despite negative criticism (NY Times article re Disney outsourcing tech jobs to India, and Disney caught in the LuxLeaks scandal), it appears as if Disney is actually paying its true tax liability without utilizing the accounting tricks that other USMNCs utilize to reduce their effective tax rates.

According to this Investopedia article, Disney is paying at or near the US corporate tax rate (35%) of income taxes.  For example, the author states that for 2015, Disney had pre-tax income of $13.9 billion and paid corporate income taxes of $4.4 billion.  The author, David Cay Johnston, also states that Disney earned only 1% of its profits in the U.S. and paid about "1.3% if all the corporate income taxes".

Johnston also states that one reason Disney is paying a higher rate of taxes is that Disney is keeping its Intellectual Property in the U.S. and not transferring the IP to low tax haven subsidiaries.  Johnston also criticizes Disney for not spending its profits in reinvesting in U.S. businesses but in conducting stock buy-backs.

Johnston's main point is that Congress should close the transfer pricing incentive/loophole that has permitted companies (Apple, Google, Pfizer to name only a few) to utilize transfer pricing, earnings stripping and inversions to erode the US tax base and pay less taxes.  Johnston also challenges whether the corporate tax is achieving the goals it was designed to achieve.

Maybe Johnston is correct in having Congress re-visit the utility of the corporate tax structure (a similar criticism of Bob Iger's, the Chairman of Disney).  Or maybe the IRS should be doing a better job at enforcing transfer pricing, inversions, and/or earnings stripping to prevent the USMNCs from shifting taxable income it its foreign base subsidiaries, despite its recent loss in the Medtronic case.

If you have specific and credible information about a company utilizing transfer pricing, inversions and/or earnings stripping to minimize its US taxes, contact us about filing an IRS Whistleblower claim to assist the IRS in attacking the various abusive transfer pricing applications by USMNCs.