While the report could be skewed because it does not include deferred taxes (as deferred taxes may or may not be paid), the far more worrying revelation is that many of these companies spent more on lobbying than they did on federal taxes.
At the September hearing, Senator Levin said the investigation indicated that Apple had deferred taxes on over $35.4 billion in offshore income between 2009 and 2011.
Some of the companies disputed the findings, saying that the study understated their tax payments by omitting deferred taxes that they may pay in future years.
In many cases, the estimates reported in a company's financial filings with regulators overstate taxes paid in a year because they include deferred taxes.
Net income included $85 million in merger costs and a $215 million expense that reflected deferred taxes imposed on North Sea production by Britain, Exxon Mobil said.
American companies that have deferred taxes for years on the profits they made overseas could be in line for a windfall from Congress.
In Apple's last annual disclosure, the company listed its worldwide taxes — which includes cash taxes paid as well as deferred taxes and other charges — at $8.3 billion, an effective tax rate of almost a quarter of profits.
JESSICA GUREVITCH Stony Brook, N.Y., April 10, 2013 As long as the government borrows or makes future commitments like Social Security and Medicare, it creates deferred taxes, which must be paid by someone's children.
The former chairman of Tyco International Ltd., L. Dennis Kozlowski, may have deferred taxes on $208 million in stock option profits using a technique that is under Internal Revenue Service scrutiny.
But Klinger points out that those deferred taxes could take many years to materialize and until they are booked, they still haven't been paid – and Boeing has earned its place on his list.
William Featherston, an analyst at PaineWebber, says a group of 15 gas producers he tracks are expected to post a 75percentt gain in discretionary cash flow -- net income plus depreciation and deferred taxes -- to $9 billion this year.
