By Faye Dorman
Elm Staff Writer
In a world of increasingly depressing headlines, non-partisan taxation and policy organizations have worked to bring us yet another splash of fuel to throw on the fire: some of the largest companies in America have been avoiding paying billions in income taxes, a sure sign of even more strain and reduction on lower-income supports, including health care, food assistance, and student loans.
In a recent report from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization, 88 different companies who reported profits in 2025 also reported paying $0 in income taxes. This list includes companies such as Citigroup, which reported $4.45 billion in profits, Southwest Airlines which reported $561 million in profits, and Tesla which reported $5.68 billion in profits.
Mega corporations making billions in profit and paying nothing in taxes is not a new phenomenon.
The ITEP, in a separate report, claimed that 290 corporations avoided over $139 billion in income taxes, and while that number is not as egregious of a headline as paying absolutely nothing in income tax, these companies are still staining not only the government’s budget in its entirety, but the lives of the individuals who receive support from the government. These are not struggling small businesses; combined, the 290 companies earned roughly $1 trillion in profits last year alone.
ITEP cites H.R. 1 of the 119th Congress, also referred to by President Trump as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as the mechanism behind the avoidance of these taxes, as the bill includes various tax cuts for these massive corporations. However, this is not the only way that OBBBA has negatively impacted American citizens, despite the law’s misleading nickname.
According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute, the tax cuts made in the bill for the wealthy companies and individuals equates to roughly $4.5 trillion in taxes, meaning that in order to balance out this loss, government programs had to take a hit. These cuts impacted healthcare coverage, food assistance, clean energy subsidies, and monthly student loan payments. Essentially, the bill allows the big players with money and power to be without burden at the cost of support for low-income individuals and families.
It is important to keep in mind that these companies avoiding taxation are not struggling to pull in profits even as many Americans struggle to afford basic necessities, such as rent, groceries, and utilities.
According to Investor’s Business Daily, the companies that completely avoided paying income tax make up roughly 10% of the S&P 500, a stock market index that catalogs and tracks the top 500 companies that are publicly traded in the United States that is used as the benchmark for financial advisors and day traders alike to track their portfolios’ progress. The S&P, while having oil fueled ups and downs, has been on a positive growth streak throughout the past year due to the strong performance and metrics of the same companies that are avoiding paying income tax like one would avoid the plague. Ultimately, the issue does not boil down solely to the cost of taxes, it is about continuing to show excessive profits by cutting costs any way possible.
Another important note is that ITEP and CBPP are not the non-partisan organizations currently weighing in on these discussions, and that not every non-partisan group is non-profit.
The CATO Institute, an independent, non-partisan research institute, calls the headline a “persuasive misunderstanding,” and claims the figures used were taken from two separate methods of accounting. CATO asserts that because the reported profits and the lack of income tax reported were for two separate systems, comparing them is making a null argument.
While there is truth to the assertion that these two figures were taken from two different reports, it does not negate the reality that corporations who are proven to have profits are avoiding the responsibility of contributing to taxes that benefit all Americans. As non-partisan as both sources claim to be, very few sources are entirely non-partisan, for example, ITEP is a non-profit organization, while CATO is funded primarily by private donors and has a link to “libretarianism.com” on its bottom banner, right under the paragraph speaking very highly of the OBBBA.
In the end, the taxes have already been avoided, and the bill that allowed for those avoidances is still enacted to this day. The only thing left to question is how long until those funding cuts are felt as they trickle their way down to the lower classes.
Photo Caption: 88 different companies who reported profits in 2025 also reported paying $0 in income taxes.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons