Not all their profits. Just the profits that occur outside of the US. The US corporate tax system is relatively unusual in that it attempts to tax not just profits earned within it's borders but worldwide profits for any company incorporated within the US.
So what US companies tend to do is incorporate subsidiaries in tax friendly locales like the Caribbean (Ireland is also popular) to avoid paying US corporate taxes on this money.
It's quite common.
Re:Uber London loses licence to operate
by walshemj on Friday September 22, 2017 @10:35AM
(#15312529)
Its why apple has that massive cash pile off shore
Yup, exactly.
> "The average effective tax rate among S&P companies that had posted calendar fourth-quarter results as of Friday was 24.11 percent"
The question in a discussion of tax avoidance, of course, is 24.11% of what.
Conveniently, a few minutes going through public financial statements disproves that outlandish, comical premise.
3M, McDonald's, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, AT&T, Delta, UPS, Disney, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Honeywell, Intel, Walgreens, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, Boeing, Visa, Comcast, Altria, Exxon, Chevron, Nike, Honeywell, Intel, Merck, Pfizer, Cisco, Oracle, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, etc.
They're all going to be very upset to discover the 20-35% tax rates they've been paying on their earnings, they could easily have avoided by just squirreling it away in the Caribbean.
One could also do a few minutes of research:
"The average effective tax rate among S&P companies that had posted calendar fourth-quarter results as of Friday was 24.11 percent"
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/13/tax-cuts-sp-500-may-not-get-...