> Taxes for corporations are not very high at all. Fortune 500 companies routinely pay a less than 0 income tax at the federal level[0], and state level income taxes max out at 12% [1].

The way you quoted that Investopedia article is a bit misleading -- it says it identified 18 companies in the Fortune 500 that paid zero tax, and that 258 companies paid an average of 21.2%.

18 out of 500 companies paying zero tax is a pretty low bar for saying that paying zero tax is routine.

Here's the quote from the article:

> The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), in a recent study, found that over the eight-year period from 2008 to 2015, 258 profitable Fortune 500 companies paid an average effective federal income tax rate of 21.2%. Over that same period, exactly 18 companies, including General Electric, International Paper, Priceline.com and PG&E Corp., avoided paying a single penny of federal income tax.

You're being no less misleading than he is.

> 258 profitable Fortune 500 companies paid an average effective federal income tax rate of 21.2%

So of the Fortune 500, 242 companies are unprofitable. Seriously? That ignores all the companies using legislation they helped craft to give themselves tax credits and the accounting tricks they use to bring their profits to "zero." Hell, the list itself is pathologically biased towards those businesses.

Seems the rest of the country has figured out Hollywood accounting.

It sounds like your problem is with the article, not with me. I did not misrepresent what the article said.

As a general rule, and this applies to me too, if the article is misleading and you quote the article, that misleading aspect of it should be noted in your comment. At least on Hacker News.

242 are unprofitable or do not have profit/tax information publicly available. The Fortune 500 only requires revenue numbers to be public for inclusion.

There are many reasons for companies to pay no income, normally its carry loses forward.

You own article states the average rate in the US is 21.1%.

Keep in mind that the owners (shareholders) of Fortune 500 companies then pay an additional tax on distribution of profits (dividends).