http://caps.fool.com/Ticker/GOOG/Statements.aspx?source=icas... shows that Google paid $2.3B on $10.8B pretax income, or 21%. That's far from 2.4%, but it's also far from 35% so I'm a bit lost.

woof... upon closer reading, the headline was misleading. the 2.4% rate is for overseas earnings. "Google’s overall effective tax rate [was] 22.2 percent last year".

it's not hard, however, to find evidence confirming the upstream point that large companies frequently pay a fraction of the 35% rate

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-w...

Note that Google doesn't pay US taxes on profits that it makes overseas and doesn't bring into the US.

Me - I'd like Google to bring that money into the US but can understand why it isn't willing to pay taxes to do so. Many other countries tax repatriated profits differently, so their companies are more willing to bring said profits back to the mothership.

Well, can we at least agree that the tax code is all kinds of crazy and needs to be reformed, regardless of total revenue take? I thought that was noncontroversial.