In his first State of the Union address since taking office last year, President Joe Biden highlighted his plan to levy a 15% minimum tax on global corporations as he rallied against large corporations that have historically avoided paying federal income tax.
“Just last year, 55 Fortune 500 corporations earned $40 billion in profits and paid zero dollars in federal income tax,” Biden said during his address. “That’s simply not fair.”
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled by Fortune that ranks the 500 largest corporations in the U.S. by total revenue. Last year, Fortune reported that 55 of those companies paid zero federal income tax for the year, mostly due to exploiting a difference between so-called book income and tax income.
Book income is a comprehensive view of a company’s financial situation, which shareholders use to assess a corporation’s health, and follows…
