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Share of U.S. Corporate Income and Taxes by Size

1 min readBy: Kyle Pomerleau, Andrew Lundeen

In 2010, U.S. corporations paid about $223 billion in income taxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. es on slightly more than $1 trillion in taxable incomeTaxable income is the amount of income subject to tax, after deductions and exemptions. For both individuals and corporations, taxable income differs from—and is less than—gross income. . However, the vast majority of this income and taxes is attributable to the roughly 2,700 corporations with assets above $2.5 billion. Indeed, these corporations earned 77 percent of total corporate taxable income in 2010 and account for 69 percent of all corporate income taxA corporate income tax (CIT) is levied by federal and state governments on business profits. Many companies are not subject to the CIT because they are taxed as pass-through businesses, with income reportable under the individual income tax. es paid in the United States. Meanwhile, mid-size companies with assets between $500 million and $2.5 billion in assets earned 11 percent of corporate income and paid 14 percent of corporate income taxes.

For more charts like the one below, see the second edition of our chart book, Putting a Face on America's Tax Returns.

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