ITEP, a nonpartisan tax watchdog group, said its report examines 15 companies’ federal income tax disclosures from last year, before new tax law signed by President Donald Trump took effect.
All but one of the companies ITEP examined received a tax rebate in 2017. E-commerce giant Amazon reported $5.4 billion in U.S. profits in 2017 and received a federal income tax rebate of $137 million, according to ITEP. Financial giants Aflac and Prudential Financial collectively reported $3.7 billion-plus in U.S. profits and paid little to nothing in federal income tax in 2017.
“While the income tax disclosures made by these companies are too vague to allow a complete diagnosis of how they are avoiding income taxes, the businesses profiled here appear to be using a diverse array of tax breaks to reduce their federal income taxes,” ITEP said.
In a statement to Reuters, a Duke Energy spokesperson called the report “deeply flawed and misleading.” An Amazon spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to the publication’s request for comment.
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