What the Top U.S. Companies Pay in Taxes

For all the outcry over GE, a number of corporate titans are paying much higher rates than the average citizen.

As many Americans finish up their personal tax returns over the next few days, they'll marvel with horror at how much hard-earned cash gets siphoned up by the government. At times like this, it's satisfying to have a corporate bogeyman to hate -- like General Electric, which has faced a withering hail of criticism since the New York Times proclaimed last month that the conglomerate paid no federal taxes in 2010, despite $5 billion in U.S. profits. There goes corporate America again, always sticking it to the little guy.
But is there any real reason to believe that? Sure, GE has an army of accountants and lobbyists trying to reduce its tax burden, but wouldn't you if you had $150 billion in worldwide revenue and $14.2 billion in pretax income last year?

To see if GE was an aberration, we took a look at the 2010 annual reports of the 20 most profitable U.S. companies. Some of the results may surprise you. The average income tax rate............. Continued