The government may be running on empty, but America's largest companies are up to their eyeballs in cash that is tucked away in offshore profits, CBS News reported.

Because the money is held outside of the U.S., it is not subject to federal income taxes.

CBS speculated that if all of the money were repatriated and taxed, the government “could collect enough to avoid the coming debt-ceiling problem.”

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The total amount sheltered internationally by the Fortune 50 is $800 billion, according to data from consumer financial site NerdWallet.com.

“What the public sector lacks, the private has in abundance,” CBS reported. “Although companies have seen record profits, many use tax code complexities available to wealthier businesses to sharply reduce their liabilities.”

According to NerdWallet, the top 10 companies in the Fortune 50 account for 68 percent of offshore profits.

Those companies and the amount of their offshore profits cited by NerdWallet cited were: General Electric, $108 billion; Microsoft, $76.4 billion; Pfizer, $73 billion; IBM, $44.4 billion; Exxon Mobil, $43 billion; Citigroup, $42.6 billion; Procter & Gamble, $42 billion; Johnson & Johnson, $41.6 billion; Apple, $40.4 billion; and Hewett-Packard, $33.4 billion.

CBS called the amount the big multinationals have amassed – even through the depths of the recession in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown – “staggering.”

What if the $800 billion in profits squirreled away on foreign shores were suddenly subject to U.S. taxation?

NerdWallet declared, “Combined, the top 20 companies would owe an estimated $119 billion in taxes on their offshore profits.”

The Seattle Times reported that a coalition of hundreds of small business groups, the Main Street Alliance, recently called on Microsoft to stop its practice of avoiding U.S. taxes by hiding cash overseas.

“As a small business owner, I have to pay my 35 percent tax,” Brian Wells, a member of the Main Street Alliance and owner of Tougo Coffee in Seattle, told the times. “That helps build roads, infrastructure, fund education — all the things that we need.

“It concerns me because it seems Microsoft is one of many large corporations amassing a huge amount of profits and instead of having it in banks in the U.S.., where it helps keep the economy flourish, they move these profits offshore, where they don’t have any tax burden,” Wells said.

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