Companies in the S&P 100 index paid an average 28.3 percent overall tax rate last year, including federal, state and international taxes, up 5.3 percent from 2012, according to personal finance website
WalletHub.
Interestingly enough, the biggest increase came at the state level, with that rate rising 24 percent to an average of 3.8 percent.
The highest rates were paid by Devon Energy, 113.4 percent; Anadarko Petroleum, 55.3 percent; Apache, 45.7 percent; Facebook, 45.5 percent; and ConocoPhillips, 44.4 percent.
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The lowest rate were paid by Amgen, 3.5 percent; AIG, 3.8 percent; General Electric, 4.2 percent; Abbott Laboratories, 5.5 percent; and Johnson & Johnson 10.6 percent.
Only one S&P 100 company had a negative overall tax rate, meaning it was due a refund--Ford Motor. In 2012, six companies were entitled to tax refunds.
The average international tax rate for S&P 100 companies stood 22 percent below the U.S. rate last year.
Many U.S. companies have been purchasing foreign ones and then moving headquarters overseas to avoid U.S. corporate taxes, among the highest in the world with a maximum federal rate of 35 percent. That's called a "tax inversion."
The solution is simple, says Mortimer Zuckerman, executive chairman of Boston Properties. "How about marrying a lower corporate rate — 30 percent, say — with restricting inversions to cases where it is a genuine business move?" he writes in the
Financial Times.
"A company could still be subject to U.S. taxes if management control remains in America and 25 percent of its employees, sales or assets stay there."
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