Exxon and Corporate Taxes

Yesterday the media ran with the news that Exxon had set yet another record quarterly profit number. $11.6 Billion. What should really make your jaw drop is what Dr. Mark Perry at his blog Carpe Diem reports. First this post.

Exxon has already paid $19.828 billion in income taxes for 2008 (data here), and will probably pay almost $40 billion in income taxes this year (see graph above, income tax data for 1999-2007 taken from Exxon's annual reports).

To put $40 billion of income taxes in perspective, it can be reasonably estimated that Exxon will pay more in income taxes this year than the entire bottom 50% of American individual taxpayers (about 67 million) will pay in taxes this year.

It gets even better here.

When you count all taxes, not just corporate taxes, for just the 2nd quarter of 2008:

(From CNN) Buried in the story we also find that "In addition to making hefty profits, Exxon also had a hefty tax bill. Worldwide, the company paid $10.5 billion in income taxes in the second quarter, $9.5 billion in sales taxes, and over $12 billion in what it called 'other taxes.'"

MP: In other words, Exxon Mobil paid (or at least collected) $32.361 billion in taxes in the second quarter, which works out to $4,114 in taxes per second. Another way to look at it - Exxon paid (or collected) almost $3 in taxes ($32.361 billion) for every $1 in profits ($11.68 billion)

He has a couple smart graphs in the first post.