Corning Pays Zero Federal Taxes, Tells Congress That’s Too Much

Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on “tax reform and the U.S. manufacturing sector.”  With no apparent irony, the Committee invited Susan Ford, a senior official from champion corporate tax-avoider Corning, Inc., to testify on how Congress ought to make the U.S. tax code more friendly for manufacturing.

Ford raised eyebrows with her claim that in 2011, Corning paid a U.S. tax rate of 36 percent and a foreign tax rate of 17 percent.

It’s unclear how Ms. Ford comes up with a 36 percent rate, but clearly one thing she’s doing is counting Corning’s “deferred” U.S. taxes (taxes not yet paid) as well as “current” taxes (U.S. taxes actually paid in 2011). Of course, those “deferred” taxes may eventually be paid. If and when they are paid, they will be included in Corning’s “current” taxes in the year(s) they are paid.

But current taxes are what Corning actually pays each year, and Corning has amassed an impressive record of paying nothing, or less than nothing, in current U.S. taxes. CTJ and ITEP’s November 2011 corporate tax avoidance report found that between 2008 and 2010, Corning didn’t pay a dime in federal corporate income taxes, actually receiving a $4 million refund to add to its $1.9 billion in U.S. profits during this period. And a more recent CTJ report found that in 2011, Corning earned almost $1 billion in U.S. pretax income, and once again didn’t pay a dime in federal income tax. These data paint a dramatically different picture from the “36 percent” claim made by Corning before Congress today.

Ford’s testimony also includes a common but false claim about how U.S. taxes compare to foreign taxes:

“American manufacturers are at a distinct disadvantage to competitors headquartered in other countries. Specifically, foreign manufacturers uniformly face a lower corporate tax rate than U.S. manufacturers…”

In fact, over the 2008-2010 period, Corning paid a higher effective corporate income tax rate to foreign governments than it paid to the US government. (Which wasn’t hard to do, since it paid nothing to the U.S. government.) CTJ’s November 2011 report shows that over the 2008-2010 period, Corning paid  -0.2 percent (negative 0.2 percent) of its US profits in US corporate income taxes, but paid 8.6 percent (positive 8.6 percent) of its foreign profits in foreign corporate income taxes.

During the Congressional hearing, 3M executive Henry W. Gjersdal made a similar, and equally misleading, claim, in his testimony before the Committee, arguing that “[i]n an increasingly global marketplace, 3M’s high effective tax rate is a competitive disadvantage.”

But if 3M has a high worldwide effective tax rate, it’s not because the U.S. corporate income tax is high. In fact, like Corning, 3M paid a higher effective corporate income tax rate to foreign governments than it paid to the U.S. government between 2008 and 2010. Specifically, it paid an effective 23.8 percent rate on its US profits in US corporate income taxes and 27.1 percent on its foreign profits in foreign corporate income taxes, according to CTJ’s report.

Let’s remember that Corning also spent $2.8 million on lobbying during the 2008-10 period they spent enjoying a tax-free ride from the federal government. There are companies across the country paying their fair share in taxes and still making enough to grow their business and please their shareholders. Those are the kinds of companies Congress should be hearing from.