Effective tax rates paid by 50 largest companies in S&P 500

The year has ended and tax season is right around the corner (January at time of writing this). So, I thought what better way to mark the occasion than to do a quick pull to see what the largest public companies are paying in taxes. I did a quick scrape of tax rates on Reuters for the 50 largest companies by market cap in the S&P 500, pulling both the 5 year average and trailing 12 month tax rates.

After pulling the data, I first split the tax rates out by sector, as shown below:


tax_rate_sector


Here, we can see that on average over the past 5 years (blue bar) Healthcare and IT pay the least taxes, while Energy normally pays the most. However, since the price of oil kind of crashed, Energy companies are now (unsurprisingly) bottoming out the list for the trailing 12 month tax rate.


Tax rates for the 50 largest companies in the S&P 500 (5 year average and trailing 12 months):


Ticker Company Name Tax Rate (5 year avg.) Tax Rate (trailing 12 months) Sector Industry Rank
AMGN Amgen Inc 10% 14% Health Care Biotechnology 1
CELG Celgene Corp 14% 19% Health Care Biotechnology 2
BMY Bristol-Myers Squibb Co 16% 23% Health Care Pharmaceuticals 3
ABBV AbbVie Inc 17% 22% Health Care Biotechnology 4
QCOM QUALCOMM Inc. 17% 17% Information Technology Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment 5
CSCO Cisco Systems Inc 17% 17% Information Technology Communications Equipment 6
MDT Medtronic PLC 19% 6% Health Care Health Care Equipment & Supplies 7
GOOG Alphabet Inc. 19% 15% Information Technology Internet Software & Services 8
JNJ Johnson & Johnson 19% 17% Health Care Pharmaceuticals 9
GILD Gilead Sciences Inc 20% 19% Health Care Biotechnology 10
VZ Verizon Communications Inc 21% 36% Telecommunication Services Diversified Telecommunication Services 11
IBM International Business Machines Corp 21% 5% Information Technology IT Services 12
BAC Bank of America Corp 21% 31% Financials Banks 13
ORCL Oracle Corp 22% 23% Information Technology Software 14
MSFT Microsoft Corp 22% 15% Information Technology Software 15
NKE Nike Inc 23% 16% Consumer Discretionary Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods 16
KO Coca-Cola Co (The) 24% 21% Consumer Staples Beverages 17
PG Procter & Gamble Co (The) 24% 25% Consumer Staples Household Products 18
MRK Merck & Co Inc. 24% 19% Health Care Pharmaceuticals 19
INTC Intel Corp 25% 19% Information Technology Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment 20
HON Honeywell International Inc 25% 25% Industrials Industrial Conglomerates 21
PEP PepsiCo Inc 25% 23% Consumer Staples Beverages 22
PFE Pfizer Inc 26% 14% Health Care Pharmaceuticals 23
GE General Electric Co 26% -8% Industrials Industrial Conglomerates 24
AAPL Apple Inc 26% 26% Information Technology Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals 25
USB U.S. Bancorp 27% 27% Financials Banks 26
V Visa Inc 27% 25% Information Technology IT Services 27
BA Boeing Co 27% 6% Industrials Aerospace & Defense 28
JPM JPMorgan Chase & Co 27% 29% Financials Banks 29
UTX United Technologies Corp 28% 32% Industrials Aerospace & Defense 30
MA Mastercard Inc 28% 25% Information Technology IT Services 31
MMM 3M Co 29% 28% Industrials Industrial Conglomerates 32
PM Philip Morris International Inc 29% 27% Consumer Staples Tobacco 33
WBA Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc 30% 20% Consumer Staples Food & Staples Retailing 34
C Citigroup Inc 30% 30% Financials Banks 35
WFC Wells Fargo & Co 31% 32% Financials Banks 36
GS Goldman Sachs Group Inc (The) 31% 27% Financials Capital Markets 37
WMT Wal-Mart Stores Inc 32% 28% Consumer Staples Food & Staples Retailing 38
MCD McDonald's Corp 32% 31% Consumer Discretionary Hotels Restaurants & Leisure 39
T AT&T Inc 33% 35% Telecommunication Services Diversified Telecommunication Services 40
UPS United Parcel Service Inc 34% 34% Industrials Air Freight & Logistics 41
DIS Walt Disney Co (The) 34% 34% Consumer Discretionary Media 42
CMCSA Comcast Corp 35% 37% Telecommunication Services Diversified Telecommunication Services 43
MO Altria Group Inc 36% 36% Consumer Staples Tobacco 44
HD Home Depot Inc. (The) 36% 37% Consumer Discretionary Specialty Retail 45
UNH Unitedhealth Group Inc 39% 41% Health Care Health Care Providers & Services 46
XOM Exxon Mobil Corp 39% 8% Energy Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels 47
CVS CVS Health Corp 39% 39% Consumer Staples Food & Staples Retailing 48
FB Facebook Inc 43% 29% Information Technology Internet Software & Services 49
AMZN Amazon.com Inc 58% 40% Consumer Discretionary Internet & Direct Marketing Retail 50

*Data scraped from Reuters Jan. 2017, excludes companies with negative net income