Fortune 100 Profits Jumped By $100 Billion Over Past Year
Just As Mega-Corporations Are Set To Receive $900 Billion From Trump Tax Scam
America’s 100 largest publicly traded corporations reported over $1.2 trillion of after-tax profits in 2024, $100 billion more than the year before, according to a new study by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) based on data from Fortune magazine. Despite the bonanza of earnings, those companies–ranging in revenue rank from number one Walmart to number 100 Uber–were leading recipients of over $900 billion in corporate tax cuts included in the recently enacted Trump-GOP tax-and-spending law, paid for in part with cuts to healthcare, nutrition, tuition aid and other public services relied on by millions of workers and families. Even as they piled on the profits, these 100 firms shed 73,000 jobs.
Among the giveaways to the rich and powerful in the recently enacted Trump-GOP tax scam are roughly $900 billion in loophole openers, ranging from accelerated depreciation to a more generous interest deduction. All these goodies were paid for in part by denying families healthcare, taking food from hungry kids, and boosting household utility prices. The tradeoff couldn’t be more clear or more cruel.
Corporations have been using their hefty profits and tax cuts not to invest in workers or communities, but on massive stock buybacks and dividend payouts to wealthy investors. Since enactment of the first Trump-GOP tax law in 2017, which cut the corporate tax rate by two-fifths, the nation’s largest firms have spent $3.2 trillion on stock repurchases and $2.1 trillion on dividends.
Wall Street amply rewarded the Fortune 100 for their sky-high revenue and earnings: the market capitalization of the group grew by almost $2.5 trillion to a new total approaching $30 trillion this year. This surge in stock market wealth disproportionately benefits the very rich and does not trickle down to most Americans. That is because half of all corporate stock is owned by the richest 1% of households, while the bottom half of families hold just 1%.
The Fortune 100 last year grew their total revenue from $12.2 trillion to $13 trillion, and total assets from $37.6 trillion to $38.9 trillion. At the same time the number of people these corporations employ dropped last year from 16.3 million to 16.2 million.
The biggest corporate tax breaks in the recently enacted law are enhanced deductions that artificially reduce taxable income and therefore tax bills. These include the ability to write off the cost of big-ticket purchases faster than they actually wear out; ability to deduct research expenses immediately instead of gradually to reflect the time it takes for research to yield fruit; and a looser restriction on how much interest firms can deduct, promoting excessive borrowing. The law also reduced scheduled increases in the U.S. tax paid on the foreign income of American corporations.
Source: Americans for Tax Fairness
"Corporations have been using their hefty profits and tax cuts not to invest in workers or communities, but on massive stock buybacks and dividend payouts to wealthy investors." Well said. I might add that with the current Administration's penchant for passing around Get Out of Doing the Right Thing Free cards, it's less likely than ever that corps are going to become good neighbors/citizens. Which I believe has to happen if we're going to a) move beyond the era of hypercapitalism; or b) meaningfully address climate change. Oy.