U.S. corporations major tax-revenue contributors.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: TAX - Survey

A new survey--Total Tax Contribution--by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Business Roundtable details the significant contributions major corporations make to United States tax revenues.

"Although they are most visible, corporate income taxes are just one of a plethora of taxes borne by U.S. companies," said Peter Merrill, a principal with the National Economics & Statistics group in PricewaterhouseCoopers' Washington, D.C., National Tax Services Office, in a press release.

He notes that beyond income taxes, "businesses are liable for a host of other domestic levies imposed by federal, state and local governments, as well as substantial costs to comply with these tax obligations."

The 40 companies that participated in the survey remitted $94 billion in taxes, of which $28.5 billion were federal and state income taxes. These 40 companies employed 1.6 million U.S. workers--and paid $122 billion in wages and salaries.

The total tax rate among United States' corporations surveyed was 36.4 percent in 2007, near the highest among surveyed countries. The U.S. has the second-highest corporate tax rate among the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Development.

However, the tax rate only partly explains the high total tax rate, according to the PwC methodology, which also takes into account nonincome taxes that are part of a firm's "total tax consideration." Nonincome taxes have only limited visibility on financial statements but add $62 of tax liability to every $100 of corporate income tax paid by the U.S. participants.

The release also says U.S. corporations serve as "tax collectors for the government, collecting and...