Reference Editorial 8/15/2008, “Ducking the IRS”I found the piece on corporate America ducking tax responsibility hard to believe, so I randomly checked a few American companies income statements to see what I would find.  Here’s what I found for some large corporations in the 2005 tax year:Conoco Philips – $2.7 billion dollarsIBM – $4.2 billion dollarsMicrosoft - $5.7 billion dollarsBoeing – $257 million dollarsBerkshire Hathaway – 1.6 billion dollarsRaytheon - $498 million dollarsWalgreen’s – $213 million dollarsJohnson & Johnson - $3.2 billion dollarsSouthwest Airlines - $320 million dollars In general, profitable companies pay their taxes at approximately the 40% rate.  I would love to see some of the names of the companies that didn’t pay, but none were offered.  I suspect you would find that those paying no taxes in 2005 had no earned income.  One of two things are going on here.  Either this story was politically motivated to make someone or some agency look bad to achieve your political goal, or it was poorly  written with vague generalities and short on factual information to help readers make up their own minds.  Maybe you could clarify with facts to help your readers form an educated opinion.

Oliver Martin

Swansea