By John Stang
FirstEnergy Corp, is among 55 major American corporations that legally did not pay income taxes in 2020, according to an April report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
“The tax-avoiding companies represent various industries and collectively enjoyed almost $40.5 billion in U.S. pretax income in 2020, according to their annual financial reports. The statutory federal tax rate for corporate profits is 21 percent. The 55 corporations would have paid a collective total of $8.5 billion for the year had they paid that rate on their 2020 income. Instead, they received $3.5 billion in tax rebates,” the institute wrote in a press release.
The report did not look at state and local taxes.
FirstEnergy pays at least $1 billion annually in state and local taxes, including at least $500 million in local property taxes,” company spokesman Mark Durbin wrote in an email.
“Since at least 2010, the federal tax laws permitted corporations to claim bonus depreciation, allowing very capital-intensive companies, like FirstEnergy and other utilities, to expense capital costs, significantly reducing current tax and deferring payment into the future,” Durbin wrote. “We are not avoiding our federal tax liability; we are deferring when we pay it. In some cases, the bonus depreciation created net operating losses that the tax laws permitted companies to carry forward to be used in future years.”
Other energy corporations listed among the 55 companies not paying federal income taxes in 2020 iwere American Electric Power, CMS Energy, DTE Energy, XCel Energy, Duke Energy and Consolidated Edison.
