| Let's start with those who pay no federal taxes: eighty-two of the 275 Fortune 500 companies surveyed in one study. Each of these companies paid no taxes at all for at least one of the years between 2001 and 2003. Twenty-eight of them paid no taxes for any of the three years. The tax code mandates that corporations be taxed for 35 percent of profits, but in 2003 the "average effective rate" paid by the 275 companies was 17.2 percent. The worst offenders, the aerospace and defense industries, paid an average of only 1.6 percent of their profits in taxes. What's more, the eighty-two companies that avoided paying taxes received a total of $12.6 billion in refunds.
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