Pick any year. Pick any major corporation. And then do the math that their press offices would rather you didn’t do.
Amazon. Apple. Google. Pfizer. Goldman Sachs. These are not struggling companies. They are among the most profitable enterprises in human history. Last year, the forty largest publicly traded corporations on earth earned a combined $2.1 trillion in profits.
They paid an average effective tax rate of 3.2%.
The average nurse in the United States paid 22%. The average teacher in the United Kingdom paid 20%. The average middle-class family in France paid 30%.
This is not an accident. It is policy — deliberately designed, expertly maintained, and furiously defended by an army of lobbyists, lawyers, and bought politicians in every country on earth.
