www.assemblymag.com/blogs/14-assembly-blog/post/84853-death-taxes-and-the-assembly-top-50
In 2006, the Assembly Top 50 paid more than $43.3 billion in income taxes to one government or another.
Despite my profession as a wordsmith, I love numbers and statistics, which is why I like preparing the Assembly Top 50 report each year.
Here’s a statistic that didn’t make it into this year’s report: In 2006, the Assembly Top 50 paid more than $43.3 billion in income taxes to one government or another. To put that number in perspective, $43.3 billion is more than the gross domestic product of 123 countries, including Croatia, Slovenia, Belarus and Qatar. The income taxes paid by the Assembly Top 50 would fund the National Institutes of Health for two years. Or, if you’re more inclined to guns than butter, the income taxes paid by the Top 50 would buy 128 F-22 Raptor jets.
Whether you believe $43.3 billion is too much or too little will depend largely on your political affiliation. You could make a compelling argument either way. For example, Toyota Motor Corp.-No. 2 on our list of the Top 50 assemblers as ranked by gross revenue-paid the most income taxes of any company in the Top 50 last year. For better or for worse, the automaker spent almost as much on income taxes ($7.6 billion) as it spent on R&D ($7.8 billion). On the other hand, $43.3 billion is a drop in the bucket (1.7 percent) of the $2.48 trillion in total sales tallied by the Top 50.
I’ll leave the debate to the pundits. I raise the issue only to point out that product assemblers contribute a hell of a lot to the global economy. Yes, global manufacturing corporations have a lot to account for. Corporations are run by people, and people, both individually and collectively, can be unethical, self-interested and indifferent, as much as they can be moral, generous and caring.
Overall, however, our Top 50 assemblers-and indeed, all manufacturers-are responsible for much that is good in the world. They train and employ millions of people. They are the defacto underwriters of our healthcare insurance. And, of course, they produce things that make our lives better. So next time you hear corporation bashing out there, let ’em know who’s footing the bill.
Read the full Top 50 report here!.
Income Taxes and the Assembly Top 50
Income Revenue Taxes Taxes as %
($ millions) ($ millions) ($ millions) of Revenue
Toyota 13,987 203,710 7,641 3.8%
GE 20,829 163,391 3,954 2.4%
IBM 9,492 91,424 3,901 4.3%
J&J 11,053 53,324 3,534 6.6%
Honda 5,035 94,241 2,413 2.6%
Cisco Systems 5,580 28,484 2,053 7.2%
Nissan 3,920 89,049 1,805 2.0%
United Technologies 3,732 47,829 1,494 3.1%
Caterpillar 3,537 41,517 1,405 3.4%
Siemens 3,848 110,798 1,368 1.2%
Motorola 3,661 42,879 1,349 3.1%
Robert Bosch 2,864 57,650 1,202 2.1%
Lockheed Martin 2,529 39,620 1,063 2.7%
Dell 2,614 57,095 1,002 1.8%
Hewlett-Packard 6,198 91,658 993 1.1%
Boeing 2,215 61,530 988 1.6%
Texas Instruments 4,341 14,255 987 6.9%
Tyco 3,713 40,960 920 2.2%
Emerson Electric 1,845 20,133 839 4.2%
Apple Computer 1,989 19,315 829 4.3%
General Dynamics 1,856 24,063 817 3.4%
Rolls-Royce 1,947 14,016 777 5.5%
Deere & Co. 1,694 22,147 742 3.4%
Illinois Tool Works 1,718 14,055 727 5.2%
Honeywell 2,083 31,367 720 2.3%
Northrop Grumman 1,542 30,148 709 2.4%
Schneider Electric 1,777 18,119 706 3.9%
Paccar 1,496 16,454 679 4.1%
Raytheon 1,283 20,291 581 2.9%
Abbott Laboratories 1,717 22,476 560 2.5%
BAE Systems 3,210 26,960 417 1.5%
Magna International 528 24,180 264 1.1%
Eastman Kodak -601 13,274 254 1.9%
Sun Microsystems -864 13,068 189 1.4%
Philips 7,107 35,614 180 0.5%
TRW 176 13,144 166 1.3%
CNH 292 12,998 165 1.3%
AB Electrolux 477 15,172 139 0.9%
Delphi -5,464 26,392 136 0.5%
Whirlpool 433 18,080 126 0.7%
Valeo 219 13,310 99 0.7%
Johnson Controls 1,028 32,235 63 0.2%
Lear -707 17,839 55 0.3%
Faurecia -591 15,373 46 0.3%
DaimlerChrysler 4,259 200,052 43 0.0%
Flextronics 509 18,854 4 0.0%
Alcatel-Lucent -173 16,209 -55 -0.3%
Xerox 1,210 15,895 -288 -1.8%
Ford -12,613 160,123 -2,646 -1.7%
General Motors -1,978 207,349 -2,785 -1.3%
