Paper: Companies avoided $64.6B in taxes due to stock option ‘loophole’

More than 300 Fortune 500 companies were able to lower their federal and state taxes by a total of $64.6 billion from 2011 to 2015 by taking advantage of a tax break concerning stock options, a report released Thursday found. 

“During a time when the nation is failing to raise enough revenue to adequately fund its priorities, lawmakers should move to close the stock option loophole to make the tax system fairer and raise much-needed revenue,” the liberal-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) said in its report.

Companies often give employees the option to buy stock at a favorable price in the future. When employees exercise stock options, companies can deduct the difference between what employees paid for the stock and what the stock is worth. Because of rules that have been in place since 2006, companies are able to deduct more from their tax bills than they deduct as costs when they compute the profits they report to shareholders, CTJ said.

CTJ looked at data from 315 Fortune 500 companies that disclose part of the benefits that they receive from the tax break.

About half of the excess stock option tax benefits that Fortune 500 companies received over the past five years were given to just 25 companies, CTJ said.

The companies that received the biggest benefits from the tax break were Facebook and Apple. From 2011 to 2015, Facebook received $5.7 billion in excess stock option tax breaks and Apple received $4.7 billion. Facebook was able to cut its federal and state income taxes by 70 percent over five years as a result of the tax preference, CTJ said. 

Former Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in a statement Thursday that the report “provides more proof that the stock option tax loophole is a $64 billion corporate tax giveaway that not only lets profitable corporations escape their tax obligations, but also fuels an already unacceptable pay gap.”

Levin also urged Congress and the next president to take action to reform the tax break.

“Closing the loophole would be simple — bipartisan legislation that I with others offered for years would allow corporations to deduct no more than the expense shown on their books,” Levin said. “The next president ought to put closing the stock option tax loophole at the top of the list of corporate taxdodges that need to be stopped. Taxpayers can’t afford and shouldn’t be asked to subsidize multi-billion-dollar stock option pay for corporate executives each year.”