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It's tax season, and today Verizon filed its 10K -- available here -- which discloses audited information about the company's 2012 tax payments.
This information shows that Verizon is one of the largest taxpayers and investors in America.
Over the past three years, Verizon has paid more than $11.1 billion in taxes – including nearly $3.4 billion in 2012 alone. Verizon's 2010-2012 payments include more than $1.5 billion in income taxes, $4.0 billion in employment taxes, and $5.6 billion in property and other taxes.
In 2012, the net income attributable to Verizon totaled $875 million, and the company paid $351 million in income taxes while investing $16.2 billion in technology infrastructure.
While Verizon complies with all tax laws and pays its fair share of taxes, sometimes numbers are cherry-picked from the 10K to support claims that corporations avoid paying taxes. In Verizon's case, such claims are false and misleading.
For example, often Verizon's deferred tax liability is wrongly characterized as a loophole, even though deferred taxes do not reduce Verizon's tax liability. U.S. economic development policy spreads out, or defers, some federal tax payments over a longer period of time for companies that invest in America’s technology infrastructure. That’s because investment in infrastructure creates jobs.
In 2010-2012, while Verizon made more than $11.1 billion in tax payments, it also invested nearly $50 billion in technology infrastructure. This has created and sustained great U.S. jobs – both in and outside of Verizon – as the company has deployed innovative broadband technologies nationwide.
