Fourteen of Connecticut’s largest corporations had a combined $180 billion in offshore profits on their books in 2015, down nearly 5 percent from a year earlier, according to a new report from public policy research group Citizens for Tax Justice.
Fairfield-based General Electric, which is moving its corporate headquarters to Boston, had the most offshore profits in 2015, totaling $104 billion, followed by Farmington-based United Technologies, with $29 billion in offshore profits.
Nationwide, the United States’ 303 largest corporations held $2.4 trillion in offshore profits—$200 billion more than in 2014—that could be costing the U.S. as much as $695 billion in federal taxes, the report said.
The report said many of the biggest corporations appear to be increasing their offshore cash significantly. Seventy-nine of the companies surveyed in this report increased their declared offshore cash by at least $500 million each in the last year alone. And just 12 corporations each moved at least $5 billion offshore in 2015. These include companies in the tech sector, such as Alphabet (formerly known as Google), Apple, and Microsoft, as well as pharmaceutical companies (Gilead Sciences and Pfizer).
The report’s authors examined Fortune 500 companies’ 2015 financial filings and found that 303 corporations claim to hold at least some profits offshore. If corporations repatriated these profits to the United States, Citizens for Tax Justice estimates the companies could collectively owe as much as $695 billion in federal taxes. Â
Other Connecticut companies holding offshore profits are shown in the table below.
| Unrepatriated Foreign Profits of Major CT Corporations | |||
| Â | Unrepatriated Income ($millions) | ||
| Company | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
| General Electric |  $     104,000 |  $     119,000 |  $     110,000 |
| United Technologies |  $        29,000 |  $        28,000 |  $        25,000 |
| Praxair | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 11,000 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 10,400 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 9,300 |
| Priceline.com | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 9,900 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 7,300 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 4,900 |
| Xerox |  $          9,000 |  $          8,500 |  $          8,000 |
| Stanley Black & Decker | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 4,391 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 4,773 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 4,439 |
| Amphenol |  $          3,699 |  $          3,300 |  $          2,600 |
| Starwood Hotels & Resorts |  $          3,600 |  $          3,500 |  $          3,300 |
| Cigna | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 2,200 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 1,800 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 1,100 |
| Harman International Industries |  $             895 |  $             717 |  $             629 |
| Pitney Bowes |  $             860 |  $             830 |  $             700 |
| Terex |  $             855 |  $             800 |  $             825 |
| United Rentals Inc. |  $             651 |  $             595 |  $             465 |
| W.R. Berkley |  $               79 |  $               58 |  $             103 |
| Â | Â | Â | Â |
| Totals | Â $Â Â Â Â Â 180,130 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â 189,573 | Â $Â Â Â Â Â 171,361 |
| Â | Â | Â | Â |
| Source: Citizens for Tax Justice | Â | Â | |
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