How much did you pay in taxes last year? If you paid any taxes at all, there’s a good chance that your effective tax rate was higher than the tax rates of three huge drugmakers: Amgen, Eli Lilly, and Gilead Sciences. And one big pharmaceutical company, Allergan, didn’t pay a penny in U.S. taxes. Here’s why.
Comparing the numbers
Let’s take the easiest case first. Allergan didn’t pay taxes in 2015 for the simple reason that the company didn’t have any profits. If you lost nearly $2.9 billion in a year, you probably wouldn’t want to pay any taxes, either.
