Half of S&P 500 report more money for foreign taxes than U.S. taxes

Nearly half of the large U.S. companies that make up the S&P 500-stock index set aside more money to pay foreign taxes in 2020 than they did for payments to the U.S. government — a lot more money. 

In all, 241 S&P 500 companies last year earmarked a combined $73 billion for taxes to foreign governments and just $6.7 billion to cover U.S. taxes, according to a CBS MoneyWatch analysis of the companies' regulatory filings and data from financial information firm FactSet. That's a foreign-to-domestic tax ratio of more than 10-to-1. Globalization explains some of it. Coca-Cola and Caterpillar pay more tax overseas because they now make most of their money outside the U.S. Still others on the list, such Boeing, Hilton and Pfizer, saw the pandemic wipe away their U.S. profits — and all or much of their domestic tax bills.