Arun Kumar

Washington, April 28 Citigroup and Motorola, two American corporate giants led by India-born CEOs, rank among the biggest taxpayers in the US despite their heavy losses due to the economic downturn, according to BusinessWeek.

The US business magazine names Vikram Pandit-led banking behemoth Citigroup and Sanjay Jha-led mobile phone major Motorola among the firms paying highest rate of taxes, with the total tax paid by the two exceeding their annual income.

With a four-year average tax rate of 106.3 per cent, Citi is ranked sixth and Motorola is at the seventh position with 106 per cent of income paid in taxes.

At the same time three other US companies led by persons of Indian origin - Adobe Systems, Cognizant and Hartford Financial - figure in a separate list of 50 firms paying the least rates of taxes.

Surprisingly, the overall tax rate charged in the US is close to 400 per cent in one case, although majority of the American companies pay less than 35 per cent-the official corporate tax rate in the US, BusinessWeek said.

The list of 50 highest tax paying companies is topped by internet security solutions provider Verisign with a four-year average tax rate of 391.3 per cent.

Verisign is followed by another IT firm Fidelity National Information Services (254.8 per cent), Zions Bancorporation (226.1 per cent), Eastman Kodak (142.1 per cent) and Sun Microsystems (139.5 per cent) in the top five.

The list of 50 companies paying lowest rate of tax is topped by energy firm Range Resources (0.4 per cent), while Shantanu Narayen-led Adobe is ranked at 26th (8.3 per cent), Francisco D'Souza-led Cognizant at 37th (10.2 per cent) and Ramani Ayer-led Hartfold Financial is at 39th (10.4 per cent).

The lists were compiled by BusinessWeek with help from data tracker Capital IQ and is based on the tax burdens of companies in the US wide-based benchmark index S&P 500 index.

Citi clocked an annual loss of $27.7 billion, while Motorola also suffered a loss of $4.2 billion in 2008, but previously the two companies were profitable.

According to the magazine, "cash taxes paid" for the latest year by Citi stood at $3,170 million while Motorola's was $407 million.