Facebook Pays Highest Effective Tax Rate Of Tech Giants, Stats Show

• The discussion about taxation on tech giants continues to heat up, as the debate about Apple Inc. AAPL's tax structure raises questions regarding the U.S. tax law.
• Other tech behemoths like Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG have also been accused of such practices.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently appeared on "60 Minutes," among other things talking about the company's tax structure and evasion practices.

Apple makes more than two-thirds of its revenue overseas and instead of bringing it back to the US (where it would have to pay heft taxes), the company takes its billions of dollars to subsidiaries overseas in countries like Ireland, where corporate taxes are lower.

Related Link: Apple's Cook Explains Why U.S. Tax Code Is 'Awful For America'

While not illegal, the company's ways are criticized and questioned by many. However, Cook said Apple pays more taxes in the US than any other company. But bringing overseas revenue home would cost the company 40 percent.

"This is a tax code that was made for the industrial age, not the digital age," Cook stated. "It's backwards, it's awful for America, it should have been fixed many years ago."

A Look At Effective Tax Rates

While it may be true that Apple gives the IRS more U.S. dollars than any other company out there, there are other factors to consider. Most importantly, profits.

"In 2014, Apple paid $13.97 billion in income taxes, which is more than what IBM, Microsoft and Google paid combined," according to a recent Statista article. "More importantly though, Apple's effective tax rate (the average rate at which pre-tax profits are taxed) in 2014 was 26.1%. While that is actually higher than it is for many of its fellow tech companies, it is 2.5 percentage points below the average tax rate paid by S&P 100 companies in 2014, not to mention the statutory federal income tax rate of 35%."

Below is a chart illustrating the effective tax rate paid by major U.S. tech companies in 2014. Facebook Inc FB, not Apple, is paying the highest taxes, as its effective rate surpasses 40 percent.

Disclosure: The author holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.