Corporate Financial Snapshot

Updated 7/10/2010: Corrected Industry Summary cell referencing due to company sort issue. (There has to be an easier way to coordinate these documents and blog!!!)

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During my introductory level business and economic courses, I can recall the professor referring to economic activity as “stocks” (holdings or inventory) and flows of money. I put together a group of spreadsheet slides to give some perspective of the cash flowing through the U.S. economy. The US corporate snapshot looks at about 60 of the largest corporations by revenue, taxes paid over the past three years and the cash levels reported on their respective balance sheets. Another group of analysis slides looks at the potential contributions of citizens to the church assuming a given participation rate of tithing. The third estimates the impact on the average American household using the previous 2008 mean income information for comparisons.

The reason for the comparative look was to check the political position statements relative to those in the best position to grow economic activity from post-recession levels. The Corporate Tax expensed percentage reflects the relative percentage of taxes paid to other operating expenses. If the tax expensed in the income statement was accounted as a line item of operating expenses relative to revenue. Given this adjustment, United Technologies is the company that really stands out as paying taxes at a higher level relative to other operating expenses (30% of revenues). (10/19/2010 Update: See related blog post of this date.)

These top companies were holding $3.6 Trillion in cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of FY2010 which is about 25% of US GDP. Below is a snapshot listing of the included companies and industry summary. Just for comparison based upon participation levels and because of the corporate confirmation role played in the US South, the American churches receive anywhere from $300 Billion to almost $1 Trillion in contributions from the American people.

Updated Document 10/19/2010 : (See post on politics and data manipulations from system intrusions)