2013 CEO compensation: $21 million
2013 Abbott Laboratories federal income tax bottom line: $16 million payment

Abbott Labs operates in the largest and most lucrative pharmaceutical market in the world, and yet seldom reports a profit in the United States. Last year, the company reported 29 percent of its sales in the United States. Over the last six years, Abbott reported $433 million in U.S. losses, and reported profits in just two of the six years. This appears to be because Abbott Labs uses legal tax loopholes to shift much of the profits earned in the U.S. to offshore tax havens where they are lightly taxed, if at all.

Ireland is one of Abbott Lab’s preferred tax havens, but it has used the “Double Irish” tax scheme to avoid reporting profits there, as well. In 2011, Abbott Labs reported €2.9 billion in profits from two Irish subsidiaries but paid no Irish taxes on those profits after claiming that the subsidiaries were tax residents of Bermuda, not Ireland. The company reported it would have been liable for €235 million in Irish taxes were it not exempt due to the tax loophole.

Abbott Labs operates 79 subsidiaries in tax haven nations, according to Offshore Shell Games, published by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Citizens for Tax Justice. Abbott Labs held $24 billion in profits offshore at the end of last year, all of it untaxed in the United States. Abbott Labs increased its pool of offshore profits by $8.1 billion in 2013, the sixth-largest increase among U.S. corporations, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.