After tax corportate profits as a fraction of GDP 1947-2011 Q2

From BEA (Profits after tax without inventory and capital consumption adjustment, Table 1.12):

Obviously lots of tax and accounting issues here, as well as where profits are reported between corporate and non-corporate businesses, and on vs. off-shore. 

Still, corporate profits are historically very high, if they are real (and I think BEA profits are pretty real, even given accounting issues).  Some of the low after-tax corp profits in the 1970s and 1980s might be due to tax avoidance due to the higher effective corporate tax rates back then.  Now that corporate profits are taxed less economic activity is more likely to be structured to generate them (even given the same economic substance of the activity).