“This isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke;
as of April 1, the United States of America will have reached the
inauspicious position of having the highest corporate tax rate in the
developed world,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) in a statement “I want
America to be number one in many things, but having the highest
corporate tax rate is definitely not one of them.”
This is constant refrain from Republicans,
who then blame the supposedly high U.S. corporate tax rate for
discouraging job creation. But as we’ve noted time and time again, while
the U.S. has a high statutory corporate tax rate (meaning the rate on
paper), U.S. corporations actually pay incredibly low taxes due to the
ever-proliferating loopholes, credits, and deductions in the tax code
and the use of overseas tax havens.
U.S. corporate taxes that were actually paid (the effective rate) fell to a 40 year low of 12.1 percent in
fiscal year 2011, despite corporate profits rebounding to their
pre-Great Recession heights. The U.S. both taxes its corporations less
and raises less in revenue from corporate taxes than its foreign
competitors:
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