Lowering corporate taxes is a fraud.

[no_hypocrisy]

Corporations apparently must pay 35% officially on the gross profits they earn annually. Congress wants to drop it to 15%.

But they don't actually pay 35% and haven't for years.

The effective corporate tax rate takes into account exemptions and reductions their accountants can use to reduce their profits. That leaves taxing the net profits. Making the effective corporate tax at 15%, not 35%.

If we cut that by 15%, they don't have to pay ANYTHING.

Not to mention many corporations put their profits offshore, shielding them from net profits and taxation, even if it is 15%.

Our tax rate is LOWER than many other industrialized countries on effective corporate taxes. Theirs on average is 16% and ours is 13%.

https://kpfa.org/program/economic-update/

Second one down. Click "listen".


As a disclaimer, I use a variation of effective corporate tax when I pay tax on the rent I collect from my father's house. I got $33,000 in rent but had to pay municipal tax, homeowners insurance, a number of repairs and maintenance that added up to $32,500 by necessity. I only paid tax on $500.

[tenorly]

1. Plus, it rescinds one of the few major incentives left in the tax code for them to actually invest

One of they major ways in which corporations lower their effective tax rate is by making fixed investments (machinery, structures, software, etc).

Without this mechanism, they'll have almost no incentive to do anything other than buy back stock all the time and stash the rest in Luxembourg or some Caribbean laundromat.