Tim Pawlenty spoke at the University of Chicago yesterday, and he apparently advocated cutting corporate taxes by 58%. This at a time when a former Reagan and Bush domestic and monetary policy adviser (Bruce Bartlett) points out that corporate taxes account for only 1.3% of GDP this year, a third of what they were in the 1950s. And our corporate taxes are the lowest of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development when compared to GDP. That is, we have lower corporate taxes than Norway, Australia, Luxembourg, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Portugal, Britain, Finland, Israel, Denmark, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, the Neatherlands, Slovakia, Sweden, France, Ireland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Greece, Slovenia, Germany, Iceland, and Turkey.
But yeah, lower taxes. We're clearly taxing the life out of those corporations. It's time for seniors to do their part.
But yeah, lower taxes. We're clearly taxing the life out of those corporations. It's time for seniors to do their part.
Well, technically they are pretty high, just not in practice....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/economy/03rates.html
If by technically you mean "in a way that doesn't matter," then yeah. Actual revenues vs. GDP is the only metric that really means anything.
ReplyDeleteThat's true. Although the fact that the U.S. "officially" taxes corporations 35% yet in practice corporate taxes only account for 1.3% of GDP also reveals how many loopholes exist under our current tax code (as stated in the article). It would make a lot more sense for the government to try and eliminate some of these loopholes by rewriting portions of the tax code and simply lowering the official corporate tax. That way corporations could spend more time trying to increase revenues and create jobs, rather than searching for ways to game the system. However, as always that's easier said than done and there's a decent chance that companies would still be able to find loopholes, who knows...
ReplyDeleteYep. Although note that the two percentages shouldn't line up unless corporate income accounts for 100% of GDP.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's always going to be legitimate tax deductions and the like, so real tax rates will always be lower than "official" rates.