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I've been curious for a while why American left wing political organizations are opposed to a corporate tax rate being at the same level as European countries w

• marcell 9y ago
  I don’t have a source right now but I have heard that pre tax cut, the effective American rate was similar to the rest of the world for large corporations after deductions. Smaller companies who were unable to deduct got higher rates. I’m not familiar with what the situation is now, after the cuts.
  • vibrio 9y ago
    each company is different, but your point is largely true. One can look the SEC filings to determine the ACUTAL rates payed by Apple, Nike,etc. There is a reason Nike's swoosh IP is held by a non-operating Ex-US entity in a complex accounting stunt. Yes, corporate taxes need to be simplified, but a race to the bottom of corporate rates will not end well for the US , Ireland or anyone.
• thaumaturgy 9y ago
  A lot of people in the US right now are experiencing long-term financial strain. Those on the political right typically follow media streams which have convinced them that this is the result of regulations and taxes; those on the left follow media streams which have convinced them that it's the result of too much wealth being concentrated in the hands of too few people (and implicitly, that it's a result of policies from the political right). Corporations have the resources to navigate tax loopholes that allow them to avoid paying their fair share of social responsibility, and any number of free market worshippers will regularly appear to say, "but of course, they have a responsibility to their shareholders to do so." As a result of those two things together, corporate tax cuts are not popular on the left. If there were any evidence that high corporate tax rates were the root cause of financial strain for the average family in the US, or corporations weren't putting so much effort into dodging taxes, I suspect the left would care a lot less about whether they received tax cuts or not. As it is, the situation has turned into monkeys and cucumbers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg -- skip to 1:23 if you're in a hurry), and the left keeps seeing gifts laid at the feet of corporations in the name of trickle-down economics while social programs keep struggling for funding and more people keep needing social programs.
• vec 9y ago
  A few reasons: First, they're not opposed to a lower corporate rate per se. They are opposed to a corporate tax rate cut that isn't offset by some tax increase elsewhere. Second, the de facto tax rate is well below the de jure tax rate, due to the giant mess of loopholes and tax incentives we've accumulated. There's support for bringing the rate down and closing enough loopholes to keep the actual tax burden more or less constant, but that doesn't appear to be what's happening. Third, their view of the European model is of broad based individual taxes coupled with relatively aggressive income redistribution. Their view of the American model is of very top heavy progressively weighted taxes coupled with minimal redistribution. There's a lot of support to moving toward the European model, but only as a holistic transition. European taxes with an American welfare state is seen as the worst of both worlds.
  • bassman9000 9y ago
    They are opposed to a corporate tax rate cut that isn't offset by some tax increase elsewhere. Why? One of the ideas behind lowering taxes is to incentivize spending, which in corporate means expanding and, ideally, in the end, more taxes being paid overall, while the tax burden remains the same or lower.
    • vec 9y ago
      The consensus view on the American left is that the idea you outlined is incorrect. Or, more precisely, that there theoretically exists some tax rate where lowering it would produce more overall revenue, but that empirically we appear to have already been well below that rate before the cut.