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The "fair share" rhetoric so frequently deployed in these contexts would be more convincing if US corporate tax policy was more in line with international norms

by briandh 12y ago

The "fair share" rhetoric so frequently deployed in these contexts would be more convincing if US corporate tax policy was more in line with international norms and if less tax revenue funded policies ranging from wasteful to downright immoral.

Retric 12y ago
'Normalizing' taxes with the rest of the world would be a massive taxes increase on huge numbers of companies. We might have a high nominal rate, but companies can often get vary low effective tax rates. Arguably, what we need is a corporate AMT and a lower top tax bracket. Otherwise some companies focus on paying zero taxes where others simply focus on being profitable.
- briandh 12y ago
  It's not just the nominal rate. The average effective corporate tax rate is also quite a bit higher for the US than other developed countries; according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Bank, 27.9% versus an OECD average of 15.9%. [1 citing 2] The right wing think-tank AEI reported a smaller disparity of about 9% a few years earlier. [3] For what it's worth, these rates are fairly variable over the years. So "huge numbers" seems like quite a stretch. Moreover, I used the broader term "policies" rather than "rates" for a reason. The US's worldwide taxation scheme, for instance, is in itself problematic. [1] http://barbwire.com/2014/10/15/analysis-are-us-corporate-taxes-really-the-highest-in-the-world/ http://barbwire.com/2014/10/15/analysis-are-us-corporate-tax... [2] http://www.doingbusiness.org/~/media/GIAWB/Doing%20Business/Documents/Special-Reports/Paying-Taxes-2014.pdf http://www.doingbusiness.org/~/media/GIAWB/Doing%20Business/... [3] http://www.aei.org/article/economics/fiscal-policy/taxes/report-card-on-effective-corporate-tax-rates/ http://www.aei.org/article/economics/fiscal-policy/taxes/rep...
  - Retric 12y ago
    After examining 288 corporations that where consistently profitable every year for 5 years. On average they "paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 19.4 percent." Which is close to the "15.9 percent" you linked. However, "Twenty-six of the corporations, including Boeing, General Electric, Priceline.com and Verizon, paid no federal income tax at all over the five year period. A third of the corporations (93) paid an effective tax rate of less than ten percent over that period." The point is with such high variability in tax rate's companies spend a lot of time looking for ways to avoid paying taxes vs. building better products etc. PS: Yea, just like the articles you linked this is also biased but the numbers are not made up. http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/sorrystateofcorptaxes.pdf http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/sorrystateofcorptaxes...
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  > Arguably, what we need is a corporate AMT and a lower top tax bracket. AMT is a farce created by people who don't understand math. Here's the simplest example: Suppose you have a company with a billion dollars in revenue and a billion dollars in expenses. It has no profit. It will pay no taxes. AMT will only cause it to fold because expenses + taxes now exceeds revenue. The same will be true of any company with net profit less than the minimum tax rate. The same applies to personal income AMT, the only reason it hasn't imploded in on itself in the same way is that rich individuals typically have a higher percentage of "disposable income" than business entities, so instead the AMT "only" makes rich people donate less money to charity and other causes we considered sufficiently worthy to make tax deductible until the AMT decided to put them back on the same footing as yachts and caviar.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
bluthru 12y ago
>would be more convincing if US corporate tax policy was more in line with international norm Ok, just as soon as we tax the wealthy at the same rate as international norms.
bogomipz 12y ago
Fair share, there is no reason for your silly quotes, means that if an individual's marginal tax rate is 35% then a corporations should never be zero. There's nothing rhetorical about it. Where and how a government allocates that tax revenue is completely irrelevant to the responsibility of meeting ones tax obligations which are very clearly defined in the US tax code. You sound like a dingbat.

by briandh 12y ago

Retric 12y ago

'Normalizing' taxes with the rest of the world would be a massive taxes increase on huge numbers of companies. We might have a high nominal rate, but companies can often get vary low effective tax rates. Arguably, what we need is a corporate AMT and a lower top tax bracket. Otherwise some companies focus on paying zero taxes where others simply focus on being profitable.

briandh 12y ago
It's not just the nominal rate. The average effective corporate tax rate is also quite a bit higher for the US than other developed countries; according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Bank, 27.9% versus an OECD average of 15.9%. [1 citing 2] The right wing think-tank AEI reported a smaller disparity of about 9% a few years earlier. [3] For what it's worth, these rates are fairly variable over the years. So "huge numbers" seems like quite a stretch. Moreover, I used the broader term "policies" rather than "rates" for a reason. The US's worldwide taxation scheme, for instance, is in itself problematic. [1] http://barbwire.com/2014/10/15/analysis-are-us-corporate-taxes-really-the-highest-in-the-world/ http://barbwire.com/2014/10/15/analysis-are-us-corporate-tax... [2] http://www.doingbusiness.org/~/media/GIAWB/Doing%20Business/Documents/Special-Reports/Paying-Taxes-2014.pdf http://www.doingbusiness.org/~/media/GIAWB/Doing%20Business/... [3] http://www.aei.org/article/economics/fiscal-policy/taxes/report-card-on-effective-corporate-tax-rates/ http://www.aei.org/article/economics/fiscal-policy/taxes/rep...
- Retric 12y ago
  After examining 288 corporations that where consistently profitable every year for 5 years. On average they "paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 19.4 percent." Which is close to the "15.9 percent" you linked. However, "Twenty-six of the corporations, including Boeing, General Electric, Priceline.com and Verizon, paid no federal income tax at all over the five year period. A third of the corporations (93) paid an effective tax rate of less than ten percent over that period." The point is with such high variability in tax rate's companies spend a lot of time looking for ways to avoid paying taxes vs. building better products etc. PS: Yea, just like the articles you linked this is also biased but the numbers are not made up. http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/sorrystateofcorptaxes.pdf http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/sorrystateofcorptaxes...
AnthonyMouse 12y ago
> Arguably, what we need is a corporate AMT and a lower top tax bracket. AMT is a farce created by people who don't understand math. Here's the simplest example: Suppose you have a company with a billion dollars in revenue and a billion dollars in expenses. It has no profit. It will pay no taxes. AMT will only cause it to fold because expenses + taxes now exceeds revenue. The same will be true of any company with net profit less than the minimum tax rate. The same applies to personal income AMT, the only reason it hasn't imploded in on itself in the same way is that rich individuals typically have a higher percentage of "disposable income" than business entities, so instead the AMT "only" makes rich people donate less money to charity and other causes we considered sufficiently worthy to make tax deductible until the AMT decided to put them back on the same footing as yachts and caviar.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

bluthru 12y ago

>would be more convincing if US corporate tax policy was more in line with international norm Ok, just as soon as we tax the wealthy at the same rate as international norms.

bogomipz 12y ago

Fair share, there is no reason for your silly quotes, means that if an individual's marginal tax rate is 35% then a corporations should never be zero. There's nothing rhetorical about it. Where and how a government allocates that tax revenue is completely irrelevant to the responsibility of meeting ones tax obligations which are very clearly defined in the US tax code. You sound like a dingbat.