What is the real rate of corporate taxation in the United States?
The inclusion of taxes both at the corporate level and on dividends changes our perspective on which countries are high tax and which are low tax. For example, Ireland has the lowest statutory corporate tax rate among O.E.C.D. countries, yet is still a relatively high-tax country because of the high tax rate it imposes on dividends. By contrast, Japan has the highest statutory corporate tax rate but only the 12th highest overall rate because it has one of the lowest tax rates on dividends.
Those advocating a cut in the corporate tax rate today generally ignore the tax on dividends, as well as many other provisions of United States and foreign tax law that may reduce the effective tax rate well below the statutory rate.
A recent study found that only 25 percent of the largest American corporations pay anywhere close to the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent on their earnings, while 40 percent pay less than half that rate.
Indeed, General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, paid no federal corporate taxes in the United States in 2010, according to a report in The New York Times.
…while it may be a good idea to reduce the corporate tax rate as part of a tax reform package, the idea that this will jump-start growth is nonsense.