Will Atlas Stop Shrugging <br>After the Big Election? <br>Keep Your Eye on Taxes

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Does the American government want to help American business or not? Does it want Atlas to stop shrugging? Does the administration want to help middle-income wage earners or not? Does team Obama want to grow the American economy at its historic 3.5% long-term trend or not? Apparently, President Obama’s answer to all three questions is “no.”

Those are the real issues behind the Treasury’s attack on so-called tax inversions, where an American company merges with a foreign firm in order to take advantage of the foreign firm’s lower corporate tax rate. In this case, the attack is aimed at Pfizer, pending the $160 billion takeover of Allergan. Allergan is based in Ireland, which has a 12.5% corporate tax rate. Pfizer is based in New York. So the new combined entity will pay the Irish corporate rate, which is little more than a third of the 35% U.S. federal corporate rate. Obviously, a huge savings.

The answer here is simple: Slash the American corporate tax rate and then the problem goes away. It’s by far the highest of the major countries worldwide. We are not competitive. Canada is 15%, China is 25% and Europe averages 25%. These companies owe it to their shareholders and their work forces to act in a fiduciarily responsible manner. But no, Team Obama wants to wage war against them.

So here’s a question: Why does Obama want to punish business, rather than reward it? Why doesn’t this administration want America to be the top global destination for investment? Why not have the America win the global race for capital instead of losing. President Obama always gives lip service to lowering the corporate tax rate, but he never specifies a particular rate or an overall plan. What’s more, he is trying to force American multinational cash abroad to pay taxes as high as 19% even if the companies don’t bring the money home. And then, they’d still be taxed at 35% for the repatriation of their foreign profits. This is insane.

Many liberals argue that big American companies don’t really pay the top corporate rate. While this is sometimes true, it’s mainly because, during recessions, companies lose money and get a tax loss carry forward that temporarily reduces their effective rate. But during economic expansions, when profits rise, companies then do pay the top rate. So, it’s a bogus argument. General Electric may not have paid taxes for a couple of years following the Great Recession. But during the recovery, their effective rate was near 35%.

Then progressives argue that corporate tax cutting is a rich person’s tax cut. Utterly untrue. Numerous studies have shown that the biggest beneficiary of corporate tax cuts is the middle-income wage earner.

By the same token, companies don’t just pay corporate taxes out of their own pockets. They pass it along in the form of lower wages and benefits to the work force, higher prices for consumers, and lower stock valuations for investors. Again, the data show that wage earners get the biggest benefit, consumers second and shareholders third. One key reason why average wage earners have had virtually no pay increases in the past 15 years is the high corporate tax rate. That is why so many Americans are so angry with Washington — they want BIG change.

Corporate tax reform should include not just large C-corps, but also smaller business S-corps and LLC pass-throughs. Nearly as important as cutting business tax rates, is the need to simplify the inexplicably opaque and complex system. Big firms can afford tax accountants to avoid all the K-street cronyism and corporate welfare. Smaller firms cannot: they get the short end of the stick.

Corporate share prices should not be driven by political tax games. Profits, not Washington shenanigans, should be the mother’s milk of stocks. And this shouldn’t be a partisan political issue. Either we want to make America great again or not. Unfortunately, both democratic candidates — Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — oppose significant business tax relief. Much more promising, leading GOP candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich favor slashing corporate taxes.

Fortunately, nine months is all we have left before this tax nonsense comes to an end. And Atlas stops shrugging.


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