President Obama said Friday that he would push his administration to give congressional Republicans specific proposals for corporate tax reform, setting high expectations for the possibility of an overhaul.
“I’m going to make sure that we put forward some pretty specific proposals building on what we’ve already put forward,” the president said at a year-end press briefing at the White House.
Obama said “the tax area is one area where we can get things done,” and added that his staff those of congressional leadership would have conversations about reform before his State of the Union address on Jan. 20.
Nevertheless he cautioned that “how we do that, the devil’s in the details.”
In recent days, Obama administration officials have highlighted that corporate tax reform is one of the areas in which they hope to work with Republicans, who will have a new majority in the Senate in January.
While the two sides are too far apart on the appropriate tax rates for individuals, the White House has said that a compromise is possible on corporate tax reform that would lower the rate for businesses while expanding the tax base by eliminating tax breaks and preferences.
“We know that there are companies that are paying the full freight, 35 percent, higher than just about any other company on earth,” the president said Friday, referring to the U.S. statutory tax rate, which is the highest among advanced nations. Many U.S. companies pay lower effective rates by taking advantages of breaks and loopholes.
Paul Ryan, the incoming GOP chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee with jurisdiction over tax matters, signaled earlier in December that he might be open to such an approach. A specific proposal that would lay out exactly which businesses would stand to lose valued tax breaks would be taken as a sign of commitment.
Obama’s advisers also have said that they hope that corporate tax reform would raise revenue that could be put toward infrastructure spending, a possibility that Obama highlighted Friday.
“We’ve got a lot of infrastructure we got to rebuild in this country if we’re going to be competitive — roads, bridges, ports, airports, electrical grids, water systems, sewage systems,” the president said. “We are way behind.”
