A few days ago, White House deputy communications director Herbie Ziskend, trying to be clever but demonstrating ignorance, quoted President Joe Biden on X.
Ziskend, by emphasizing “FAIR SHARE,” clearly demonstrates he and the president are clueless about corporate tax policy.
Economists agree that corporation tax is paid by the shareholders of a corporation, the employees of a corporation, and the customers of a corporation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said up to 70% of the corporate tax is paid for by workers in the form of lower wages. The corporation is a conduit. It collects taxes. It does not pay taxes. Corporation taxes are ultimately paid for by people, not the corporation.
The most efficient corporate tax rate is zero. However, a zero corporate tax rate is not politically feasible. Corporations are a whipping boy for Democrats and right-wing populists.
At the beginning of former President Donald Trump’s term in office, Republicans passed and Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That legislation cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. That cut in the corporate tax rate set off an investment boom, an increase of 20%.
The legislation caused a cornucopia of remitted earnings that United States businesses had legally parked overseas. It permanently increased the level of productive capital in the U.S. With the corporate tax cut, business has more money to invest and more money to pay higher wages to employees. Cutting the corporate tax rate with the TCJA created a positive feedback loop. Everyone benefited.
From the standpoint of economic efficiency, the corporate tax rate should be as low as possible. Unfortunately, it appears that the president wants to raise corporate taxes. He wants to take money from productive investment and redistribute that money to people trapped in the culture of poverty. That group consumes. It does not save. It does not invest.
Corporate taxes reduce compensation for working people. If they were presented with the facts, how many voters would support a policy that reduced their wages? Unfortunately, Biden, Democrats, and right-wing populists prefer obfuscation to truth. Biden also says the most affluent do not pay their fair share. The U.S. tax system is the most progressive among wealthy nations.
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The latest data from the IRS show that the top 1% of earners pay 46% of all federal income taxes. The top 1% pay more than two times their share of national income. They pay their fair share of income taxes, and they pay their fair share of the corporation tax because up to a third of the corporation tax is added to their tax burden.
The group that does not pay their fair share is the bottom two quintiles of the income tax distribution. Over their lifetimes, they pay an average effective tax rate of under 3%, and they receive more in Social Security and Medicare benefits than they pay in. Perhaps that is the morally correct policy for the nation, in shielding those who have little from additional financial burdens. However, in factual terms, it is clearly not the corporations that are failing to pay their fair share.
James Rogan is a former U.S. foreign service officer who later worked in finance and law for 30 years. He writes a daily note.
