House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) has announced that the forthcoming budget blueprint will call for a 33 percent corporate income tax rate increase by hiking the rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. This would make the U.S. a less competitive place to do business and make the U.S. statutory rate higher than many developed competitors.
State corporate taxes average 6 percent across the U.S, so this planned tax hike would give the U.S. an average top corporate rate of 34 percent.
The current combined corporate rate across the 36 member Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) is currently 23.7 percent.
This proposed tax hike would make the U.S. rate higher than major competitors such as the United Kingdom (19 percent), China (25 percent), Canada (26.8 percent), Germany (29.8 percent), and Ireland (12.5 percent).
“Hiking the tax rate on American businesses will kill jobs, lower wages, and reduce new investment in America,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Why do the Democrats want to damage American competitiveness and job creation?”
Not only will raising the 21 percent rate make America less globally competitive, it will also harm today’s strong economic growth, growing wages, record job openings, and lower utility bills.
Just last week, it was announced that the U.S. economy added 312,000 jobs in December. Over the past 12 months, wages have grown 3.2 percent and 2.6 million jobs being created.
The U.S. has been named the most competitive economy in the world. Manufacturers just had their most successful year since 1997 and small business optimism is at record highs.
Raising the corporate rate, as House Democrats are proposing, would undo these gains.
Americans for Tax Reform recently launched a special project, Defend21.org, to stand firm against any and all attempts to raise the corporate tax rate.