Obama To Cut Corporate Tax Rates?

[Mike]

What we've been saying for ages..............................

WASHINGTON (Reuters) President Barack Obama will call for cutting the top 35 percent corporate tax rate as early as this month, according to two sources close to the administration.

The president is likely to propose a rate closer to an average of that seen in peer nations, the sources said.

This would jibe with remarks made last year by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who suggested the United States should be moving to a rate more in line with its major trading partners in the high 20-percent range.

Obama outlined tax measures - including closing tax loopholes for companies that move facilities and jobs overseas - in his State of the Union speech in January, and will lay out principles for revamping corporate taxes by the end of February, a senior administration official said.

"We will talk more before the end of the month on what corporate tax reform would look like," the official said on Friday, confirming that it would include a call for "lower rates."

Facing a potentially tough presidential re-election challenge this November, Obama will propose cutting the rate following the release of his 2013 budget plan on Monday, February 13, according to the sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record.

While he spent a big part of his January speech to Congress criticizing businesses for moving jobs overseas, Obama said that "companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world."

Only Japan has a steeper corporate tax rate than the United States among industrialized countries, though other countries make up the revenue with a value-added tax, he said. The United States does not have a VAT.

An overhaul of the corporate tax system is extremely unlikely in an election year, but the president's proposal could be an olive branch to the business community to show that he agrees with them on one key aspect of tax reform.

"I think what he will end up doing is saying, 'For years folks have been asking for a lower corporate rate, and here it is - what do you think?,'" said Jared Bernstein, a former economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden.

Obama's Treasury Department was close to releasing a revamp of corporate taxes last year, but pulled back after business opposition, according to a former official.

Republican Rep. Dave Camp, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' tax-law writing Ways and Means committee, has set a goal of trimming the top 35 percent corporate rate to 25 percent.

Gene Sperling, director of Obama's National Economic Council, has told reporters that the president will be laying out "principles" for corporate tax reform close to the budget release.

Obama's corporate plan will also include a new minimum tax on foreign profits earned in low tax countries - an unpopular idea in the corporate community.

 

[Sandhusker]

Why not give us the advantage, create jobs, and boost the economy the right way by reducing taxes to 10% or even lower? After all, an income tax on business is really just a thinly disguised sales tax on consumers.

 

[Steve]

Why not give us the advantage, create jobs, and boost the economy the right way by reducing taxes to 10% or even lower? After all, an income tax on business is really just a thinly disguised sales tax on consumers.

why not.. because when you want to raise taxes, cutting them a little is impossible unless your election depends on it...



ever met a liberal who wasn't "Facing a potentially tough presidential re-election challenge this November," that offered to cut any taxes..

 

[Steve]

Santorum proposed cutting manufacturing to Zero.. and more then likely in the compromise would have ended up between 10 to 20%



so Obama is just running on someone elses' already proposed idea

if reelected it would mean Obama's tax is at least at the top of the already proposed compromise range..

pretty sad when a liberal has to make decisions based on Conservative values to get re-elected... :shock: :? (but then everything Obama has ever been praised for was based on Bush's policy decisions)..

when will they just learn liberalism is a failed policy?

 

[Sandhusker]

But then the issue is whether or not he would actually follow through and cut taxes. Looking at his established history of saying anything to get elected I would bet against it. You can't believe a damn thing the man says.

 

[Steve]

But then the issue is whether or not he would actually follow through and cut taxes. Looking at his established history of saying anything to get elected I would bet against it. You can't believe a damn thing the man says.

sure you can, my electric bill has went way up...

 

[Larrry]