Corporate taxes get the think tank treatment

While lawmakers are debating tax reform, think tanks are also offering their own opinions about one ongoing debate: corporate taxes.

Josh Bivens of the liberal Economic Policy Institute calls it "factually incorrect" to claim that U.S corporate tax rates are higher than other countries and therefore harmed competition.

"While the statutory corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, after loopholes and deductions, the effective tax rate that corporations pay is only 14 percent," he writes on the EPI website.

He goes on to suggest that cutting corporate tax rates "will do nothing" to help most American families.

Spencer Woody and the center-right National Taxpayers Union say the current corporate tax rate is 39.1 percent, the highest in the industrialized world, if you combine local state and federal rates.

Woody tells OneNewsNow that corporate tax rates are too high, making the U.S. uncompetitive in an "increased globalized economy."

"I think anyone that engages with the corporate tax code on a day-to-day basis would agree," he says.

Asked the consequences of a 50-percent tax rate, Woody predicts more of the same: more companies moving to "tax-friendly" countries, reducing American jobs at home, and raising the cost of imports.

The better way going forward, says Woody, would be reduce the corporate tax rate and simplify the tax code. 

"The only question is - and this would be my concern - is that we have to find a way to balance these reductions in revenue with spending offsets," he continues. "So they are two sides of the same coins, taxes and spending."