Friend, Corporations are enjoying record profits from inflated prices while paying historically low tax rates. But that’s apparently not enough for greedy price-gouging corporations.
Large profitable corporations, and some members of Congress, are seeking to add even more corporate tax cuts in year-end legislation. The two-year cost of these tax breaks would be about $100 billion and up to $600 billion over 10 years―the true goal of corporations.
Here are the three major tax loopholes big corporations are trying to expand:
Changing the Research & Experimentation tax deduction to allow corporations to write off research expenses all at once instead of more realistically over time. Cost = $155 billion over 10 years
Expanding the Net Interest Deduction tax break to allow corporations to deduct a bigger share of their interest costs from borrowing money by changing how the deduction is calculated. Cost = $200
billion over 10 years
Extending 100% Bonus Depreciation, which would allow corporations to write off immediately the full cost of assets that hold their value a long time. Cost = $250 billion over 10 years
Instead of doubling down on the failed Trump-GOP tax scam, Congress should raise the corporate income
tax rate from 21% to at least 28% (still far lower than the 35% corporate tax rate from just 5 years ago). This would raise nearly $900 billion over 10 years, coming mostly out of the pockets of wealthy shareholders.
Congress should close offshore corporate tax loopholes, which encourage large corporations to dodge taxes by shifting operations and jobs offshore and their profits to tax havens. This form of legal tax dodging costs the federal government an estimated $60 billion in lost tax revenue every year. By closing these loopholes, as President Biden and leading Senate Democrats have proposed, we could raise as much as $1
trillion in corporate tax revenue over 10 years.
Congress should strengthen the corporate minimum tax, so it applies to far more than 100 or so profitable corporations making over $1 billion a year. This would raise approximately $90 billion over 10 years.
The nearly $2 trillion these progressive tax reforms would raise could be used to improve the lives of working families: making healthcare, childcare and housing more affordable; expanding the Child Tax Credit to lift millions of children out of poverty; shoring up Medicare and Social Security; and more.
