The Hill News

Corporations pay a lower effective tax rate than Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney, but you wouldn’t know it from all the complaints that our corporate tax rate puts our country at a competitive disadvantage. Last year, U.S. corporations paid just 12.1 percent of their earnings in federal corporate income taxes. Buffett’s tax rate is 17.4 percent; Romney’s reported 2010 tax rate was 13.9 percent.

The corporate tax system is riddled with loopholes and subsidies that do create competitive problems, but not the ones CEOs are talking about. Our broken tax system blesses U.S. multinational corporations with lots of loopholes that enable them to pay less in taxes than Main Street businesses. It allows large companies, even those in the same industry, to pay vastly different tax rates. It has starved our government of revenue, adding to the pressure for deep budget cutbacks rather than the investments needed to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, educate our ch! ildren and support the innovation needed for economic success.

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