Progressive Think Tank Backs Corporate Tax Reform That Lowers Rates

[stockholmer]

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/09/progressive-think-tank.html

Progressive Think Tank Backs Corporate Tax Reform That Lowers Rates

Third Way, The Case for Corporate Tax Reform: http://content.thirdway.org/publications/434/Third_Way_Policy_Memo_-_The_Case_for_Corporate_Tax_Reform.pdf

High rates, low revenues, cash kept overseas, and thousands of pages of complexities—nothing about our corporate tax system seems to be working. Our corporate tax code is a relic, last substantially reformed in 1986—before the Internet, before the Euro, and before capitalist China. Many of America’s competitor nations have revamped their codes, but not the United States. Reform of our corporate code has been restrained in part by concerns that lowering rates would benefit only multinational corporations while doing little to create decent jobs or raise revenues. However, it is increasingly clear that modernizing our corporate code is a competitive necessity. Done right, corporate tax reform can help businesses create jobs and wealth here, and generate revenues to address the deficit and fund national priorities. In this paper, we lay out the seven reasons why America should embrace corporate tax reform that lowers rates, changes our taxation of international profits, and reduces complexity in the tax code.


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http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/178719-democratic-group-pushing-for-corporate-tax-reform



Democratic group pushing for corporate tax reform

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In a new policy memo, Third Way says the corporate tax system in this country, last overhauled a quarter-century ago, needs to be updated to deal with new challenges such as the Internet and emerging economies in Brazil, India and China.

The paper acknowledges some of the concerns about corporate tax reform — including that a revamp would help the largest companies without necessarily sparking job growth — but also calls an overhaul crucial to increasing American competitiveness.

“Done right, corporate tax reform can help businesses create jobs and wealth here, and generate revenues to address the deficit and fund national priorities,” former Rep. Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.) and Third Way’s Ryan McConaghy wrote in the paper.


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http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/08/government-building-the-case-for-corporate-tax-reform.html

Government: Building the case for corporate tax reform

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These are good arguments, but the effort faces substantial hurdles. For starters, any effort to make the system more fair and equitable by simplifying it and broadening the base will generate losers along with the winners. That's why there will be an army of lobbyists defending every loophole, exemption, twist and turn in the code.

The deal to raise the debt ceiling gave the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction -- the so-called "super committee" -- a significant amount of power to plow through such opposition, as well as a strong incentive to reduce the budget deficit through tax reform. But the committee has precious little time; it's recommendations are due by late November.

Ryan McConaghy, coauthor of the report and director of Third Way's economic studies, suggested that the committee could try to come to an agreement on a tax-reform goal while leaving the details for Congress to work out over the coming year or more. That could take the form of something akin to a reconciliation instruction, with the tax-writing committees obligated to find the means to achieve the goal the super committee set.


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[Vinnie From Indy]

1. FYI - These folks are just using the name "progressive"

They are merely shills for corporate America in a different costume.

[Luminous Animal]

2. Next thing you know, Pat Buchanan will be calling himself progressive.

I've always hated that descriptive "progressive" because it means nothing. Zero, nada.

[highplainsdem]

3. They're NOT progressive. Their own site makes it clear they consider themselves centrist and

want to differentiate themselves from what they call "the rigid or outdated orthodoxies of both the left and right."

http://www.thirdway.org/about_us

[grahamhgreen]

4. Thes would be regressive tax rates, not Progressive.