The Romney Team Strikes Back at the new Reporting stating the Romney's Reverse Robin Hood Tax Plan would cut taxes for the Rich while raising them on 95% of the rest of us.
“This is just another biased study from a former Obama staffer that ignores critical parts of Governor Romney’s tax reform program, which will help the middle class and promote faster economic growth,” Chen wrote in a statement Monday evening in response to the study by the Tax Policy Center released earlier in the day.
“The study analyzes only half of Governor Romney’s tax program, ignoring the reforms that would make America’s corporations more competitive by moving from the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world to one that is comparable to our trading partners. And the study ignores the positive benefits to economic growth from both the corporate tax plan and the deficit reduction called for in the Romney plan. These glaring gaps invalidate the report’s conclusions.”
Oh, yeah I see. Romney isn't just cutting taxes for the Rich, he's also cutting taxes
for Corporations, which will certainly help keep the middle class from paying the difference.
Uh huh.
The Righties like to say that the U.S. has one of the highest Corporate Tax Rates in the world, and even a quick scan of Wiki shows that it does at 35%, except for Chile (40%), China (45%), Cuba (50%), France (75%), Germany and (45%), Greece (45%), Ireland (45%) Israel (46%), Italy (43%), Morroco (38%), Norway (47.8%), South Africa (40%), Portugal (40%) and the UK (50%) at least on paper.
But then that's Wiki, so who can trust it?
Either way here's the thing - Our Corporations Don't Actually PAY THAT RATE.
Topping out at 35 percent, America’s official corporate income tax rate trails that of only Japan, at 39.5 percent, which has said it plans to lower its rate.
But by taking advantage of myriad breaks and loopholes that other countries generally do not offer, United States corporations pay only slightly more on average than their counterparts in other industrial countries. And some American corporations use aggressive strategies to pay less — often far less — than their competitors abroad and at home. A Government Accountability Office study released in 2008 found that 55 percent of United States companies paid no federal income taxes during at least one year in a seven-year period it studied.
The paradox of the United States tax code — high rates with a bounty of subsidies, shelters and special breaks — has made American multinationals “world leaders in tax avoidance,” according to Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor at the University of Southern California who was head of the Congressional joint committee on taxes.
So exactly what is lowering a tax rate that for over half these companies is LESS THAN ZERO going to help?
How's does that produce an "Economic Boom" exactly?
Hmmm.
Nothing from Nothing leaves what - Nothing doesn't it?
When the Righties Cry about Half of U.S Households not paying any Income Tax - they practically start sharpening their pitchforks.
Look how Fox News Says It.
There are so many breaks that 45 percent of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax for 2010, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
And on
Huffpo.
Nearly half of American tax filers will pay no federal income taxes this year, according to data released by the Tax Policy Center.
Some 76 million tax filers, or 46.4 percent of the total, will be exempt from federal income tax in 2011.
And why is that? Because they're already Poor!
More than half the filers exempt from federal income tax in 2011 are in the lowest income quintile, meaning they make less than 80 percent of the country. As Bruce Bartlett at The New York Times notes, those in the bottom quintile have incomes of less than $16,812.
Don't think Romney and the Republicans want to Raise Taxes on the Poor? Listen to what John Cornyn
has said about this. It's not a secret, they've been saying it for months - for years even.
"There has been a lot of discussion about that, where we want to take the tax code with all of its multiple provisions and get it on the table and take a look at it to make sure it is, in my view, flatter, fairer and simpler.,
"But right now, the fact (is) that according to the Committee on Joint Taxation, 51 percent -- that is, a majority of American households -- paid no income tax in 2009. Zero. Zip. Nada. … Actually, to show how out of whack things have gotten, 30 percent of American households actually made money from the tax system by way of refundable tax credits -- the Earned Income Tax Credit, among others. So 51 percent of American households paid no income tax in 2009, but 30 percent actually made money under the current system."
John Cornyn and the Republicans intend to change that - they'd make it "Flatter and Simpler" which would do one thing - increase the base rate and eliminate deductions and credits like the EITC.
Yet, when we talk about 50% of Corporations Paying no Federal Income Tax the Rightwing Pitchfork Forest turns into Cricket Concert. What a coincidence.
Oh and by the way, that "biased" report actually did take into consideration the Romney assumption - which has never been shown to be true. EVER. - that lowering Corporate Tax Rates would create a massive flurry of economic growthtm into consideration.
And the result was still ALL FAIL.
“Although reasonable models would show that these tax changes would have little effect on growth, we show that even with implausibly large growth effects, revenue neutrality would still require large reductions in tax expenditures and would likely result in a net tax increase for lower- and middle-income households and tax cuts for high-income households,” the study concluded.
Game. Set. Match.
Pack up Rafalca and pick a home to go back to Mitt, you're "I'm the Economic Expert, I can Fix This" arguments just landed smack dab in the Reality Moat and are stuck there.
When you give Corporations Tax Breaks that aren't tied directly to Job Creation, they take them and stick them in Tax Havens, like the Cayman Islands or in Swiss Banks where they aren't subject to U.S. taxation. Sometimes they put them in Hedge Funds and use them to Bet against American Business, and make a MINT when they FAIL which is certainly being all Patriotic and all.
Vyan
P.S. One Last thing. Obama Tax Plan for Corporations essentially does the SAME THING AS ROMNEY's - lower the Top Marginal Corporate Rate only they also remove all those loopholes that are being exploited.
“We want to restore a system in which American businesses succeed or fail based on the products they make and the services they provide, not on the creativity of their tax engineers or the lobbyists they hire,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said during the administration’s announcement of the new proposal.
The election-year proposal would cut the top corporate tax rate—currently the highest in the modern world—from 35 percent to 28 percent. In exchange for a lower tax rate, Obama’s proposal would remove loopholes employed in all different sectors that allow companies to avoid paying taxes.
And IMO that would be bad for business, the business of Corporate Tax Preparers like ones that Romney used to create his
100 Page Tax Returns.