To listen to the Republican side of the deficit debate, U.S. corporations are overburdened with taxes and that’s why there are no jobs, leaving huge cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other social programs as the only way to balance the budget. But a new study by the Center for Tax Justice (CTJ) shows U.S. corporations can well afford to contribute to balancing the budget.
The CTJ study found that when measured as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), U.S. corporations contribute the lowest share of tax revenue among 26 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, behind only Iceland. U.S. corporations have managed to lower their tax burden from four percent of GDP in 1965 to only 1.3 percent in 2009.
Further, the overall tax rate in the U.S. is the third lowest among 28 OECD nations, with only Chile and Mexico having lower overall tax rates. The CTJ report concludes “the most recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau reveal that the U.S. is already one of the least taxed countries in the developed world.”
Click here for the full CTJ report.
