Corporate Tax

Just how much do big oil companies pay in taxes? Exxon Mobil says it pays plenty — more in U.S. taxes than it earned in the United States last year. Not so, say critics of the oil industry; the Center for American Progress says the oil giant's effective federal income tax rate is about half the 35 percent standard for U.S. companies. The liberal-leaning think tank, citing Exxon Mobil's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, says the corporation didn't pay any federal income tax in 2009.

There's an idea abroad in the land that if the United States reduced its corporate income tax rate to 25 percent from the current 35 percent, big corporations would stop playing tax games. They would pour all their attention into profit-making rather than allocating a ton of talent to tax avoidance, and we would all be richer and happier as a result. Apple's recent plan to supposedly return a big part of its cash hoard to investors shows how naive that kind of thinking is. And, by the way, it also shows that Apple...

Amid the tumult over looming tax hikes and spending cuts , a massive change to the corporate tax code is quietly gathering steam. U.S. multinationals have spent years pushing for a change to the tax code that would eliminate taxes on business profits overseas, just as these firms are banking their futures on growth abroad. Now, with the debate over the country's fiscal future in the spotlight, executives, lobbyists and some on Capitol Hill are latching onto the " fiscal cliff...

Imagine being a brain surgeon given the job of fixing a tumor without being able to see its true size or shape. That wouldn't work too well, would it? It would be even worse if you thought you knew the tumor's size and shape but you had it wrong. Sure, that sounds ridiculous. But that's the situation we find ourselves in when it comes to fixing the federal corporate income tax, which has a 35 percent stated rate but more holes than Swiss cheese. The only people who know for sure how much a company pays in U.S....

EXPECT President Obama's international tax proposal to set off a firestorm in Congress and the business community. The proposal, which will be released in more detail when the president's full budget comes out in the next few days, would alter tax rules so that companies are less able to shift profits to avoid U.S. taxation while also cracking down on tax havens for companies and individuals. In a speech yesterday, the president billed the plan as a revenue raiser, which it would be, and a plan to create jobs, a more contentious assertion.

Amid all the division on Capitol Hill, both parties generally agree that the corporate tax rate, which at 35 percent is among the highest in the world, needs to be cut. During Wednesday's presidential debate , both candidates advocated a significant reduction in the corporate tax rate. Yet the federal budget's unsustainable fiscal path should preclude a large unfunded tax cut. Given these competing demands, policymakers have been searching for revenue-neutral reforms that reduce the corporate tax rate and broaden the corporate tax...

ADEMONSTRABLY BAD idea in pursuit of a possibly worthy goal is still a bad idea. In this instance, the demonstrably bad idea is giving corporations a federal tax break — make that another tax break — on "repatriated profits," money they earn overseas and bring home. The goal is an infrastructure bank to help build roads and other projects. Such an entity could help rationalize the hodgepodge of politically dictated projects and leverage private capital. But arithmetic's basic laws must prevail: You can't pay...

My usual journalistic role is to expose wrongdoing, point with alarm, and distill complicated information into clear explanations of what's really going on in the world. I rarely offer specific solutions, because that's not my job — I'm an observer and critic, not a policymaker. Today, though, I'm going to depart from form and suggest a solution to a problem that's plaguing the current debate about corporate income taxes: too many numbers, too little knowledge. It's simple, really: Get the Financial Accounting...

President Obama proposed a major overhaul of the nation's corporate tax code on Wednesday, an election-year gambit that aims to draw a contrast over a key policy issue with the Republicans vying to replace him. The plan would lower the nation's corporate tax rate to 28 percent. At the same time, Obama wants to boost overall revenue from corporate taxation by banning numerous deductions and loopholes that save companies tens of billions of dollars a year on their tax bills. The current U.S. corporate...

Amid record corporate profits and a raging debate in Washington about how to close the country's budget deficit , the Treasury Department has finished drafting a plan to reform the taxes companies pay. A major goal: lowering the tax rate for businesses. Faced with a fledgling economic recovery, the Obama administration sees an overhaul of the corporate tax code as a way to spur growth. But the Treasury plan, which is being reviewed by the White House, could be a...

Procter & Gamble , the Cincinnati-based company behind Pampers diapers and Tide detergent, reported a federal tax burden in 1969 that was 40 percent of its total profits, a typical rate in those days. More than four decades later, P&G is a very different company, with operations that span the globe. It also reports paying a very different portion of its profits in federal taxes: 15 percent. The world's biggest maker of consumer products isn't the only one. Most of the 30 companies listed on...

An army of lobbyists has been mobilizing in the halls of Congress over recent months in anticipation of what could be a monumental struggle later this year over reforming the tax code. While the standoff over sequester spending cuts and other budget battles have been grabbing headlines, momentum has quietly been building toward a once-in-a-generation push to overhaul federal taxes, an effort that would likely affect nearly every family and business. Tax reform edged closer to center stage...

President, Business Roundtable John Engler is president of the Business Roundtable (BRT), an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. corporations with a combined workforce of nearly 16 million workers and more than $7 trillion in annual revenues.  A former three-term governor of Michigan, Engler assumed the leadership of Business Roundtable in January 2011 after serving six years as president and CEO of the National Association of...

There should be little disagreement across the political spectrum that growth and job creation remain America's most serious national problem. Ahead of President Obama's first State of the Union address of his second term, and further fiscal negotiations in Washington, America needs to rethink its priorities for economic policy. The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 1.5 percent in 2012. Last week, the independent Congressional Budget Office projected that growth will be only 1.4 percent during 2013 — and that unemployment will rise.

Business interests focused on the debate over the looming "fiscal cliff" are most concerned with making sure there's a timely deal — any deal. The details of the compromise are less important than getting an agreement in place that removes the danger of a one-two punch to the economy that would flow from trillions of dollars' worth of tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts set to go into effect next year. If that crisis is averted, however, expect a more intense focus on the details of corporate...

President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner were struggling late Tuesday to prevent negotiations from breaking down after they traded dueling proposals for averting the year-end " fiscal cliff " that made no progress toward an agreement. Obama telephoned Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday, hours after receiving the speaker's latest proposal for a deal on taxes and spending. The offer was virtually identical to the document Obama summarily rejected just one week ago, according...

When the 1st Marine Regiment was encircled by communist forces at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, Marine Col. Lewis "Chesty" Puller was said to have declared: "We're surrounded. Good! Now we can fire in any direction. " It's time for congressional Republicans to adopt some of Puller's courage — and strategy — when it comes to their fiscal stand-off with Barack Obama. Like Puller's Marines, the GOP is surrounded. That means Republican leaders have only two options: 1) Surrender.

LONDON — The Great British Boycott of Starbucks had nothing to do with whole milk in the skinny lattes or ice chunks in the mocha Frappuccinos. Instead, in a country where the use of creative accounting by U.S. corporations has enraged the public, the Seattle-based American icon was allegedly paying single-shot taxes on Venti-size sales. Across Europe , austerity-driven cuts during hard economic times are shedding light on a culture of tax evasion by the rich. Nearly broke Greece is gripped by a...