The U.S. economy is not suffering from ‘too high’ corporate taxes

From the Economic Policy Institute

In the recent tax debate, proponents of corporate tax cuts once again trotted out the myth that taxes on American corporations are excessive and are responsible for recent slow economic growth. These proponents claim that cutting corporate tax rates will encourage companies to make productivity-boosting investments that would increase wages. We’ve noted the many ways this claim fails when tested against real-world evidence.

But the simplest rebuttal to this claim is this graph, which shows that corporate taxes as a share of the U.S. economy have been extraordinarily low in recent years, even as corporate profits have been historically high. At a time when ginned-up hysteria over federal budget deficits is used to attack crucial social insurance and income support programs like Social Security, Medicare, and nutrition assistance, it is odd that we’d ask even less of corporations when it comes to collecting taxes.