We’re #1! U.S. Officially Has the Top Corporate Tax Rate. Or Not.

Following today's sequester-delay-seeking, tax-hiking, close-the-loophole speech by the President, it would appear that fiscal policy debates will be balanced a little more to raising effective rates on corporates (as opposed to the 'statutory' rate so many discuss). The US has the second highest global 'statutory' tax rate but less than 10% of S&P 500 firms have paid this rate over the last decade. Somewhat shockingly, since 1975, taxes have had the largest cumulative impact on S&P 500 ROE as effective rates fell from 44% to 30%.

  Enjoying a short winter commute in bicycle-friendly Des Moines.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has proposed an overhaul of taxation for the state of Louisiana that has many worried about the impact it could have on that state's low income citizens. 

A very helpful David Kocieniewski article in The New York Times lays out what progressive wonks have been saying for years—even though America’s statutory corporate income tax rates are very high nobody actually pays them and the effective rates are much lower.

I can’t tell if this Harold Ford op-ed in the NYT is some kind of dada performance art or part of a real senate campaign (or, indeed, if the senate campaign is itself performance art) but it’s surely not policy advice. Consider this:

By Richard Shaw (QVM Group): SUMMARY

OTTAWA — Canada has moved up three places to eighth in a global comparison of the most advantageous place to pay corporate taxes, placing the country in the top 10 for the first time. The annual study by PwC, in conjunction with the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, shows Canada moving sharply up in a 185-country comparison. Canada placed 28th as recently as 2010, but continuing reductions of the corporate rate both federally and provincially, as well as reduced red tap, has dramatically improved its standing.