Since TCJA expanded tax breaks for “accelerated depreciation” starting in 2018, it has reduced taxes by nearly $67 billion for the 25 profitable corporations that benefited the most. Congress is now looking at extending this policy.
Corporate Taxes
ITEP’s corporate tax research examines the tax practices of major corporations. Besides its corporate study on average effective tax rates paid by the nation’s largest, most profitable corporations, throughout the year, ITEP produces research on subjects such as offshore cash holdings, tax haven abuse, executive stock options and other tax loopholes. See ITEP’s more recent study of profitable corporations’ tax rates.
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report June 29, 2023 Corporations Reap Billions in Tax Breaks Under ‘Bonus Depreciation’
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blog June 22, 2023 Congressional Republicans Distort a New Report on the Global Minimum Tax
The notion that we are better off allowing our corporations to pretend their profits are earned in the Cayman Islands or Ireland simply defies logic and the facts. There is no scenario in which the U.S. would be better by ditching the international agreement that the government already negotiated.
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brief June 11, 2023 Trio of GOP Tax Bills Would Expand Corporate Tax Breaks While Doing Little for Americans Who Most Need Help
The trio of tax bills that cleared the House Ways and Means Committee in June include tax cuts that would mostly benefit the richest one percent of Americans and foreign investors.
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blog May 9, 2023 Congress Should Raise Taxes on the Rich, But That’s a Totally Separate Issue from the Debt Ceiling
Congress absolutely should raise taxes on the rich and on corporations to generate revenue and improve the fairness of our tax code. President Biden has several proposals to do exactly that. But this is an entirely separate question from whether we should raise the debt ceiling to honor the debts the nation has already incurred and avoid an economic apocalypse.
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blog March 14, 2023 Worried About the Debt? Tax the Rich
As one of the most prosperous countries in human history, we have enough resources for our collective needs. By better taxing corporations and the wealthiest, we can generate revenue to improve family security, strengthen our communities, and reduce the debt too.
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report March 10, 2023 Revenue-Raising Proposals in President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Plan
President Biden’s latest budget proposal includes trillions of dollars of new revenue that would be paid by the richest Americans, both directly through increases in personal income, Medicare and estate taxes, and indirectly through increases in corporate income taxes.
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blog February 14, 2023 The No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act Is Needed More than Ever
The new corporate minimum tax enacted as part of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act will address some of the worst corporate tax dodging, but what else is needed? A group of Democrats have answered this question with the No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act.
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blog February 13, 2023 Biden Says the Stock Buyback Tax Should Be Higher. Here are Three Reasons Why He’s Right.
A higher tax on stock buybacks would reduce the tax disparity between dividends and buybacks, raise more revenue for productive public investments, and recoup some of Trump’s corporate tax cuts that went to wealthy shareholders.
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brief February 13, 2023 Higher Stock Buyback Tax Would Raise Billions by Tightening Loophole for the Wealthy
A higher excise tax rate on buybacks is completely reasonable. Quadrupling the rate, as the President proposes, would raise more revenue and cut into the tax advantage buybacks have over dividends. When a company uses their cash holdings to repurchase their own stock, it is an admission that they have few productive investment opportunities. The public does have productive uses for the tax revenue like infrastructure and schools that create value for the entire economy.
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blog February 7, 2023 State of the Union Likely to Continue Progress on Tax Justice
After decades of Presidents who ran away from taxes, it’s a sea change to have a chief executive who understands that the rich should pay their fair share, extremely profitable corporations should pay their fair share, and the public sector should have revenue to invest in problems – like climate change and healthcare – that will only be solved with pathbreaking public action.
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blog January 13, 2023 GAO Report Confirms: Trump Tax Law Cut Corporate Taxes to Rock Bottom
A new report from the Government Accountability Office finds the average effective federal income tax rate paid by large, profitable corporations fell to 9 percent in the first year the Trump tax law was in effect, and the share of such companies paying nothing at all rose to 34 percent that year.
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blog December 21, 2022 The European Union Moves Forward on Global Minimum Tax. Time for the U.S. to Follow.
The European Union has reached unanimous agreement to implement a global minimum tax beginning in 2024. With the EU and UK fully on board, it’s time for Congress to follow suit and implement the plan negotiated by the Biden administration. Doing so would improve the corporate tax system here and around the world while making the United States economy stronger and more competitive.
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blog December 20, 2022 The Tax Deal That Wasn’t: Congress Decides Corporate Tax Cuts Are Too Expensive if it Means Also Helping Children
Congressional leaders announced their long-awaited omnibus spending package which will fund the government through September 2023. The good news: the bill does not include needless corporate tax giveaways. The bad news: it also leaves out any expansion of the child tax credit.
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blog December 14, 2022 Guide to a Potential Year-End Tax Bill in Congress
Any tax legislation enacted before this Congress ends should prioritize policies that have a proven track record of helping workers and children rather than policies that cut taxes for corporations or for individuals who are already well-off. It’s not clear right now whether lawmakers will do that – or whether they will enact any tax legislation at all before the year ends, but here we take a look at the key tax issues that lawmakers are discussing.
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blog December 8, 2022 Lawmakers Seek to Extend Tax Break for “Research” that Corporations Use to Develop Frozen Foods, New Beer Flavors, Casino Games and Tax Avoidance
If Congress creates a tax break to encourage businesses to conduct research that benefits society, should Netflix be eligible for it? There is no shame in binge-watching Stranger Things or… -
blog December 6, 2022 Reversing the Stricter Limit on Interest Deductions: Another Huge Tax Break for Private Equity
Private equity is doing fine on its own and does not need another tax break. Congress should keep the stricter limit on deductions for interest payments —one of the few provisions in the 2017 tax law that asked large businesses to pay a little bit more.
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brief November 10, 2022 Twenty-Three Corporations Saved $50 Billion So Far Under Trump Tax Law’s “Bonus Depreciation” that Many Lawmakers Want to Extend
Nearly two dozen of America’s largest corporations together received roughly $50 billion in tax breaks from 2018 through 2021 under a Trump tax law provision that many lawmakers now want to extend. Corporate lobbyists are even asking Congress to extend this “accelerated depreciation” tax break as part of a possible year-end tax bill.
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report October 4, 2022 Unfinished Tax Reform: Corporate Minimum Taxes
While the Inflation Reduction Act’s corporate minimum tax is a huge improvement in our tax system, implementing the global corporate minimum tax would improve it much more. And if other governments implement the global minimum tax, the United States will have an even stronger interest in joining them to ensure that new revenue collected from American corporations flows to the U.S. rather than to other countries.
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blog August 9, 2022 What Tax Provisions are in the Senate-Passed Inflation Reduction Act?
The Inflation Reduction Act approved by the Senate on Aug. 7 would raise more than $700 billion in new revenue over a decade by closing corporate tax loopholes, empowering the… -
blog August 5, 2022 Corporations are Shifting Profits to Wealthy Investors Tax-Free—Stock Buyback Tax Would Change That
Senate Democrats have announced an agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act that, among other changes to a previous version of the bill, would apply a 1 percent tax on corporations repurchasing their own stock. This proposal was included in the House-passed Build Back Better Act last year and was estimated at that time to raise $124 billion over 10 years. This measure would ensure that income transferred from corporations to wealthy shareholders does not continue to escape taxation.
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blog August 5, 2022 Corporate Minimum Tax Examples: Apple Would Likely Pay More, 3M Would Not
Apple, one of the largest corporations in the United States despite manufacturing most of its physical products offshore, would likely pay the corporate minimum tax that is included in the Inflation Reduction Act that the Senate is debating this week. 3M, a manufacturer that has about 40 percent of its workforce in the United States, likely would not pay the corporate minimum tax if current trends in the company’s profits and taxes continue, because it is already paying above 15 percent of its profits in taxes.
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blog August 2, 2022 Opponents of Inflation Reduction Act Call for Continued Tax Avoidance by Large Manufacturers
The biggest revenue-raising provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, the 15 percent minimum tax for corporations that have more than a billion dollars in profits, is under attack from members… -
blog May 6, 2022 Most Senate Democrats Join Republicans in Calling for Corporate Tax Break
The vast majority of Senate Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in approving a new corporate tax break related to research in legislation that contains no offsetting corporate tax increases.
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blog March 25, 2022 Excess Profits Tax Proposals Meet the Moment, But Lawmakers Should Keep Their Eye on Fundamentally Fixing Our Corporate Tax
New corporate tax proposals address the current situation, but ultimately leaders in Washington must fix federal law to tax all corporate profits and stop the tax dodging that is rampant today.
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blog March 1, 2022 Taxes Should be Part of the State of the Union Agenda
President Biden should elevate his tax and revenue proposals which remain essential if we are to pay for environmental restoration, health priorities and peacekeeping, the front-burner items that may dominate the speech.