I have a question that I cannot find the answer to:

[kentuck]

Is the effective tax rate for corporations the highest in the world in our country?

The few wealthy people and corporations that I read about have a very low tax rate or pay no taxes at all. In some instances, they get huge refunds.

We hear it quite often on the American media but is is never addressed in any transparent way. "Does America have the highest corporate tax rate in the world"??

I have read that a few states have turned into tax havens where the wealthy can hide their money in this country, without having to take it abroad. And they get all the benefits of our Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation laws.

Why can't the media inform the people about the actual corporate tax rate in this country? Because companies like GE not only pay a very low corporate income tax but usually gets tens of millions of dollars in refunds.

How difficult could it be to get this information?

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http://taxfoundation.org/article/corporate-income-tax-rates-around-world-2015

Key Findings

The United States has the third highest general top marginal corporate income tax rate in the world at 39 percent, which is the same as Puerto Rico and is exceeded only by Chad and the United Arab Emirates.
The worldwide average top corporate income tax rate (accounting for 173 countries and tax jurisdictions) is 22.9 percent, 29.8 percent weighted by GDP.
By region, Europe has the lowest average corporate tax rate at 18.7 percent (26.1 percent weighted by GDP). Africa has the highest simple average at 28.77 percent.
Larger, more industrialized countries tend to have higher corporate income tax rates than developing countries.
The worldwide average corporate tax rate has declined since 2003 from 30 percent to 22.9 percent.
Every region in the world has seen a decline in its average corporate tax rate in the past twelve years.

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http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-booklet/fact-sheet-corporate-tax-rates/

Key Facts

Corporate share of federal tax revenue has dropped by two-thirds in 60 years — from 32% in 1952 to 10% in 2013.
General Electric, Boeing, Verizon and 23 other profitable Fortune 500 firms paid no federal income taxes from 2008 to 2012.
288 big and profitable Fortune 500 corporations paid an average effective federal tax rate of just 19.4% from 2008 to 2012.
Profitable corporations paid U.S. income taxes amounting to just 12.6% of worldwide income in 2010.
U.S. corporations dodge $90 billion a year in income taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries — often no more than post office boxes — in tax havens.
U.S. corporations officially hold $2.1 trillion in profits offshore — much of it in tax havens — that have not yet been taxed here.

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The media could discuss this?

[spanone]

1. media won't touch it....media is owned by big and profitable fortune 500 companies

[Maeve]

2. From FactCheck.org

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/01/factchecking-the-sixth-republican-debate/


The U.S. has the highest statutory rate, 39.1 percent, among the 34 industrialized nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the nonpartisan, pro-business Tax Foundation.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center defines the statutory rate as the “rate that is imposed on taxable income of corporations, which is equal to corporate receipts less deductions for labor costs, materials, and depreciation of capital assets.”

Chad (40 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (55 percent), two non-OECD member nations, actually have higher rates than the U.S., according to the Tax Foundation.

But the Tax Policy Center says that the marginal effective tax rate, which assesses how much the corporate tax reduces the rate of return on new investment, “is consequently the best measure of how taxes affect a firm’s incentive to invest.”

And the U.S. marginal effective tax rate is 35.3 percent, according to the most recent Tax Foundation analysis. That is second to France’s rate of 36 percent, among OECD nations. And it puts the U.S. in sixth place, behind Argentina (43.5 percent), Chad (37.2 percent), Uzbekistan (37.1 percent), Colombia (36.6 percent) and France, among 95 nations reviewed for the Tax Foundation study.

[sofa king]

3. Also worth mentioning why

In the wake of World War II, Democrats discovered that wealthy Americans and corporations had milked the federal government for billions during World War II, directly contributing to its length and the suffering endured.

Truman publicly spoke of the need to generate a surplus in the post-war economic boom, but by 1950 he had a roster of Republicans and Republican supporters who had profited during the war through fraud and by exploiting tax loopholes. Republicans helped a lot by submitting their tax cut proposals the day after the Korean War broke out, signalling that they were perfectly happy with doing it all over again.

Republicans put up a fight, but behind closed doors it was no contest: pay up or be publicly raked over the coals. With the mid-terms of 1950 closing in on them and a new war on their hands, they got out of the way of the tax hikes.

[Exilednight]

4. The simplest answer is yes and no.

Yes we do have the highest tax rate as written if a corporation took no deductions, but due to the amount of deductions, also varies by industry, it drops significantly.