The Daily Hatch

Since Leftists Don’t Like Corporate Loopholes, They Should Support the Flat Tax

August 9, 2012 by Dan Mitchell

I appeared on CNBC a couple of days ago to discuss a new report which claims that some big U.S. companies “only” paid 9 percent of their income to the government.

While I’m a bit skeptical of the numbers (did it include the taxes paid to foreign governments, for instance, which can be substantial for multinational firms?), I confess I didn’t read the report.

So I focused on the best way of getting rid of corrupt loopholes while simultaneously boosting the competitiveness of America companies.

In other words, I said we should rip up the wretched internal revenue code and implement a simple and fair flat tax.

As is my habit, allow me to emphasize a few points from the interview.

1. It’s good to keep money in the productive sector of the economy because we shouldn’t feed the spending addiction in DC.
2. If tax rates are low, there’s much less incentive for companies to lobby for loopholes.
3. The only feasible and desirable tax reform is to simultaneously eliminate tax breaks while lowering tax rates.
4. The marginal tax rate is what determines incentives for new investment and job creation, which is why America’s highest-in-the-world 35 percent corporate tax rate is a major problem even if average tax rates are much lower.

Sadly, I’m not holding my breath expecting improvements.

Even though tax reform should appeal to well-meaning liberals, Obama seems committed to the class-warfare approach . Romney, meanwhile, mostly wants to tinker with the current system (when he’s not saying worrisome things about a value-added tax).