The Corner

Politics & Policy

Harris Says She’ll Raise Corporate Income-Tax Rates

Senator Hawley and Oren Cass must be delighted with Kamala Harris’s call to hike the corporate income tax to 28 percent if elected. She is delivering for them what President Trump rightly refused to do.

As Kyle Pomerleau notes:

At a 28% federal rate, the U.S. corporate rate would be roughly 32 percent and the second highest in the OECD.

One doesn’t have to believe that debt doesn’t matter or that tax cuts pay for themselves to oppose an increase in the corporate income tax. One just has to understand that increasing the corporate tax rate is one of the most distortive ways to raise revenue (so it won’t raise much revenue).

One also has to understand that corporations don’t really pay taxes and that workers will likely shoulder much of this tax burden in the form of lower wages. So if you are trying to stick it to the CEOs with that tax hike, it won’t work. What will happen is that investments and growth will take a hit, along with the people that these guys claim to be cheerleaders for.

Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
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