U.S. Now Number One in Highest Business Taxes

Washington, D.C. - Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the federal tax code, says Congress has another reason to prioritize tax reform now that the calendar has turned to April.  Beginning this month, the United States now has the world's highest rate of combined corporate taxes.  When Japan lowered its tax rate to 36.8 percent on April 1, the U.S. rate became the world's highest at 39.2 percent.

"In the last decade, while virtually every other industrialized nation has reduced its corporate tax rate, sometimes more than once, the U.S. government persists in its antagonistic position toward job creators, despite growing evidence that high taxes not only stifle business growth and investment, but employee wages as well," Crapo said.  A recent study by the Heritage Foundation projects that lowering the corporate tax rate to 25 percent would generate 581,000 jobs in the U.S. annually in the next decade.

Crapo, a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Reform and Responsibility, heralds pro-growth tax reform policies which would reduce the top tax rate from 35 to as low as 23 percent, while dramatically simplifying the tax code by reforming or eliminating many of the credits and deductions currently in the code. 

"As of late, we've tried to grow the economy by spending taxpayer money to create short-term jobs through stimulus programs and that won't work over the long-term," Crapo added.  "Let capitalism work by incentivizing job creation.  We have a bipartisan basis to work on and we should prioritize these tax reform efforts in Congress and at the White House."