Tomorrow, the full Ways and Means CommitteeThe Committee on Ways and Means, more commonly referred to as the House Ways and Means Committee, is one of 29 U.S. House of Representative committees and is the chief tax-writing committee in the U.S. The House Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction over all bills relating to taxes and other revenue generation, as well as spending programs like Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance, among others. will meet to discuss “TaxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. Havens, Base Erosion, and Profit-Shifting”
From the website:
“The hearing will examine different tax planning strategies used by multinational corporations to shift income out of the United States and into low-tax jurisdictions. The hearing also will consider when profit shiftingProfit shifting is when multinational companies reduce their tax burden by moving the location of their profits from high-tax countries to low-tax jurisdictions and tax havens. truly is eroding the U.S. tax baseThe tax base is the total amount of income, property, assets, consumption, transactions, or other economic activity subject to taxation by a tax authority. A narrow tax base is non-neutral and inefficient. A broad tax base reduces tax administration costs and allows more revenue to be raised at lower rates. and when companies are shifting profits amongst different foreign jurisdictions without affecting U.S. tax collections.”
Building on the discussions at the Apple hearings last month (more on Apple here, here and here), this hearing will further debate the issue of the taxation of multinational corporations.
Politicians have the tendency to over-simplify the issue of the taxation of multinational corporations and miss key facts.
Here is a list of things you should know before the hearing:
At 39.1 percent (federal plus state), the United States levies the highest corporate income taxA corporate income tax (CIT) is levied by federal and state governments on business profits. Many companies are not subject to the CIT because they are taxed as pass-through businesses, with income reportable under the individual income tax. rate in the world. This is 14 percentage points higher than the OECD average. And even though our tax system is cited as having many loopholes and deductions that lower the tax burden of corporations, we also have one of the highest effective tax rates at about 27 percent.
2. Corporations pay more than $100 billion dollars in taxes to foreign governments
Although both politicians and the press continually repeat the myth that corporations hide their income overseas to avoid taxation, in reality corporations pay a substantial amount of taxes to foreign governments. Plans to increase the taxes on this income further risks double-taxing these overseas profits.
3. Corporations not only pay taxes once, but twice on their foreign income
Corporations first pay income taxes to the countries in which their profits were earned. Then when they repatriate their income to the United States, they are taxed again at the U.S. corporate income tax rate (minus the foreign tax creditA tax credit is a provision that reduces a taxpayer’s final tax bill, dollar-for-dollar. A tax credit differs from deductions and exemptions, which reduce taxable income, rather than the taxpayer’s tax bill directly. ). For example, if a subsidiary of a U.S. firm earns $100 in profits in England, it pays the British income tax rate of 23 percent (or $23) on those profits. Then when the profits are brought back to the U.S., the firm is required to pay the difference between the U.S. rate of 35 percent and the British rate of 23 percent—$12. Between the two nations, the U.S. firm will have paid a total of 35 percent in taxes on those foreign profits.
The U.S. is one of the only countries left that taxes income on a world-wide basis. For the past couple of decades, realizing the economic benefits, countries throughout the world have been moving to a “territorial” tax system. A system that only taxes the income of corporations in the country they earned those profits.
5. The United States’ world-wide tax system traps an estimated $2 trillion in corporate income overseas
When corporations want to repatriate their income earned overseas, they have to pay the difference between the taxes paid in the foreign country and the taxes owed in the United States. This “toll charge” makes bringing profits back to the United States much more expensive than it otherwise would be, trapping capital overseas and preventing the free-flow of capital back to the U.S.
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