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Editorials and Op-eds
July 20, 2011 - American Enterprise Institute (Op-ed), "Does the Current Tax System Encourage US Companies to Ship Jobs Overseas?" Alan D. Viard, Resident Scholar, AEI
By taxing income from business investment inside the United States, the corporate income tax discourages both domestic and foreign firms from investing here. When firms invest less in the United States, they obviously have less demand for American workers. In that sense, the corporate income tax encourages firms to ship jobs overseas... The corporate income tax is a flawed way to raise revenue. Rather than viewing global corporate tax competition as a problem, let's embrace it as an opportunity to reform our tax system.
April 14, 2011 - Daily Caller (Op-ed), "The Best Place to do Business," Gov. John Engler, President, Business Roundtable
President Obama stated recently that he wants to make America the “best place on Earth to do business.” It wasn’t that long ago that America was the best place on Earth to do business. Somewhere along the line, we lost our way. Case in point: In 1960, 17 of the world’s 20 largest companies were headquartered in the United States. That total fell to 13 in 1985. Today, only six of the top 20 companies are based here.
October 26, 2010 - Seattle Times (Op-ed), "Democrats Go Overboard with 'Shipping Jobs Overseas' Ads," Bruce Ramsey, Editorial Columnist
...[T]his theme is being used all over the country — the accusation is based on their opposition to the politically named "Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act," Senate Bill 3816. This bill has been pushed for 18 years by Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, a state that imports and exports almost nothing. It came up in the Senate on Sept. 28 and fell seven votes short of passing... The bill wanted to say that if Ford of Germany sold a car to the United States, it would immediately pay U.S. taxes on the profit from that car. But Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler Benz could sell German-made cars here, and not pay the same tax. Such a rule "puts the United States at a competitive disadvantage," said Sen. Max Baucus of Montana. Baucus is one of five Democrats who voted against the bill... The ranking Republican on Senate Finance, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, was probably right when he suggested, in the midst of a long speech that took Dorgan's bill seriously, that it "was motivated by politics rather than policy."
October 19, 2010 - Chicago Tribune (Op-ed),"Caterpillar Supports Jobs in America," Jim Baumgartner, Director, Corporate Public Affairs, Caterpillar Inc.
Peter Navarro, a professor at the University of California at Irvine, recently editorialized about Caterpillar's new factory in China ("Et tu Caterpillar? Then fall America!" Commentary, Oct. 12). Unfortunately, Navarro didn't tell you the whole story before demonizing a successful American company that employs about 100,000 people around the world, and creates employment opportunities for 300,000 dealer and supplier employees. In the past year, Caterpillar has announced a new excavator facility in Texas, a new mining facility in North Carolina, an expansion of our compact construction facility in North Carolina and a new engineering design center in South Dakota. Plus we announced a major investment to upgrade our mining-truck capacity in our Decatur, Ill., facility. Caterpillar supports jobs in America.
October 12, 2010 - Wall Street Journal (Op-ed), "Obama and the Politics of Outsourcing," William S. Cohen, Former U.S. Secretary of Defense
Between 1991 and 2001, employment at foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinationals rose by 2.8 million jobs; during that same period, employment at their parent firms in the U.S. rose by 5.5 million jobs. For every job "outsourced" to India and other foreign countries, nearly two new jobs were generated here in the U.S. Those new U.S. jobs were higher-skilled and better-paying—filled by scientists, engineers, marketing professionals and others hired to meet the new demand created by their foreign subsidiaries.
News Clips
October 26, 2011 - US House's Camp Backs Tax Cuts, Corporate Breaks
October 26, 2011 - Business Groups Back Proposal To Lower Taxes On Foreign Earnings
April 26, 2011 - Tax Foundation, "U.S. Multinationals Paid $100 Billion in Foreign Income Taxes According to Most Recent IRS Data"
In recent months, a number of press accounts have mentioned the amount of taxes paid by U.S. multinational firms on their foreign income. Some of the more sensational articles would have readers believe that U.S. companies pay little or no tax on their foreign earnings. Unfortunately, such stories are either based upon a misunderstanding of how U.S. international tax rules work, or are simply careless when portraying the way U.S. companies pay taxes on foreign profits.
April 15, 2011 - Washington Business Journal, "Big Corporations Pay Average 27% Tax Rate"
The Business Roundtable has released a study showing that, on average, U.S. corporations paid an effective tax rate of 27.7 percent from 2006 to 2009, Portfolio.com reported. That compares with an average of 19.5 percent for foreign-based corporations. The effective tax rate is the share of global pretax income that actually is paid in taxes to various levels of government in the U.S. and abroad.
April 14, 2011 - Bloomberg, "U.S. Companies Pay World’s Sixth-Highest Tax Rate, Study Finds"
U.S. companies face the sixth- highest effective tax rate in the world, according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The tax rate for the largest U.S. companies between 2006 and 2009 was 27.7 percent, compared with a non-U.S. average of 19.5 percent, according to the study released today. Companies based in Japan, Morocco, Italy, Indonesia and Germany faced higher tax rates. Excluding the U.S., companies based in industrialized countries had an average rate of 22.6 percent.
