This article is part of David Leonhardt’s newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday.
Amazon. Delta Air Lines. Chevron. IBM. General Motors. Molson Coors. Eli Lilly.
What do these companies have in common? They paid no federal taxes last year.
Thanks to President Trump’s 2017 tax law, the number of Fortune 500 companies that pay no federal taxes roughly doubled last year, to 60, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group. Some of them effectively paid negative taxes, because they received a refund.
[Listen to “The Argument” podcast every Thursday morning, with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt.]
The number of companies paying no taxes has risen for two main reasons. First, the Trump tax law expanded some corporate tax breaks, such as the one for the purchase of machinery and vehicles. Second, the law reduced the top-line corporate tax rate, which means that some companies now have a low enough tax bill that they can wipe it out entirely with tax breaks.
Altogether, the law led to a 31 percent decline in corporate-tax revenue last year. That decline has helped cause an increase in the deficit. As the law professors Rebecca Kysar and Linda Sugin have written, the Trump tax cut is financed “on the backs of future generations.”
I think some decline in the top-line corporate-tax rate — which was higher than in most other countries — was justified. But the Trump tax cut didn’t go about it in the right way. It cut the rate too steeply and kept, or expanded, too many tax breaks. A better bill would have paired a more gentle decline in the rate with a tougher approach to tax breaks, essentially trying to level the playing field among companies. Even before the law change, American companies weren’t actually paying very much in taxes.
“At a time when the public’s confidence in our elected officials and our institutions is especially low, the specter of big corporations avoiding all income taxes on billions in profits sends a strong and corrosive signal to Americans: that the tax system is stacked against them, in favor of corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” writes Matthew Gardner, the lead author of the Institute on Taxation report.
BuzzFeed response
Ben Smith, the editor of BuzzFeed News, emailed me Friday, taking objection to that day’s newsletter, in which I described one of BuzzFeed’s Trump-Russia stories as dubious. I was referring to BuzzFeed’s January story that claimed Trump “directed” and “personally instructed” Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer, to lie about talks about a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Smith wrote to me that “the underlying claim — that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress — has been backed up in Cohen’s own testimony, revelations about the edits Trump and his lawyers made, a congratulatory phone call he received after giving his false testimony, and more.” He added: “We have unearthed more facts than any other news outlet about the details of the Trump Tower Moscow deal — feel free to dig in here — and continue to stand by the Cohen story, with good reason.”
I still disagree. Since BuzzFeed’s story (which Robert Mueller’s office disputed), Cohen has said that Trump used code words and implication to get him to lie. If BuzzFeed or another media organization were doing the same story today, I think the language would be different in important ways. But I’m always happy to highlight substantive disagreement with my arguments, and I appreciate that Smith took the time to write.
I’d also note that BuzzFeed News has been doing excellent journalism, both on Russia and other subjects.
If you are not a subscriber to this newsletter, you can subscribe here. You can also join me on Twitter (@DLeonhardt) and Facebook.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
David Leonhardt is a former Washington bureau chief for the Times, and was the founding editor of The Upshot and head of The 2020 Project, on the future of the Times newsroom. He won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, for columns on the financial crisis. @DLeonhardt • Facebook
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | Their Tax Rate Is 0%
Opinion | Their Tax Rate Is 0%
This article is part of David Leonhardt’s newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday.
Amazon. Delta Air Lines. Chevron. IBM. General Motors. Molson Coors. Eli Lilly.
What do these companies have in common? They paid no federal taxes last year.
Thanks to President Trump’s 2017 tax law, the number of Fortune 500 companies that pay no federal taxes roughly doubled last year, to 60, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group. Some of them effectively paid negative taxes, because they received a refund.
[Listen to “The Argument” podcast every Thursday morning, with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt.]
The number of companies paying no taxes has risen for two main reasons. First, the Trump tax law expanded some corporate tax breaks, such as the one for the purchase of machinery and vehicles. Second, the law reduced the top-line corporate tax rate, which means that some companies now have a low enough tax bill that they can wipe it out entirely with tax breaks.
Altogether, the law led to a 31 percent decline in corporate-tax revenue last year. That decline has helped cause an increase in the deficit. As the law professors Rebecca Kysar and Linda Sugin have written, the Trump tax cut is financed “on the backs of future generations.”
I think some decline in the top-line corporate-tax rate — which was higher than in most other countries — was justified. But the Trump tax cut didn’t go about it in the right way. It cut the rate too steeply and kept, or expanded, too many tax breaks. A better bill would have paired a more gentle decline in the rate with a tougher approach to tax breaks, essentially trying to level the playing field among companies. Even before the law change, American companies weren’t actually paying very much in taxes.
“At a time when the public’s confidence in our elected officials and our institutions is especially low, the specter of big corporations avoiding all income taxes on billions in profits sends a strong and corrosive signal to Americans: that the tax system is stacked against them, in favor of corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” writes Matthew Gardner, the lead author of the Institute on Taxation report.
BuzzFeed response
Ben Smith, the editor of BuzzFeed News, emailed me Friday, taking objection to that day’s newsletter, in which I described one of BuzzFeed’s Trump-Russia stories as dubious. I was referring to BuzzFeed’s January story that claimed Trump “directed” and “personally instructed” Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer, to lie about talks about a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Smith wrote to me that “the underlying claim — that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress — has been backed up in Cohen’s own testimony, revelations about the edits Trump and his lawyers made, a congratulatory phone call he received after giving his false testimony, and more.” He added: “We have unearthed more facts than any other news outlet about the details of the Trump Tower Moscow deal — feel free to dig in here — and continue to stand by the Cohen story, with good reason.”
I still disagree. Since BuzzFeed’s story (which Robert Mueller’s office disputed), Cohen has said that Trump used code words and implication to get him to lie. If BuzzFeed or another media organization were doing the same story today, I think the language would be different in important ways. But I’m always happy to highlight substantive disagreement with my arguments, and I appreciate that Smith took the time to write.
I’d also note that BuzzFeed News has been doing excellent journalism, both on Russia and other subjects.
If you are not a subscriber to this newsletter, you can subscribe here. You can also join me on Twitter (@DLeonhardt) and Facebook.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
David Leonhardt is a former Washington bureau chief for the Times, and was the founding editor of The Upshot and head of The 2020 Project, on the future of the Times newsroom. He won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, for columns on the financial crisis. @DLeonhardt • Facebook
Source: Read Full Article