A New Tax Warning From the Evil Elizabeth Warren

From a WSJ editorial:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) must be getting nervous about the chances of tax reform for U.S. businesses. On Wednesday she fired a shot across the bow of any Democrat tempted to consider lowering the highest corporate income-tax rate in the industrialized world....

Ms. Warren showed up at the National Press Club to pronounce that the idea that American companies are overtaxed is “not true.” In her prepared remarks she said the strategy of “giant corporations” is to “tell a story about high U.S. taxes, demand tax cuts from the U.S. Congress, and threaten to leave the U.S. for good if they don’t get what they want. I say it’s time to call their bluff.”...

Ms. Warren says the problem with the U.S. corporate tax code is “not that taxes are far too high” but that “the revenue generated from corporate taxes is far too low.” She points out that while the U.S. federal rate on corporate income is 35%, the average effective tax rate that U.S. companies actually pay, after various deductions, exemptions and credits, is 20%.

That’s true, though many companies such as retailers do pay close to the 35% rate