To fund spending increases, President Biden and the Democrats are proposing to raise corporate income taxes. My new op-ed in The Hill describes 10 reasons why that would be harmful to businesses, workers, and the economy.

Here are the 10 reasons briefly:

  1. Our federal-state corporate tax rate is already higher than the global average.
  2. Higher taxes would undermine investment in factories, machinery, and other productive assets.
  3. Innovation would slow as businesses cut research spending and investment in advanced technologies.
  4. Wage growth would slow as reduced investment would undermine productivity.
  5. Higher taxes on corporate foreign earnings would harm domestic workers and operations.
  6. Since corporate taxes ultimately land on individuals, it is more transparent to collect taxes directly from individuals so they perceive the full cost of government.
  7. When tax rates rise, corporations avoid and evade taxes more.
  8. The Democratic plan would increase tax complexity and unfairness by adding dozens of special-interest breaks.
  9. The plan would damage to the economy, yet may not even benefit the government in the long run.
  10. It is unlikely that the higher spending funded by the tax increase would benefit society more than the private spending it displaced.

President Biden’s jobs plan touts “investment” 96 times, “research” 20 times, and “innovation” 17 times. But since corporations do the bulk of those activities in this nation, a corporate tax increase would undermine the president’s own objectives.