America’s Corporate Tax Ranked Worst in the World

The United States has the worst corporate tax system in the developed world, according to the Tax Foundation’s 2016 International Tax Competitiveness Index. The report, which analyzes the tax codes of all 35 developed countries, placed the U.S. tax code 31st overall.

In ranking the tax code of each developed country the report, authored by Kyle Pomerleau, divides each countries' tax code into five different categories – corporate taxes, consumption taxes, property taxes, individual taxes, and international taxes.

The report further divides each category into subcategories. For corporate taxes, the report includes three subcategories: the top marginal rate, cost recovery (to what extent the corporate tax system allows business expenses to be deducted), and the incentives and complexity in the code.

The U.S. ranks poorly in all three categories – our tax code is ranked last in the top marginal rate subcategory, 20th of 35 for cost recovery, and 27th of 35 in the incentives and complexity subcategory.

The corporate tax is a tax directly on labor and capital, so reducing it would benefit workers and the economy, not just businesses. As noted by the Congressional Budget Office, domestic workers bears 70 percent of the corporate tax, while shareholders bear the other 30 percent.