Republicans passed a historic tax overhaul called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017. The reason? Our tax code hadn’t been updated since the 1980s, even though the way we lived and did business was totally different. As a result, we unleashed economic growth that put more money in people’s pockets, provided greater opportunities, and brought poverty to record lows.
Yet, President Joe Biden wants to undo all that progress.
We need a forward-thinking tax code that incentivizes growth, encourages domestic investment, and doesn’t penalize companies for being successful.
The business world is increasingly global, with companies operating in hundreds of countries at once. Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. We operated on a worldwide tax system in which it made more sense for companies to keep their global earnings offshore indefinitely, rather than pay our steep 35% corporate tax rate. U.S. companies were at a severe disadvantage in the global marketplace, resulting in profit-shifting, offshoring, and increased corporate inversions and foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies.
That 35% corporate rate made the cost of domestic production the highest in the world’s advanced economies. These operational barriers robbed us of domestic investments and, more importantly, job opportunities.