The vice president is rolling out her first revenue-raising policy proposal as the Democratic presidential nominee and drawing a contrast with GOP opponent Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris is calling for raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, her first major proposal to raise revenues and finance expensive plans she wants to pursue as president.

Harris campaign spokesman James Singer told NBC News that she would push for a 28% corporate tax rate, calling it “a fiscally responsible way to put money back in the pockets of working people and ensure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.”

If enacted, the policy would raise hundreds of billions of dollars, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that 1 percentage point increases in the corporate rate corresponds to about $100 billion over a decade. It would also roll back a big part of former President Donald Trump’s signature legislation in 2017 as president, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

Trump, meanwhile, recently said he would cut taxes even further if elected president, including on businesses.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Does it really matter what the rate is when they don’t pay it anyway?

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/13/companies-spend-more-executive-salaries-than-taxes/72941207007/

    "The analysis names 35 corporations, including Tesla, Netflix and Ford, that each reportedly spent more on compensation to their five highest-paid executives than they paid in federal income taxes over five years.

    Collectively, the 35 corporations spent $9.5 billion on their top executives over that span, the report said, while their combined federal tax bill came to -$1.8 billion: a collective refund."

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      To be fair, this is about the corporate tax rate, not the income tax that corporations pay.

      However, that article does mention the corporate tax rate and how corporations pay less than they are supposed to:

      The watchdog report draws on recent research by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, another nonprofit, left-leaning think tank. That group found 342 large corporations that paid a cumulative effective tax rate of 14.1% over five years, well short of the statutory corporate tax rate of 21%.

      Hopefully a Harris administration would close such loopholes as well.

  • MyOpinion@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    This needs to happen. Also massive corps need to start paying minimum tax. No more tax free years.

    • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 months ago

      I’m still stumped how ads make money. If your product ad interrupts my enjoyment, I am now fully aware of what I will not buy under any circumstance. How does that benefit anyone?

      • dan@upvote.au
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        3 months ago

        You’re not the average person though. A lot of people do respond to ads. The average ROI (return on investment) for digital ads is 200-500%, meaning for every $1 the advertiser spends on ads, they make $2 - $5 back. Retargeting ads (the ones that show you products you’ve viewed before) are even more effective.

        The reason ads are so prevalent is because people want stuff for free, and ads work well enough to cover the costs of providing a free service. I’m not saying they’re bad or good, just that that’s the state of things today.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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        3 months ago

        I’m just like this. On principle, I’m never going to click through an ad nor purchase the advertised product.

        That said, ads online have been so pervasive for so long that a lot of people just plain do not see any problem. In every thread about brave browser idiots try to make the use that “responsible” ads are actually good, like they’re providing you a service by making you aware of some thing you wanted to buy.

        Even in this thread, someone will probably be along shortly to tell us all about how the advertising revenue model is the only way to find the modern web. Vapid youtubers need to get paid somehow after all.

  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Taxing profit rather than revenue might be one of the reasons companies look for unlimited growth. If they had reasonable growth or were steady, they’d need to pay more in taxes since they’d be profitable. Instead if they spend all their money on regrowing and growing and growing and paying executives.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Encouraging unlimited growth is fine as long as there is robust anti monopoly work. Companies trying to grow is how we get better innovations and efficiency. But letting them grow infinitely is literally cancer.

      Encourage growth. It’s a good thing. But when a company gets too big, the government should hold a “yay, you won capitalism!” party, purchase every share of stock, give every worker a big bonus, and then break that company apart.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Important questions. Fiscal policy is wildly complex and what’s that saying about the road to hell and best intentions?

      I’m here for that conversation. What does tax hell out of them mean? Sounds good to me, but the idea deserves some talk.

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          That’s also because they don’t make much or any profit, right? That’s why I was asking whether they were taxing revenue or profit.

          • Maybe, but logically they should be taxed on revenue, right? I mean, that’s how we’re taxed as individuals. We don’t get to pay nothing because we took our whole salary and reinvested it into real estate or something. But they do.

            • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              We don’t get to pay nothing because we took our whole salary and reinvested it into real estate or something.

              You literally described a 401k.

              I get your point though. All of our income is considered profit, but if we were taxed like businesses we’d be able to exclude rent and groceries etc.

              • Hazor@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Except a 401k gets taxed on withdrawals, potentially at a higher tax rate than you were paying when you invested some or even most of it. Also, we can’t invest our whole salary into a 401k, as there’s a hard limit on contributions. Whereas a business never gets taxed on the assets they invested in to offset their profits (except maybe state/local property tax, but then they get to deduct that from federal tax…), plus they get to deduct the depreciation of said asset for years going forward.

            • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              You also don’t want to put a huge burden on small growing companies though. I think they should transfer from a profit rate to adding on a revenue rate as the company gets bigger and the revenue increases.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Of course it’s on profit, same as the existing corporate taxes. She’s not proposing a new type of tax, just increasing existing rates.

  • samokosik@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    As it was mentioned here, issue is not the rate but the fact they don’t pay it.

    Making the rate higher will not motivate/force them to pay it. Making it too high would only motivate them to find a hole in the system.

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Honestly, unless we close the offshore tax loophole, reducing or increasing the corporate tax rate is basically symbolic, since the federal tax rate is functionally 0% for most cooperations.

  • NastyNative@mander.xyz
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    3 months ago

    Kamala here, we couldn’t get it done this term but we will next term. This is 100% what will happen! Biden promised the same, obama promised the same. When are we going to take this for the lie it is.

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
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    3 months ago
    Congressional Budget Office (CBO) - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)

    Information for Congressional Budget Office (CBO):

    MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Very High - United States of America
    Wikipedia about this source

    NBC News - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)

    Information for NBC News:

    MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
    Wikipedia about this source

    Search topics on Ground.News

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/harris-proposes-raising-corporate-tax-rate-28-rolling-back-trump-law-rcna167208
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/biden-trump-tax-cuts-wealthy-2024-election-rcna157099
    https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/54810

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