Excerpt
January 25, 2023, Opinion: "In the 1980s, corporate tax rates for OECD countries averaged about 45 per cent.[i] Since then, in response to competitive pressures, corporate tax rates have declined to an average of 20 per cent in 2021 in the developed world, with only 18 out of 111 jurisdictions with statutory corporate tax rates above 30 per cent.[ii] The US reduced its headline corporate tax rate by 14 percentage points in 2017 as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, a late arrival relative to other OECD countries that had been lowering rates significantly over time. However, while statutory rates have been declining, there is momentum building towards base broadening measures to expand the pie of corporate income that comes into the tax net. There is a growing sense that the pendulum has swung too far to the right, and a course correction is necessary for the corporate income tax to more fairly capture the economic activities of the modern corporation. What does this new world of corporate taxation look like? One obvious change in thinking is the shift towards a corporate minimum tax, as opposed to the statutory maximum tax rate, that has traditionally been the focus of intense debate. In this article, this change in thinking is detailed through the actions taken by the OECD as well as tax changes in the US."