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Comment by karl11 | Hacker News Reader

What this should signal, is that the US should lower its corporate tax rate. Even just making it competitive with other developed nations would probably generate more revenue for the government. And though it would still be higher than the effective rate many companies pay with all these transfer schemes, it would make the hassle less worthwhile.

However, what it will actually cause lawmakers to do is increase regulations to make income transfers like this illegal, and leave the corporate tax rate as is.

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The US Corporate Tax is one of the lowest in all the world.

http://www.qbalance.com/Corporate_Tax_Rates_United_States.ht...

But Bermuda still beats out us at ZERO corporate tax rate.

Including others for comparison from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax), interesting to note that Vancouver, Canada, small business is taxed 13.5%, and to no surprise, there are many startups in Vancouver:

Examples of corporate tax rates for a few English-speaking countries include:

Australia: 30%, however some specialized entities are taxed at lower rates.

Canada: Federal 11% or 18% plus provincial 1% to 16%. Note: the rates are additive.

Hong Kong: 16.5%

Ireland: 12.5% on trading (business) income, and 25% on nontrading income.

New Zealand: 30%

Singapore: 17% from 2010, however a partial exemption scheme may apply to new companies.

United Kingdom: 21% to 28% for 2008–2010.

United States: Federal 15% to 35%.[18] States: 0% to 10%, deductible in computing Federal taxable income. Some cities: up to 9%, deductible in computing Federal taxable income. The Federal Alternative Minimum Tax of 20% is imposed on regular taxable income with adjustments.

For Australia, you have to take franked dividends into account.

When profits flow onto shareholders, the shareholders receive tax credits for tax that the company has paid on its profits. The result is often that, by the time corporate profits end up in the shareholder's pocket, there is 0% effective corporate tax over and above personal income tax paid on the dividend.

EDIT: That's for profits. Companies still have to deal with state payroll tax, collection of sales taxes, etc.

...And when some country is offering ZERO, any X% >0 will not encourage companies to shift their tax structures back to the US.

What website are you reading? 35% is damn high by international standards. I read that US Corporate tax is the second highest in the entire world.

Actually, you are wrong, we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world when you also take into account the state tax: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22917.html

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