On Tuesday (May 18), U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on business leaders to pay higher taxes to help implement the White House’s trillion-dollar spending plan.
In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Yellen said the White House is prepared to raise taxes on businesses and top earners as part of its infrastructure spending plan. In addition, the administration is seeking to create an international corporate minimum tax to discourage companies from relocating their headquarters overseas.
“With corporate taxes at an all-time low of 1 percent of gross domestic product, we believe the corporate sector can contribute by taking its fair share,” Yellen said, referring to the White House’s trillion-dollar spending plan for American families that seeks “a series of tax reforms that ensure the wealthy pay their fair share ” that would also discourage tax evasion.
Suzanne Clark, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, argued that the administration’s proposed tax increases are dangerous and “will dampen the fragile recovery.
Clark said in a statement Tuesday that “the data and evidence are clear: the proposed tax increase would greatly disadvantage American businesses and hurt American workers, and now is not the time to put up new barriers to economic recovery,” and she said she supports the administration’s spending plan but opposes tax increases to the business side, “We want to work with them to do this, but there are other ways to fund it.”
She argued that increasing corporate taxes would put the U.S. at a disadvantage in international markets.
After taking office, the Biden administration launched two trillion-dollar spending plans after implementing a $1.9 trillion level epidemic subsidy program, with the administration calling for an increase in the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent and higher rates for top earners to make the ambitious spending plans work. In 2017, the former Trump administration lowered the corporate tax from 35 percent to its current level.
U.S. conservatives and some business owners are concerned that the tax increase could hurt business operations during the pandemic and lead to greater stress on businesses.
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