U.S. Corporate Tax Reform Proposals

Staying Competitive in a Global Economic Downturn

Lynn Mucenski-Keck, CPA, MST

More than 25 years after the last successful reform of the U.S. tax code (the Tax Reform Act of 1986), it is worth asking: could President Reagan's approach of stimulating the economy through tax reform work today? Perhaps—but opinions differ among the political parties and corporate America as to which form tax reform should take, and this disagreement could delay the process until it is too late. Corporate tax reform has been hotly debated over the past few years, due to the downturn in the global economy and the fear of U.S. jobs being outsourced overseas. Any proposed paths for corporate tax reform will be subject to even greater scrutiny in the current political and fiscal environment. In order to analyze U.S. corporate tax reform proposals with a view toward ensuring that reform would allow U.S. companies to remain globally competitive, it is necessary to understand corporate taxation in other economically developed countries.