Tax loopholes killing America

The perpetual Republican lie is America’s 35-percent tax rate is destroying industry but, according to the Government Accounting Office, 288 of the largest profitable companies in America have effective tax rates that average 12.6 percent.

Corporate income taxes as a share of the Gross Domestic Product dropped to 2.6 percent in 2011, 11th lowest among wealthy nations. Twenty-seven profitable companies on the S&P 500 paid no income taxes in 2015.

George W. Bush in 2004 allowed a one-time, 5.25-percent tax repatriation of offshore money supposedly to be spent on job growth and investment. The repatriated money went to buy back shares and dividends, not new factories nor employees, who spend proportionately more at small businesses.

Dave Camp, R-Mich., former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, proposed a flat 25-percent corporate tax in 2014 that went nowhere. In 2016, President Obama proposed a 14-percent tax on offshore profits and a flat 19-percent corporate rate that Republicans rejected. If somebody writes that American corporations pay 35 percent, stop reading; it’s a lie. Special interest tax loopholes are killing America. David Bean Chatsworth, Ga.