Supercommittee Member Moving Forward With Corporate Tax Reform

By Andrea Salazar

Fresh off the Congressional Supercommittee’s failure to strike a deal to reduce government spending by $1.2 trillion over the next decade, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is offering a plan to lower the corporate tax rate.

During an appearance Monday at the American Enterprise Institute, Portman said his plan would lower the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from its current 35 percent and create a territorial tax system that would only tax income made in the United States.

Though disappointed with the supercommittee’s inability to strike a deal to reduce the deficit, Portman, a member of the bipartisan panel, said the bright side was the influx of ideas that came out of the negotiations.

“This supercommittee process was frustrating … but we did achieve some results,” Portman said. “One was coming together as Republicans and Democrats alike and putting together at least a framework for dealing with this issue of corporate taxes. So I’m hopeful that one of the products of the committee is that Congress will now have the ability to move forward on this.”

The senator said he hopes to get bipartisan support for his proposal and said he had seen interest from both sides of the aisle during super committee negotiations, including from Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). He will introduce the bill early next year.

McCain, Hagan Introduce Plan To Bring Foreign Earnings Home

By Adrianna McGinley

At a news conference Thursday, Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) introduced the Foreign Earnings Reinvestment Act, which would temporarily reduce the corporate tax rate in an effort to incentivize U.S. corporations that bring foreign earnings back to the U.S.

The bill proposes temporarily reducing the current 35 percent tax rate to 8.75 percent, and it could go as low as 5.25 percent for companies that use the repatriated money to create jobs at home. The bill would also penalize companies that lay off workers after participating in the program.

McCain emphasized it is a bipartisan proposal that needs to be passed immediately, citing it would introduce 50 to 80 billion dollars of tax revenue into the treasury and create two million jobs.

“Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone would be in opposition to a proposal that would bring $1.4 trillion back to this country to invest in jobs and create jobs and help the economy,” McCain said.

The two acknowledged though that the proposal is only meant as a temporary fix, and long term tax reform is necessary.

“The Foreign Earnings Reinvestment Act is not the only solution to our economic crisis. Unfortunately there is no single silver bullet, but that is no reason for inaction. We need practical bipartisan action to get our economy growing and growing now,” Hagan said.

The duo plans to introduce the bill as an amendment to the president’s jobs bill.