REPLACING THECORPORATEINCOMETAX
WITH ACASH-FLOWTAX
Chris Edwards
Americans have been inundated with financial scandals at large
corporations during the past two years. In many cases, unethical be
havior and poor oversight of corporate management are to blame. But
the corporate income tax has also been a key source of corporate
inefficiency and scandal. The tax code distorts financial and invest
ment decisions, and spurs executives to hunt for tax shelters.
These tax problems are highlighted in the 2,700-page report on
Enron Corporation by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation
(JCT 2003a). Enron is just one company, but it took a team of JCT
investigators a year to figure out how all its tax shelters worked. The
JCT’s efforts were a mirror image of the efforts of Enron, the ac
counting firms, and investment banks that put Enron’s tax shelters
into place originally. The JCT (2003a:16) concluded that Enron “ex
celled at making complexity an ally.” While an ally to Enron, tax
complexity is an enemy to productive corporate management and
efficient investment decisionmaking.本文来自辣%文&论@文^网原文请找腾讯32,49114
Enron-style tax sheltering has not been the only type of corporate
tax scandal in the news. Attention has also focused on the growing
number of U.S. companies reincorporating in low-tax jurisdictions,
such as Bermuda. U.S. firms can save taxes on their foreign opera
tions by creating a foreign parent company for their worldwide op
erations. At the same time, there are growing concerns about the
uncompetitiveness of the U.S. corporate tax because of the high statu
tory rate of 35 percent and the complex rules on foreign investment
(Edwards and de Rugy 2002).
The corporate income tax is also feeling pressure from financial
innovation on Wall Street. A recently decided case in the U.S. Tax
Court, which involved Bank One’s use of derivatives, was an 8-year
battle with a trial that produced a 3,500-page transcript and
10,000 exhibits (Simpson 2003: C1). The corporate tax system is hav
ing trouble keeping up with today’s complex and globalized economy.
The corporate income tax has three fundamental flaws. The first
flaw is that the U.S. statutory tax rate is the second highest among the
30 major industrial countries (KPMG 2003). That high rate reduces
investment, encourages firms to move profits abroad, and provides
incentives to push the legal margins with complex tax shelters.
The second flaw is that the corporate tax base of net income or
profits is inherently complex because it relies on concepts, such as
capital gains and capitalization of long-lived assets, that are difficultto
consistently account for in a tax system. Costs of capitalized assets are
deducted through depreciation, amortization, and other rules. The
income tax rules for capitalized assets and capital gains are repeatedly
exploited in tax shelters, and they distort capital investment, business
reorganizations, and other decisions.
The third fundamental flaw is the gratuitous inconsistency that
Congress has injected into the tax code. One example is the different
treatment given to corporate debt and equity. Another example is the
different tax rules imposed on corporations and the half dozen other
types of businesses. Such inconsistencies have played a key role in the
tax shelters exploited by Enron and other firms. Worse, they distort
capital markets and channel investment into less productive uses.
This article discusses the most serious corporate tax distortions and
examines fundamental reforms to fix them. One option examined is
full repeal of the corporate tax. Alternately, the replacement of the
corporate income tax with a cash-flow tax is discussed. A cash-flow tax
would eliminate most of the serious distortions in the corporate tax
system by eliminating capital gains taxation, replacing capitalization
with expensing, and creating financial neutrality between debt and
equity. By cutting individual dividend and capital gains tax rates and
providing partial expensing treatment for business investment, the
2003 tax law was a good first step toward corporate tax reform (see
JCT 2003b).CATOJOURNAL,2740
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