Corporate Income Tax Reform: Dreaming On

Both political parties are calling for corporate tax reform without agreement on specifics. Proposals to broaden the corporate tax base to pay for lower rates or to eliminate taxes on corporate repatriations while trying to prevent income shifting do not address the main problems of taxing multinational corporations in a global economy. This article discusses the need for more fundamental structural reforms and offers up two ideas securing international agreement on better rules to allocate profits of multinationals among taxing jurisdictions or, alternatively, replacing the U.S. corporate tax with full taxation of dividends and accrued capital gains of U.S. shareholders.