World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The General Accountability Office, a US government office that does research for Congress and which has a very high reputation for its objectivity and professionalism, undertook a study of corporate tax rates in the US.  The study was undertaken at the request of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).  Apparently Senator Sanders requested the study because US corporations have argued that US corporate tax rates are too high.  The facts are that the nominal corporate tax rate in the US is 35% which is unquestionably one of the highest rates in the world.  But the effective tax rate–the amount that corporations actually pay after credits and deductions are applied–is remarkably low.  According to the GAO:

“In each year from 2006 to 2012, at least two-thirds of all active corporations had no federal income tax liability. Larger corporations were more likely to owe tax. Among large corporations (generally those with at least $10 million in assets) less than half—42.3 percent—paid no federal income tax in 2012. Of those large corporations whose financial statements reported a profit, 19.5 percent paid no federal income tax that year.”

The accompanying chart is revealing:

Percentage of Corporations That Reported No Tax Liability after Tax Credits, Tax Years 2006 to 2012

Nicholas Kristof offers additional information on this topic in the New York Times.  Referring to a new study by Oxfam, Kristof writes:

“A study to be released Thursday says that for each dollar America’s 50 biggest companies paid in federal taxes between 2008 and 2014, they received $27 back in federal loans, loan guarantees and bailouts.”

I wish I had that tax rate.

President Robert Mugabe has been the leader of Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980.  He has clung to power despite crippling inflation, a poorly performing economy, and charges of widespread economic and political corruption.  He has been challenged several times, most recently by Morgan Tsvangirai in a widely discredited election in 2013.  It appears, however, that discontent is boiling over with large protests–themselves a rare event in Zimbabwe’s politics.   Mugabe is 92 years old, and while he should be admired for his role in leading Zimbabwe out of white minority control, he is obviously not competent to lead the country any longer.

The US and China have an annual exchange of official papers that accuse each other of human rights abuses.  Americans are regularly informed about the constraints on the political rights of Chinese citizens.  The Chinese, however, have a list of human rights that most Americans would not recognize:  the right to be free from gun violence, the right to be free from poverty, and the right to health insurance.  These differences are very important, and should be recognized as such.  For its part, the Chinese have explicitly rejected the idea of universal human values, believing instead that all human rights are culturally determined.