Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., said he expects President Obama to call for lowering the corporate income tax rate during the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.
McConnell made the prediction during an appearance on
The statutory corporate tax rate is currently as high as 35 percent, although many corporations pay a much lower effective tax rate after taking into account various deductions and tax credits.
The White House has been tight-lipped about the contents of the State of the Union address, but Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently indicated some willingness to cut the corporate tax rate (see
However, the Obama administration reportedly wants any changes in corporate taxes to be revenue neutral, so it won’t reduce the total amount of tax revenue collected from corporations. The presidentially appointed bipartisan deficit commission in its recent report recommended cutting the corporate tax rate.
Geithner has been holding meetings with CFOs and other business leaders, as well as representatives from organized labor, academia and think tanks, to gauge their opinions on ways to encourage businesses to create more jobs. An unnamed administration official told the
One of the executives who has been providing input to Geithner is GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who was named Friday as head of the president's new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.