Donald Trump wants to reduce corporate taxes. Kamala Harris wants to increase them. Yet a sampling of contribution reports shows considerable support for Harris among corporate executives.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will clash over corporate tax rates in the next two months.
As President, Trump pushed for lower corporate tax rates and got them. In 2017, Congress slashed the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%.
Corporate tax as we know it today was born in 1909. The rate has been as low as 1% in 1910, and as high as 52.8% in 1968. According to the IRS, the average rate from 1909 to 2024 has been 32.08%.
In 2022 under President Joe Biden, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which mandated that large corporations pay at least a 15% rate regardless of how many deductions and credits they have.
Trump says he will try to lower corporate taxes further. Harris proposes raising them to 28%.
Yet, judging by the campaign contributions I’ve looked at, corporate executives appear to be leaning more toward Harris than Trump.
Here’s a look at four prominent corporations’ tax rates, their political contributions in the 2023-2024 election cycle, and my opinion of their stock.
I chose these four companies because they were featured in a Fortune magazine article in 2022 about companies that “paid next to nothing — or nothing at all – in Taxes in 2021.” Since then, their taxes have gone up, at least in part because of the Biden minimum.Amazon.com
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) paid less than 19% in corporate taxes in four of the past five years. It paid a bundle (54% of pretax profits) in 2022, however.
