During the first presidential debate between McCain and Obama on September 27, Senator McCain said:
Right now, the United States of American business pays the second-highest business taxes in the world, 35 percent. Ireland pays 11 percent.
Now, if you’re a business person, and you can locate any place in the world, then, obviously, if you go to the country where it’s 11 percent tax versus 35 percent, you’re going to be able to create jobs, increase your business, make more investment, et cetera.
In 2007, according to the IRS, corporate tax rates range from 15% to 39%. Companies with income above $18m fall in a bracket that pays 35%. But even assuming McCain was using the higher 39% bracket as his reference, despite citing the lower rate, there are a number of countries that have higher tax rates. Barbados has a 40% corporate tax rate, Guyana has a 45% corporate tax rate and India has a 40% corporate tax rate. (Those are just three examples.)
The Tax Foundation, a non-profit that focuses on tax plan analysis, does rank the US second in global taxes, but their figure limits the comparison to nations that belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group which only includes 30 countries. So McCain would have to ignore at least 162 countries from the UN to mean “the world” if he even used that oft-cited study as his reference point.
Additionally, Ireland’s lowest corporate tax rate is 12.5%, not 11%.
John McCain is lying, both in his ranking of the US as having the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, and about Ireland’s tax rate.
Tags: McCain
September 27th, 2008 at 2:54 am
NYT’s Economix blog on this subject indicates it’s a lie.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:30 am
[...] Lie Count - Tracking our future leaders’ lies » Blog Archive » Does the US pay the second highes… (tags: gfmorris_comment) Posted September 27th, 2008 in del.icio.us Links. [...]
September 30th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Liar! Too bad nobody over 65 who watched the debate will ever know. They probably don’t even have the internet! Its funny that the young and educated like Obama but the old and unedicated like McCain - the same people who will believe his lies without question…
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:20 am
@Brian,
Day after day I keep seeing Obama supporters spewing hateful venom at anyone who supports McCain. What happened to all the “politics of change?” Whether it’s the rock band Heart, photographer Jill Greenberg or the countless other bloggers out there, you Obama supporters are really full of Ill towards anyone not in your camp.
To say that people who support McCain are uneducated is pretty sad and pathetic. Also, to post so anonymously. It seems like I’m seeing this childish behavior more and more from Obama supporters.
I honestly believe Obama himself is above this kind of crap.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I don’t know where McCain is getting 35% from; however, he does say “business tax” and not income tax. Corporations pay income tax, payroll tax, property tax, and possibly other taxes (depending on the industry).
To get a true comparison and to declare this a definitive lie requires more extensive research.