And how much of THIS tax cut goes to the middle class?
House Leaders Are Pushing to Cut Corporate Taxes
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 -- House Republican leaders are nearing agreement on a bill to give nearly $60 billion in additional tax breaks to corporations, brushing aside Democratic complaints that the measure would deepen the federal budget deficit.
According to a draft circulated among Republican lawyers, the bill, which is expected to come up for a vote next week at the House Ways and Means Committee, would gradually reduce the corporate tax rate for most companies from 35 to 32 percent.
It would also relax or abolish a number of longstanding tax regulations on foreign profits of American multinationals, a move that Congressional tax analysts say could save companies more than $40 billion in taxes over the next decade.
The intended beneficiaries are companies that manufacture products in the United States and small businesses. But the definition of manufacturing includes movies, software, oil and gas refining and engineering services. That means the beneficiaries would also include Time Warner, Disney, Microsoft and giant engineering companies like Bechtel and Fluor.
The proposals are in the latest draft of a bill to replace a tax break for American exporters that the World Trade Organization has declared an illegal trade subsidy. The European Union has threatened to retaliate with up to $4 billion a year in tariffs on American products if the United States fails to repeal the old break.
But the original issue has become a magnet for lobbying from competing business groups, all looking to either protect their existing tax breaks or obtain some new ones.
