Corporations Are Making More But Paying Less: Kathryn Edwards

America is now living in what might be called the Age of the Corporation. Corporate profits, after having reached 8% of GDP only once in the previous 94 years, have averaged 9% since 2021. The statutory corporate income tax rate, meanwhile, is now just 21% — down from 52% in 1960 — as federal tax revenue from corporations has fallen from 4% of GDP to just 1.8% in that same period.

That’s how it should be, conservative economists would argue. Corporate taxes are among the most distortionary because capital is mobile. If the federal government taxes a company too ...