The Public Does NOT Believe Corporations Are Overtaxed

Donald Trump, and his congressional Republican cohorts, think giant corporations are taxed to heavily (in spite of the fact that about a third pay no taxes and the rest pay far less than the top tax rate of 39.6%). They lie in saying American corporations pay more than corporations in any of the other developed nations. And they hope you'll believe that lie so they can give those corporations a huge tax cut. Trump wants to cut the corporate tax rate to only 15%, and congressional Republicans want to cut it to 20%. They would have corporations paying a smaller tax rate than many middle class Americans.

The excuse they use is that cutting the tax rate will create jobs. That's a lie. Only one thing creates new jobs -- a rise in the demand for goods/services. Job creation has nothing to do with the tax rate. They will also tell you that if the rate is cut, then corporations will bring the trillions they are hiding overseas back to this country and use it to create jobs. That's another lie. Those corporations could bring money back right now to create new jobs and pay no tax on it -- because employee salaries are a business deduction subtracted from profits before taxes are figured.

Fortunately, it looks like the public is not buying their lies. About 65% of the public says corporations pay too little in taxes, while only a minuscule 11% say they pay too much.

The public thinks the tax system is unfair, but not to the wealthy or corporations. They think the tax system favors the rich and corporations over the middle class. And they also think the plan put forward by Trump would do the same thing -- give the wealthy and the rich a big cut, but not the middle class.

It looks like Trump and the Republicans have a lot of convincing to do before they can pass their tax giveaway to the corporations and the rich.

These charts reflect the results of a new ABC News / Washington Post Poll -- done between September 18th and 21st of a random national sample of 1,002 adults, with a 3.5 point margin of error.