Trump And May Want To Slash Corporate Taxes, Keeping Businesses At Home
President-elect Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Theresa May are both racing corporate taxes to the bottom, hoping that added incentive will keep businesses at home while attracting foreign enterprises.
May officially endorsed lowering Britain’s corporate tax rate from 20% to 17% on Monday, while Trump is promoting hacking the US rate from 35% to 15%, the Wall Street Journal reports. That’s according to what Trump said on the campaign trail, and while he’s likely to push for it once he’s in office, it’s far from a done deal.
Following the Brexit vote, May has been working to improve business confidence in the nation, even going as far as encouraging companies not to pull investments from the UK's property market. A KPMG study in September revealed that 76% of the UK's top businesses were considering pulling their corporate HQ's out of the country due to uncertainty following the referendum—this tax cut may encourage the opposite.
As for the US, Trump’s tax plans first needs to pass domestic political scrutiny, which will be easier considering Republicans control both the Senate and the House, but not so simple when it comes to the budget deficit. [WSJ]
