SOMETHING THE RIGHT AND LEFT CAN AGREE ON - AND OBAMA DO IN A SNAP: IT'S TIME TO MAKE THE CORPORATE TAX RATE PROGRESSIVE

MANY ON THE LEFT ENDORSED THE IDEA IN 2004; COMMON DREAMS:

More than 117 million people, representing 56 percent of the American labor force, work for businesses that employ less than 500 people.

Small business owners face many challenges when competing with global giants.

Most small businesses are sole proprietorships and, as such, the owners pay taxes at their personal tax rate. A married small business owner whose store made between $56,800 and $114,650 in profits in 2003 would have been taxed at a 25 percent rate. A more successful small businessperson, one whose business generated more than $312,000 in profits, would pay tax at a 35 percent rate.

In contrast, the federal corporate tax rate is 35 percent, but few large corporations pay anywhere near that amount. Armies of corporate lobbyists, tax attorneys, and accountants have won new laws and mined the existing tax code for clever deductions and tax credits that have dramatically reduced the tax rate of America’s largest businesses.

The nation’s corporations were estimated to pay less than15 percent of their net income in federal taxes last year, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, a widely respected non-partisan research organization.

The American personal income tax is a progressive system that taxes those with the highest incomes at the highest rates. The American corporate tax system has evolved in an opposite direction, whereby smaller neighborhood businesses pay higher tax rates than giant continent-hopping multinationals. When big businesses don’t pay their fair share of taxes, small businesses that remain the economic backbone of our society suffer, putting tens of millions of jobs at risk.

... Corporate tax reform, properly done, can reinvigorate America’s small businesses, restore public confidence in the fairness of the tax system...

COMMON DREAMS WANTED THE "BIG CORPORATIONS" TO PAY LOTS MORE.

I SAY, LET'S GIVE ALL CORPORATIONS A BREAK - AND THE BIGGEST BREAK TO THE SMALLEST BUSINESSES.

• WE SHOULD MAKE THE RATE ON THE FIRST 5 MILLION 5%, AND THE TAX ON THE AMOUNT ABOVE $5 MILLION TO $10 MILLION 10%, AND THE AMOUNT FROM ABOVE $10 MILLION TO $20 MILLION 20% AND THE AMOUNT ABOVE THAT 27%.

• EVERYONE GETS A BREAK AND THE SMALL BUSINESSES - THE HEART AND SOUL OF AMERICAN MARKETPLACE - GETS THE BIGGEST BREAK.

• I'D PREFER IT IF CORPORATIONS PAID NO TAXES AND WE MADE THE INCOME TAX RATE FLAT AND CUT THE CAPITAL GAINS RATE LOWER, BUT MAKING THE CORPORATE TAX RATES PROGRESSIVE IN THIS WAY WOULD STIMULATE THE ECONOMY AND BE EMBRACEABLE BY OBAMA AND THE LEFT.

HOW CAN OBAMA AND THE LEFT SAY "NO"!?