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The 21% U.S. corporate tax rate is the biggest single variable in the sprawling 2025 tax debate, reports The Wall Street Journal, and the two parties are trying to turn that dial in opposite directions with major impacts for companies’ profits and federal revenue.
The rate could climb as high as 28% if Democrats win November’s elections and move as low as 15% if Republicans are successful.
President Biden’s plan for a 28% rate would reverse half of the GOP’s 2017 rate cut and push the U.S. corporate rate back near the highest among major economies. A 15% rate—which Republicans are pitching—would match the lowest level since 1935, boosting profits and rewarding shareholders. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told corporate executives last week that he wanted a 20% rate.
Each percentage point is worth more than $130 billion over a decade in tax revenue, creating a $1 trillion-plus gap between the poles of the parties’ positions and giving the largest U.S. companies an outsize interest in the election’s outcome.
