Cut taxes on business to restore American competitiveness (Rep. Richard Hanna)

What we know is that a vibrant, diverse economy is directly linked to our ability to compete – something I learned well in my 30 years as a businessman in Upstate New York. Increasingly, such competition is on an international basis.

Compared to the rest of the world, our tax rate is punitive and discourages business investment and job creation in the United States. Other countries have taken notice of this penalizing tax and its effects on their economies.

Recently, Japan cut its corporate tax rate, formerly the highest among developed nations. European nations that once boasted exorbitantly high corporate tax rates have dramatically lowered them. Even our northern neighbor Canada is at 18 percent-and the Canadians are still cutting.

The average rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries is just over 25 percent, meaning the effective U.S. corporate tax burden, when state and local taxes are considered, can be 50 percent higher than some of our developed competitors, rendering our companies and workers less competitive, if at all.

Such a tax climate is occurring in the country that has been the creator of and home to the most successful multi-national companies in history: the United States.

But we’re losing our edge as a result, and it can only be stopped and reserved if we incentivize companies to stay here. It is simply unrealistic to expect businesses to pay more in this country when they can pay less someplace else. The United States needs a corporate tax structure roughly equal to that of our competitors.

The American Competitiveness Act accomplishes that goal, allowing our nation’s businesses to compete in the global marketplace in the 21st Century, and it provides the motivation to make the necessary structural changes to our tax code that are vital to our long-term economic success.