Tax Code Hurts U.S. Firms in M&A Market, Roundtable Study Finds
- Business assets worth $510 billion lost, group’s report says
- Group of CEOs wants legislation that cuts corporate rate
The Empire State Building stands in the Manhattan skyline at dusk in this aerial photograph taken above New York, U.S., on Friday, June 19, 2015. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell, with the gauge dropping below its price for the past 50 days, while Treasuries retreated.
Photographer: Craig Warga/BloombergThe U.S. lost $510 billion in business assets that were acquired by foreign companies from 2004 to 2016 in part because its corporate income tax rate exceeds other countries’, according to a study released Tuesday by a group of top U.S. business leaders.
Cutting the U.S. corporate rate to 20 percent from the current 35 percent would have meant a net gain of $1.2 trillion in such assets and would have kept 4,700 companies in America over that period, said the study from the Business Roundtable, a group of chief executive officers from dozens of corporations. The group includes the heads of Apple Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Exxon Mobil Corp., Boeing Co. and others.