Noah Smith, Columnist

A Corporate Tax Cut Isn't Just a Giveaway to the Rich

Workers would benefit a lot, especially if the income-tax burden were shifted from the middle class to the wealthy.

October 16, 2017 at 10:00 AM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

This is Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett. He makes a fair point.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Corporate tax cuts are becoming a hot-button issue. Economist Larry Summers, a frequent policy adviser to Democrats, has denounced President Donald Trump’s corporate tax plan as a giveaway to the rich. Meanwhile, Kevin Hassett, the chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, has claimed that the plan would increase average wages by anywhere from $4,000 to $20,000 a year. The Tax Policy Center, a think tank made up of economists from previous Democratic and Republican administrations, sided with the skeptics, prompting conservative commentator Larry Kudlow to denounce the think tank.

With all this partisan fur flying, it’s hard to see clearly. On top of that, the corporate income tax is a devilishly tricky issue for economists to analyze.