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Fact Check: Higher Corporate Tax Revenue After GOP Tax Reform Debunks Another Democrat Myth

April 18, 2022

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that corporate tax revenue is set to hit a new record of $454 billion – 22 percent higher than last year’s record. CBO’s analysis contradicts President Biden’s false claim that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) led to less revenue from corporations.

This amount exceeds CBO’s own forecasts prior to enactment of TCJA and debunks Democrats’ main excuse to raise taxes on American businesses.

Even the Biden Administration predicts that under Republicans’ tax reform law, corporate tax revenues will climb in 2025 to an even higher amount than the Trump administration predicted in 2017. As the Tax Foundation points out, “[I]t seems clear that the 2017 tax reform did not substantially reduce the revenue potential of the corporate tax.”

KEY POINTS:

Corporate tax revenue is shattering records under Republican tax reform.

  • Corporate tax revenue is coming in 22 percent higher than last year’s record level, according to the CBO’s most recent monthly budget review.
  • Corporate tax revenue is set to hit a new record of $454 billion. CBO had predicted in June 2017 that corporate tax revenue would only hit $389 billion in 2022.
  • As a share of GDP, corporate tax revenue is on track to reach its highest level since 2015 (1.9 percent of GDP).

Overall tax revenue is also strong, including individual, payroll, and other taxes. 

  • Individual income tax receipts reached an all-time high of $2.04 trillion in FY2021. Receipts are already coming in 36 percent higher in FY2022.
  • Total federal tax collections, including payroll and other taxes, are on track to reach $5.04 trillion in FY22, or 21.0 percent of GDP. This would be a new all-time high in both cases.

Democrats ignore this progress in favor of raising taxes even higher on Americans, including in President Biden’s most recent budget request.

  • Democrats seek the highest sustained tax burden in American history. House Budget Committee Republicans’ analysis shows $58 trillion in tax hikes (an 80 percent increase over previous 10 years) that breaks President Biden’s tax pledge by hitting the middle class and small family businesses, and does even more socialist spending.

READ: House Budget Committee Analysis, “Biden’s FY23 Budget: Another Year of Crisis” (PDF)

  • Democrats’ tax plan makes inflation worse when it is already 276 percent higher than predicted by Biden’s budget last year because of higher spending. But higher taxes will also result in higher prices for consumers. American families paid a $5,000 inflation tax in 2021 and view Washington spending as a big part of the problem.
  • Biden’s international tax increases make it better to be a foreign company or worker. American companies will pay a global minimum tax rate higher than the 15 percent rate the Biden Administration will allow for other countries. This economic surrender will make Americans less competitive and will drive manufacturing, research, and investment overseas. Worse, America will be less competitive with a higher tax rate than Communist China, sending jobs fleeing overseas.
  • Democrats’ revive their supercharged death tax that targets family-owned businesses and farms, costing at least 1 million jobs. Analysis by the Family Business Estate Tax Coalition, Democrats’ death tax will destroy over a million jobs, slash paychecks for workers by $32 for every $100 in revenue raised, and shrink our economy by $100 billion over the next decade.