With the country in the middle of a needless war and Trump making plans to end democracy, it seems a bit of a sidetrack to be talking about corporate tax policy, but sometimes we need a diversion. And the Trump sleaze is getting so extreme, it deserves some comment.

The latest are plans by the administration to greenlight a series of tax avoidance strategies that will cost an estimated $100 billion in revenue over the next decade. To be clear, this is not big bucks in terms of the federal budget. It is a bit more than 0.1 percent of projected expenditures over the next decade, but the scams raise the bigger issue of corporate tax avoidance/evasion.

The legislated corporate tax rate is 21%. In the first three quarters of 2025 (the period for which we have data), corporations paid 19.4% of their profits in taxes. The gap between the legislated rate and what they paid came to roughly $50 billion at annual rate for last year, or five times the size of the avoidance issues highlighted in the Washington Post piece.

And the problem is likely much larger. The Biden administration had actively tried to crack down on corporate tax avoidance. The tax share of corporate profits had fallen as low as 15.3% in 2018. It’s likely that the tax share will be headed downward with the Trump administration again controlling........

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