Taking on America's tax burden

BURIED within the United States' Internal Revenue Service website is a list of wisecracks about taxes - call it self-deprecation in the digital age. But sift through the witticisms that link taxes to morality and mortality, and a more complex debate about tax revenue and spending emerges. To Mark Weinberger, global chairman and CEO of global auditing firm EY, the US is at the losing end of this debate amid global competition, even as the paying of corporate tax has been dubbed a matter of patriotism by no less than President Obama.

"I think it's dangerous to have an outlier tax system that is not competitive," Mr Weinberger tells The Business Times. His support for tax cuts comes as the OECD has begun work to stop companies from taking advantage of tax treaties - meant to avoid double taxation - to avoid paying taxes back home. US technology giants Google and Amazon have been singled out as examples.

"So much of this debate is not around companies doing illegal things. It's about taking advantages of laws that are on the books that they say don't operate well," says Mr Weinberger. To set this in context, he looks backward. History speaks to the yawning lag in tax reform between the US - which charges corporations a tax rate of 40 per cent - and the rest of the world.