Reform corporate tax code

Columbus Dispatch: It’s no surprise that the United States remains low-ranked on the newly released International Tax Competiveness Index from the Tax Foundation: It places 32nd overall out of 34 industrialized nations. What’s even worse is that the United States ranks last in the area of corporate taxes and is one of only three nations that haven’t cut the corporate tax rate since 2000 – showing that other countries are recognizing the importance of reforming business taxes while the U.S. falls further behind.

Besting the United States are a host of countries with economies both large and small: Estonia tops the list, followed by New Zealand, Switzerland and Sweden.

DON’T BERATE COMPANIES

This year’s report comes a year after President Barack Obama vowed to stop U.S. companies from moving their headquarters overseas in what are called corporate inversion deals, which can save companies millions of dollars by putting them under the jurisdiction of other countries’ tax laws. The obvious solution if companies are acting in their best interests by doing this isn’t to berate them; it’s to change the tax code so that they won’t need to look for a way around it.