Corporate Tax Reform Should Encourage Investment, Not Profit-taking

The United States needs faster growth to create the good jobs and higher living standards that Americans expect, writes Rob Atkinson in The Hill. The best way to produce higher growth is to speed up the rate of investment in new capital equipment (which includes machines, equipment, software and the like), thereby boosting workers' productivity, which has lagged significantly since the end of the Great Recession. Unfortunately, current U.S. tax policies tend to do a poor job of rewarding capital investment. In fact, rather than encouraging new investments, tax policies encourage companies to distribute profits made from things they have done in the past. It is a recipe for resting on your laurels, not reaching for the future.