[tater]

I agree. Actually the US corporate tax system is more like the old income tax system when it had higher rates, and far more loopholes.

That's why I said up the thread that the US should pass a very l;ow corporate rate, but with zero loopholes. 14 or 15%, flat.

BTW, I think that the rate should apply to churches as well. The "gentleman's agreement" that churches will not engage in ay political activity has always been BS. As such, I don't think they meet 501c3 (note that this applies to any entity that is at all partisan).

Anyway, you cannot compare income taxes from the past without a heavy weighting applied, as well as good data on what the actual effective rates were. The weighting applies to tax revenue as a % of GDP weighted to spending. For a long time it was thought enough for the federal government to spend ~1% of GDP per year. It's past 20% now. Even under FDR it was mostly under 10% of GDP.

SPENDING is the problem, not taxation. Cut federal spending to 10% of GDP, and taxes can be far lower. The pitch to democrats can simply be "we want a New Deal, exactly the same as FDR had it!" (don't tell the hoi polloi that this means hacking spending by over a factor of 2, just pitch it as Rooseveltian socialism).

This is easy to accomplish. ~2/3 of spending is "entitlements." Cut entitlements by 75%, and you've just halved the budget—and you'll still be spending far more than FDR did on social programs.