The top rate for American corporations — almost 39 percent, including a 35 percent federal rate
and a bit more for the average state rate — is among the highest in the world, according to the Tax Foundation.
In other words, tycoons would try to structure their incomes to pay not at a 39.6 percent top personal rate but at a 15 percent corporate rate.
It would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, without which Trump would have
paid less than 4 percent in taxes for 2005; with it, he paid 25 percent.
Even large, profitable corporations paid an average federal rate of only 14 percent —
and Boeing, Verizon, General Electric and Priceline paid no federal income tax over a five-year period, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.