Business Roundtable to oppose corporate tax increase to pay for infrastructure

The Business Roundtable is pushing back on a proposal to raise the corporate tax rate to pay for President Biden’s infrastructure package, a plan the administration is set to announce Wednesday.

The White House shared details of the infrastructure plan with lawmakers on Tuesday. The $2 trillion proposal will be funded by raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, as well as creating a global tax on corporate earnings, a source familiar with the plan confirmed to The Hill Tuesday. 

“Business Roundtable strongly opposes corporate tax increases as a pay-for for infrastructure investment. Policymakers should avoid creating new barriers to job creation and economic growth, particularly during the recovery,” Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten said in a statement on Tuesday.

Bolten called on Congress to come up with a solution to fund infrastructure.

“To the extent that infrastructure investment, given its unique economic benefits and the need for a rapid recovery from COVID-19, is deficit-funded in the short term, Congress should set a course for steady, reliable funding for infrastructure over the long term,” he said.

Biden will formally unveil the plan on Wednesday in Pittsburgh to improve roads, bridges and broadband as well as manufacturing. The plan is part of a two-part package. 

Congressional Democrats have indicated that while they would like the bill to be a bipartisan effort, they may have to go it alone, passing the bill through a budget process called reconciliation. Reconciliation would give Democrats the ability to bypass the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate. 

The Business Roundtable has called for infrastructure investment and a bipartisan solution so a package can pass by regular order in Congress.

Brendan Bechtel, chairman and CEO of Bechtel Group and chair of the Business Roundtable Infrastructure Committee, estimated a lower investment on infrastructure is needed than that included in Biden’s plan.

“Business Roundtable estimates that an investment of approximately $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion is necessary to return U.S. physical infrastructure to a state of good repair, expand capacity to meet expected demand and invest in new green infrastructure,” he said in a statement.