TAX FIGHT LOOMS

Abstract

PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s plan to raise hundreds of billions of dollars through increased taxes on business to slow a ballooning deficit is colliding with his effort to spur the economy and boost employment by promoting U.S. exports, industry leaders say. Rolled out as part of the fiscal 2011 budget proposal are a series of new taxes, reinstated taxes, and a significant reduction of multinational corporations’ ability to defer taxes on overseas earnings. It is feared that such tax policy reform will impede economic growth and make it harder to create jobs and lower America’s near double-digit unemployment rate. The proposed changes to the U.S. tax code bump up against Obama’s recently announced initiative to double exports in five years, a jump that would push U.S. overseas sales to $3 trillion annually and, the White House says, create 2 million new jobs. But chemical industry executives contend that Obama’s budget would discourage job creation by ...