tl;dr: Haven’t seen any good data on global effective corporate tax rates around. Found a report (links at bottom). Thought some of you might find it interesting. So, on another board I was explaining tax treaties as most of the other posters were under the false assumption that American companies were keeping cash overseas to avoid double taxation (lol). The conversation naturally progressed to the actual reason they keep cash overseas and inevitably to the “zomgwtf America 35% business tax rate!” The “35% corporate income tax rate” in America makes me shudder every time I hear it. First, you have to explain tax treaties to people and then you have to explain statutory vs. effective tax rates. Probably one of the reasons it makes me shudder is that in the past I have not had much luck in finding any relevant or reliable information or reports on what the average effective tax rate is. Usually you get swamped in a sea of sensationalist news stories (zomg GE pays negative taxes!) Finally I found a report by PwC (paid for by Business Rountable) that took a stab at calculating the effective corporate income tax rate in not only America, but around the globe. Published April 14, 2011 it covers the 2006-2009 years. Report here: http://businessroundtable.org/studies-and-reports/global-effective-tax-rates/ Latest year studied ('09) graph: http://i.imgur.com/oELKt.jpg
