Government Affairs V.P., Mark Johnson, and Director of Communications Robert Haase participated in a video conference call on Wednesday with Congresswoman Kim Schrier’s staff member along with several corporate representatives. The NRF convened the meeting as part of their Virtual Fly-In Week.

The goal of the meeting was to instill the understanding that a corporate tax increase would be detrimental to businesses, large and small.

The Administration has proposed raising corporate tax rates to raise revenues to fund major investments, including the current infrastructure plan making its way through congress.

We believe raising revenues through a corporate tax increase is not a good idea for several reasons, including:

• Raising the corporate tax rate to the suggested 28% would make the U.S. rank among the highest in the industrialized world and a disincentive to investment and impose further harm to the U.S. economy. The average corporate tax rate for U.S. corporations, state and federal combined, would be 34%.
• Retailers have already been adversely affected with loss of business due to not being considered essential services during periods of government-imposed lockdowns.
• For retailers that are finally moving out of the loss position due to the pandemic, a 33.3% increase in tax on profits would greatly hinder their recovery opportunities.
• Raising the tax rate would harm many of the retailers that have incurred debt to stay in business.
• Retailers would continue to close their least profitable stores, resulting in jobs lost and impacts on surrounding businesses.

If you share our concerns, please reach out to your Congressional representatives.