A staple of those on the left is their continuous objection to the thought of reducing America’s federal corporate tax rate. You would not be hard-pressed to find signs at recent protest marches or postings on social media from liberals commonly stating their blanket objection to the reduction of the corporate tax rate. Yet that doesn’t necessarily jive with the long-stated position of our former president, Barack Obama, something many of them are probably not even aware of.

The current federal corporate tax rate (we’ll ignore any state and local tax issues in this article) stands at 35%. Many in Washington and elsewhere have been calling for a reduction in that rate for a long time. Compared to countries around the world, America has one of the very highest corporate tax rates, and everyone, including former President Obama, understands that this high rate hurts our economy and in turn our country (well, almost everyone: Hillary Clinton seems to have a different opinion, but that’s a can of worms for another day). President Obama repeatedly called for a reduction of the rate down to 28% throughout his presidency, something the smart money would say those calling for no corporate tax rate reductions would somehow be surprised to hear despite it being such readily available information. Others have called for a more drastic cut. Mitt Romney at one point called for a 25% rate (not SO different than Obama’s). Others would like to see it closer to the UK’s 20% or even Ireland’s 12.5%. Of course, in conjunction with a rate reduction, almost everyone agrees it is high time for comprehensive tax reform that would also eliminate some of the “loopholes” or deductions currently in place. While much of the fanfare in that regard focuses on easy targets like executive jets and other perks, the most common focus and the area that most people seem to agree needs to be fixed is on the taxation of foreign profits by American companies operating multi-nationally in our global economy. There’s been a lot of discussion the last few years on this subject, but not very much was achieved under Obama in that regard.

So the question then becomes, if President Obama spent his entire presidency calling for a reduction in the corporate tax rate like he did, because even he understands that our current rate is completely out of step with reality, why is the typical marcher/protester/social-media-poster on the left still fighting the lost battle against reducing corporate rates? Why, if you were to ask almost any liberal on the street if they think that Obama wanted to lower corporate tax rates, would their answer almost invariably be “No!”?

It would seem the answers to these questions are quite obvious: so many Americans have become so entrenched on their side of the political spectrum, blindly adhering to what they think are their side’s causes (even when they’re not, as in this case!), that they are happy to ignore reality, and even happier to not spend the time learning about the very issues they so readily oppose with their glittery signs and mean-spirited posts. The fact is, taxation is complicated. Perhaps it shouldn’t be, and perhaps all taxation should be drastically simplified (that article will have to come later in this tax series). Nonetheless, as a political issue, taxation, even a sub-part like corporate taxation, is not something that can be effectively argued or even discussed in a tweet or in a meme. When we as citizens resort to slogans in an attempt to demonstrate that our side is right when it comes to a complex issue like taxation, well, we end up looking rather uninformed at best, and an idiot at worst.

The issue of fixing corporate taxation is a difficult one. The ONE thing that almost everyone can agree on is that the current rate is too high. An intelligent public discussion of how low the rate should be cut to is terribly needed. At the same time, we as a country need to discuss which deductions need to be eliminated or reduced in conjunction with a reduced rate so that overall tax revenue remains balanced. In other words, a fairer, more balanced, less dysfunctional system. We need to discuss the issue of taxation of corporate profits earned overseas, and how to get American companies to repatriate the estimated $2 trillion in profits they currently hold overseas. Many of those companies are working with the government to try to fix the problem, they are openly on record stating that they want to bring the money back if only the system will allow them. Holding to this incorrect belief that being on the left means you have to oppose a corporate tax rate reduction because that fits your belief that corporations are “bad” is not part of the reality of the conversation. It wasn’t ever part of Obama’s reality either. And continuously holding that unsupportable position out there as if it’s a viable option or even as if it’s what the leadership of the Democrat party believes in is only hurting the chances that meaningful tax reform will ever be accomplished. Time to put the silly sign down, learn about the issue, and contribute as a citizen towards getting our politicians to make decisions on the actual issues, not a made up meaningless one like “No To Corporate Tax Rate Cuts!” that even former President Obama understands must be reduced.

Ed – the author of this article is a CPA.