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Update: Starbucks CEO calls for lower corporate tax rate

During his much publicized "town hall" meeting called to criticize Washington D.C. partisanship, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz also called for a lower corporate tax rate.
Associated Press
During his much publicized "town hall" meeting called to criticize Washington D.C. partisanship, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz also called for a lower corporate tax rate.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is calling for a lower corporate tax rate. Schultz made his comments during a town hall meeting Tuesday night hosted by the anti-partisanship group “No Labels”

Schultz has been in the news lately, not for coffee, but because of his campaign against the partisan fighting in Washington, DC. First, Schultz called for a boycott on campaign contributions. Then he wrote an open letter to America published in newspapers.

That was followed by a live web-streamed town hall meeting. Schultz said public companies are sitting on $1 trillion that could be used to jumpstart the economy. He blamed uncertainty stemming from the debt ceiling crisis, but also the nation’s corporate tax with a top rate of 35-percent.

“What I would do is simply say is you can’t have a lower tax rate unless there is tangible, measurable evidence that you are going to invest in job creation and you’ll see a significant stimulation in the economy,” Schultz said.

However, in 2008 the Government Accountability Office found that more than half of U.S. companies paid no federal income tax in at least one of the seven years that were reviewed.

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Copyright 2011 Northwest News Network

Since January 2004, Austin Jenkins has been the Olympia-based political reporter for the Northwest News Network. In that position, Austin covers Northwest politics and public policy as well as the Washington State legislature. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) Emmy-nominated public affairs program "Inside Olympia." Prior to joining the Northwest News Network, Austin worked as a television reporter in Seattle, Portland and Boise. Austin is a graduate of Garfield High School in Seattle and Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. Austin’s reporting has been recognized with awards from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, Public Radio News Directors Incorporated and the Society of Professional Journalists.