Prof. Edward Kleinbard Offers Expert Opinion

Provides testimony at the House Ways and Means Committee on global tax environment 

By Johnny Flores

USC Gould Prof. Edward Kleinbard testified today on the global tax environment at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in Washington, D.C.  He discussed implications for international tax reform and how recent developments are impacting the U.S. International tax system. 

Prof. Edward Kleinbard at the House Ways and Means Committee meeting, Wednesday.

Kleinbard, one of the nation's top international tax experts, is a former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.

"In short, U.S. multinationals in general pay non-U.S. tax at rates that are the envy of their foreign competitors,” Kleinbard told committee members. "...I believe that the most important first step in broader international reform is to make the United States a more congenial tax environment for inbound and domestic investment, through a lower domestic corporate income tax rate and general limitations on interest deductibility, to limit the effects of domestic base erosion."

Kleinbard testified alongside Michelle Hanlon, professor of accounting at the MIT Sloan School of Management; Raymond Wiacek, partner at Jones Day; and Itai Grinberg, associate professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center. 

Kleinbard' is the author of the highly acclaimed book, We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money.