Corporate Tax Dodge: The Decline of Oregon's Corporate Income Tax

The author, in study for the Oregon Center for Public Policy, says corporations operating in Oregon pay 71 percent less in state corporate taxes as a share of the economy than they did in the late 1970s; the tax burden has shifted to individual income taxpayers, with low-income taxpayers the hardest hit. The growth in passthrough businesses is not responsible for the decline in corporate taxes: tax breaks and tax shelters are responsible, the author says.