A Status Quo Rate in Trump Tax Bill Is Big Win for Corporations

Executives at America’s largest corporations watched Donald Trump sign a massive tax-cut bill without any change in their own companies’ tax rates — and were grateful for their good luck.

For most C-Suite occupants, the paramount objective in the frenetic deal-making over the multitrillion-dollar tax-cut package was always protecting what they already had: a permanent cut in the corporate income tax from 35% to 21% they won under Trump’s 2017 tax law that has broadly benefited companies from Verizon Communications Inc. to WalMart Inc.

Corporate lobbyists entered this year’s fracas well aware that nothing is truly permanent in tax law ...