Three recent articles have given me an idea which I think the most extreme on the left and the most extreme on the right could agree on. Companies should pay the statutory tax rate and clearly report on taxes paid by jurisdiction. With apologies to both camps, I have to admit this is an ESG issue even if neither group wants to call it such. As the ESG Culture Wars rage on—and are sure to intensify with House Hearings next year—it is hopefully ameliorative to the political atmosphere in America to find a topic on which both sides could agree. I will lay the groundwork for this assertion by summarizing these three articles.

The first two articles are recent posts on Forbes.com by Professor Shivaram Rajgopal, an accounting professor at the Columbia Business School. The first is “Why Investors Need Better Corporate Tax Disclosures—Part I” and the second is “Why Investors Need Better Corporate Tax Disclosures—Part II.” In each of his articles he uses Ford as a case study to make his more general points. The third article is by Laura Davison and Bloomberg and published in Fortune: “House Republicans target U.S. Chamber of Commerce as GOP battle against ‘woke capitalism’ revs up.”

Let’s start with Professor Rajgopal’s contributions. I read each one four times. The first time through I got the basic idea but couldn’t follow most of the technical accounting and tax details. The second time I got (I think) a few of them. The third time I got a headache. I decided to not read them a fourth time lest I induce my first migraine in 71 years 🤕.

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