Corporate-tax proposal in Senate stokes economists’ concern

WASHINGTON: A fresh initiative in the US Senate to put a tax penalty on big companies as a way of forcing higher minimum wages prompted a sceptical reaction among economists including a top adviser to former President Barack Obama.

“This is a really big, complicated, brand new proposal. It is ‘possible’ that it works, ” Jason Furman, who served in Obama’s White House and is now a professor of economic policy at Harvard University, said in a tweet.