Democrats winning Georgia Senate runoff will cause corporate tax hike: Former Home Depot CEO

Former Home Depot and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli warned on Wednesday that corporate taxes will increase if Democrats gain control of the Senate.

He argued on “Mornings with Maria” that a corporate tax increase will put an end to onshoring experienced under the Trump administration.

Onshoring is the practice of transferring an overseas business operation back to the country from which it was originally relocated.

“The last four years, we’ve been very encouraged about the onshoring that was taking place, bringing jobs, good U.S. jobs back to corporate America,” Nardelli said.  “I think now we may see reshoring, which means coming out of China, but going to countries like Vietnam and others in Asia to avoid corporate tax."

FACEBOOK BEGINS BLOCKING GEORGIA SENATE RUNOFF ADS

Nardelli, who lives in Georgia, made the comments on Wednesday as Democrats were projected to win at least one of the two Georgia Senate runoff races, inching closer to keeping Republicans from holding on to control of the upper body of Congress.

Democrat Raphael Warnock is projected to defeat Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., according to Fox News' Decision Desk early Wednesday.

The focus now shifts to the second race between Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff, who are locked in a tight race.

With Warnock's projected victory, Democrats are one win away from control of the Senate, making it more likely that President-elect Joe Biden would be able to pass his agenda through both the House and Senate. If Perdue prevails over Ossoff, Republicans would be able to foil many of the White House's plans.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

“I think we are going to see the two Senate seats move to the other side of the aisle,” Nardelli said on Wednesday.

“Had there been a balance in the Senate, I think we would have seen a slower implementation of many of the campaign promises that the president-elect has made,” he continued.

WARNOCK SLAMS LOEFFLER CLAIM THAT HE SUPPORTS 'CRIPPLING' BUSINESS LOCKDOWNS

“If in fact the two seats do swing over, I think we’re going to see a mad race to the finish… that they [Democrats] have to get this done in two years just in case so I do think we will see corporate taxes going up.”

Biden has pledged to impose new taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals earning more than $400,000 annually and would have almost certainly faced a GOP roadblock if the Democratic candidates in the Georgia Senate races lost.

Biden has repeatedly said he would roll back President Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, restore the top individual tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, tax capital gains as ordinary income, cap deductions for high earners, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for workers over the age of 65 and impose the Social Security payroll tax on wages above $400,000.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON THE GEORGIA RUNOFFS

Nardelli noted on Wednesday that he recently participated in a webinar with more than 100 CEOs who said their “number one” focus if Biden wins the presidential election was the corporate tax rate.

“Most of the CEOs said they’d be spending their time on that,” Nardelli said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

He then noted that when he was “running GE power systems in over 100 countries, we were extremely disadvantaged because of having to compete with Siemens or ABB on a corporate tax basis.”

“Corporate America is made up of corporate Americans so there will be a lot of penalty and a lot of punishment if that corporate tax rate goes back,” Nardelli stressed. “Corporations will be forced to makes some bad decisions.”

FOX Business’ Evie Fordam and Megan Henney contributed to this report.