KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Arguing that the current corporate tax system hinders economic growth and job creation, President Obama Wednesday called for slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 to 28 percent by eliminating loopholes and subsidies.

“Our current corporate tax system is outdated, unfair, and inefficient. It provides tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas and hits companies that choose to stay in America with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It is unnecessarily complicated and forces America’s small businesses to spend countless hours and dollars filing their taxes. It’s not right, and it needs to change,” the president said in a written statement.

Obama’s proposed overhaul, announced by the Treasury Department, instead aims to simplify the corporate tax code and broaden the base. To pay for the cuts, the administration would do away with subsidies and loopholes that save companies billions of dollars each year, including those for oil and gas companies.

To encourage domestic investment, the White House plan would reduce the tax rate for manufacturers that create new products and produce goods in the U.S. to 25 percent and establish a minimum tax on foreign earnings.

“We want to restore a system in which American businesses succeed or fail based on the products they make and the services they provide, not on the creativity of their tax engineers or the lobbyists they hire,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told reporters Wednesday.

The administration’s framework is “fully paid for, and it won’t add a dime to the deficit,” Obama said.

While the election-year proposal puts the president at odds with Republicans vying for his position who would like to see lower corporate tax rates, both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill have shown previous support for reducing corporate tax rates while eliminating special-interest loopholes.

Geithner said Wednesday that he has already been in contact with Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “We plan to meet, hopefully next week, to begin the process of building consensus, deciding how to move forward,” Geithner said.

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SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In an election-year showdown likely to hinge on the economy, President Obama and his Republican rivals are all fashioning themselves as corporate tax slayers.

Obama on Wednesday unveiled his proposal to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 28 percent, ultimately higher than taxes under Mitt Romney’s plan, which would lower corporate rates drop to 25 percent.

The current nominal U.S. corporate tax rate -- 35 percent -- is the highest in the world behind Japan.

Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich say they would each make the statutory rate even lower -- slashing it to 17.5, 15 and 12.5 percent respectively.

But behind the top line numbers and a consensus that corporate rates are too high, differences in the fine print (or lack thereof) suggest bipartisan reform isn’t going anywhere fast.

Cutting corporate tax rates as proposed will require significant offsets to avoid blowing a hole in the federal budget, experts say.  None of the candidates has fully or specifically articulated details on how their plans might address this.

The Obama administration claims it would, “eliminate dozens of tax loopholes and subsidies” to cover the cost, including those for oil companies, hedge fund managers and private equity firms, but doesn’t list precisely which ones.

Officials also say they would impose a new minimum tax on foreign earnings and end special preferences for companies that move work offshore, netting $250 billion more from corporations over the next 10 years.

That some corporations would end up paying more in taxes than they do now is a non-starter for many Republicans.

The Republican candidates, none of whom has advocated widespread elimination of loopholes or subsidies, favor extending additional tax credits to corporations.  The offset would come on deep cuts in government spending, they say.

Romney advocates temporarily extending the investment tax credit and expensing allowance. He also favors a tax holiday for repatriation of foreign profits with an eventual elimination of the existing system.

Santorum also favors expanding the research and development tax credit from 14 to 20 percent and allowing all companies to fully expense investments in new equipment.

One tax policy priority that only Obama and Santorum have in common: special treatment in the corporate tax code for U.S. manufacturers.

Santorum wants companies that manufacture goods in America not to be taxed at all. Obama doesn’t go as far, but favors a special lower effective tax rate of 25 percent for manufacturers.

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KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) -- Glasses that function like a smartphone? Google plans to introduce what appear to be the specs of the future by year’s end, The New York Times reports.

According to unnamed sources, which the Times described as Google employees, the glasses will be Android-based and include a small screen inches from the wearer’s eye.  The glasses also will be sold to the public for $250 to $600.

“We are not going to comment on rumor or speculation,” a Google spokesman told ABC News via email.

The glasses will reportedly have a 3G or 4G connection, several sensors and a built-in camera to watch the world in real time and relay information about locations and friends nearby.

Seth Weintraub, a blogger for 9to5Google, reported on the glasses in December and February. Earlier this month, he reported that the display on the Google glasses would be on just one side and that the current navigation included head tilting in order to scroll and click.

Rob Enderle, the head tech analyst at his Enderle Group, said head-mounted displays like Google’s glasses had been in the market for years. He said, however, that earlier versions like a pair made by Sony nearly 10 years ago were $25,000, heavy and had a power supply five times that of today’s smartphone. In addition, many of them also put the computer screen directly in front of the wearer’s face, rendering one blind to the outside world.

“Google’s glasses are tied to something we call ‘augmented reality,’” Enderle told ABC News via email. “This takes virtual information and overlays it onto a real-world image.”

“This could allow you to see in the dark, pick out things like powerlines, for instance, if you were flying a helicopter low or see an approaching Starbucks long before you got clear line of site,” he said.

“I think this will be the most exciting technology product release this year,” Weintraub wrote.

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(REDMOND, Wash.) -- In an amusing viral marketing video, Microsoft has gone on the offensive, attacking Google Docs, the search giant’s collaborative, online word processing tools.

The video offensive is an effort to promote its own Office 365 service.

In the video -- set to a spoof of the song from the Bruce Willis comedy series Moonlighting -- Googen Apperson, a Google Docs salesman, tries to convince an executive to use the software in her organization. But she points out alleged flaws in the Docs service, including how it doesn’t work when you don’t have an Internet connection. She is interrupted when an R&B singer breaks into song about how Google killed off a number of services.

“Google killed of Gears and Wave/They buried to Buzz the same way/If Google Apps meets its grave, your business is hosed,” he sings.

Microsoft calls it Googlighting and explains in its accompanying blog post that it is, “what happens when the world’s largest advertising business tries to sell productivity software on the side.”

“If these concerns and current revelations about Google’s privacy policies have you troubled, this may be a great time to check out Office 365, the online collaboration solution for businesses who don’t want their documents and mail read,” the video states.

Microsoft has also called out Google for circumventing privacy policies. Google did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the new video.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Comstock Images/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- If you converted a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA a few years back, get ready to pay the taxman.

In 2010, millions of Americans who wanted to convert their traditional IRA to a Roth were given a tax break; they were able to split the claimed income into two years -- 2011 and 2012.  But now, the first half of that income needs to be claimed on returns filed this spring.

"People may have sometime taken an action in the prior year and then forgotten that they did that," says Kathy Pickering with H&R Block. "This is a great time to look back and say, 'Did we do that conversion? What's the income that I'm going to need to recognize?  What are the taxes that I'm going to have to pay on that and do I have the money to pay those taxes?'"

And it could potentially be a lot of money -- a $100,000 conversion means taxpayers would have an extra $50,000 in income to report this year.

Taxes for new IRA conversions now have to be paid in the year of the conversion.

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Win McNamee/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Playing defense on rising gas prices, President Obama plans to promote his energy policy in a visit to Miami on Thursday, senior administration officials said Tuesday.

Administration officials said the president’s speech at the University of Miami will build off his State of the Union address, when he called energy one of the four “pillars” for “an America built to last,” and is not a direct response to the political heat Obama has been taking for the pain at the pump.

The president is expected to outline his all-of-the-above approach to energy production, calling for a clean energy standard and the need to eliminate oil and gas subsidies, among other things.

While Republicans on Capitol Hill and the campaign trail have blasted Obama’s energy policy in recent days, the White House is confident the president has a solid case for the progress he’s made toward securing a strong energy future.

In the short term, administration officials said there’s no magic solution to immediately bring down gas prices and declined to say whether the president would consider tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The president’s Thursday speech will kick off a series of events in the coming weeks focused on American energy.

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Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Gas prices continued an upward climb, settling at an average price of $3.59 a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In some places, consumers are already seeing gas prices over $4. The weekly gas price average, released Tuesday, was up 40 cents from a year ago, and up by 7 cents from last week.

"I'm expecting the national average to float dangerously close to $4 a gallon," Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy.com's senior petroleum analyst, told ABC News. DeHaan said that following last week's average price per gallon of $3.53, gas prices are very close to "that psychological $4 mark."

"We are on course to break through $4 nationally," he said. "Some of these major metro areas could hit $4.50 or even higher. This year we may have a run for the money in knocking down the record from 2008."

The peak national average retail price of regular grade gasoline hit $4.114 per gallon on July 7, 2008, according to the EIA.

In 2011, the real annual average for a gallon of regular gas reached $3.56, which was up more than a $1.00 from the 2010 average of $2.90, according to the EIA. The EIA, which has compiled data since 1919, has the previous record high as $3.45 for 1981.

"We may set a new record," said DeHaan. "I'm still expecting 2012 to be the highest yearly average we have ever paid."

One of the reasons for the climb is Iran.

"Iran continues to make threats, and we continue to hear rhetoric about how they will cut off shipments to the U.S. or cut off access through the Strait of Hormuz," DeHaan said.

On Monday, Iran's oil ministry announced it had halted crude shipments to British and French companies.

"They're using oil as a weapon," DeHaan said. "The situation is tied to Iran's nuclear ambitions and the United States and European Union seem hell bent on making sure they drop their nuclear ambitions -- placing them on a collision course with who will act first."

Iran holds the world's fourth-largest proven oil reserves and the world's second-largest natural gas reserves, according to the EIA.

"The price that affects the price you pay at the pump has gone up just as much and that's why you're starting to see retail prices rise," said Ben Brockwell of Oil Price Information Service.

Brockwell said the situation in Iran and the EU may be one reason that the futures market is higher, but said he does not believe the reasoning is completely "justifiable."

"There's more to this than Iran and Europe," he said. "It's something else that is piling on.

"I think demand in oil consumption is growing at a rapid pace in developing countries like China and India," Brockwell said. "There's also sense that the U.S. economy is improving, and with that oil demand will be improving."

Regardless of whether the U.S. economy is improving, analysts don't expect gas prices to come down any time soon.

"This is somewhat a big game of chess and U.S. motorists are held victim," DeHaan said. "In fact, motorists all over the world are held victim."

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