Larry Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, sent some decidedly mixed signals to the American business world on Monday in a speech to the Innovation Economy Conference in Washington.

On the one hand, Summers struck a high tone with a JFK-esque appeal to businesspeople to “think about what your institution should be called on to do, not in its own interest, but in the broader national interest,” according to this report.

Fair enough (though I can’t think of a single major corporation that isn’t already the proud sponsor of innumerable community outreach projects, “green” initiatives, charitable programs, etc., etc.).

On the other hand, Summers sounded what must have seemed an ominous note for his audience of tech industry execs in remarking that if you consider taxes paid by U.S. corporations as a percentage of their profits, “they’re actually very low,” and that this is because the U.S. tax code offers many opportunities for “evasion and avoidance.”

Now, hold on a moment here, Larry. While it’s true that large numbers of U.S. firms pay no federal income tax, as the Government Accountability Office reported last year (see this CNN piece), the total tax burden on corporations is highly variable (as I blogged here), and on average they pay around a 30 percent effective rate. And when they do pay less, in most cases it’s neither evasion nor avoidance. It’s because they’re doing what the government wants them to do — taking advantage of the dizzying array of credits and incentives that clutter the tax code.

Summers’s remarks had Patrick Byrne, chairman and CEO of Overstock.com, sputtering about “trial balloons” and “Washington code” for an upcoming attempt to raise corporate taxes in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News. Let’s hope not. A spirit of sacrifice is one thing; a legislated sacrifice is another. ###