Stop hiding taxes from the public by putting them on corporate balance sheets rather than in the open where they belong.
I would prefer the tack that society has taken; to stop hiding assets and report it transparently. In this case, it is entirely necessary to tax corporations, because they are legal entities and own assets. The individuals who own those corporations get to utilize that money much as they do their own; that's the "Owner's Equity" part of the basic accounting equation. (Which is an equation anyone who talks about corporate stuff ought to know - and I'm personally ashamed that it took me until I was 27 to have a clue about it
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As I said... in my ideal Libertarian world, we wouldn't tax corporations... sadly, we don't live there. We simply don't have the capacity to track the value of what the individual corporate owners, and officers of the corporation gain of and from the corporation's assets. Admitting the necessity of capturing some of this hidden income by taxing the corporations themselves, doesn't however mean that we should place the preponderance of our national tax burden upon corporate entities. It is popular, because everyone seems to envision the 'fat-cats' of the corporate world being the ones who are hurt by it. My argument from the inside of the corporate machinery is that they don't pay it. We do
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We simply don't have the capacity to track the value of what the individual corporate owners, and officers of the corporation gain of and from the corporation's assets.
Well, actually, we do; that is what the Capital Gains Tax is. You might be talking about things such as reimbursement for business expense - that's a good reason for taxing the corporation in the general. But anyone with Owner's Equity in a business can withdraw money from that business - directly
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To put it quite bluntly, money naturally accumulates and concentrates in most 'normally' running economies. Without some moderating mechanisms such as progressive taxation and social investment programs, most societies naturally evolve towards class-defined hierarchies. History bears this out over and over again
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I don't see where I was proposing a flat tax. I've entertained the concept of moving to a consumption based tax system, but doubt our ability to make it work. I understand the need for reasonably scaled tax tables and support us having such a tax system. My objection to Obama's tax increases, is that I don't see the raised funds doing anything to compensate for the drag it will place upon our economy - at a time when we don't need to be slowing the flow or supply of cash.
Now, my argument against raising the corporate tax rate was that taxing corporations doesn't impact the rich as everyone seems to believe, rather it largely punishes the lower income brackets. The tax burden placed upon corporations is simply passed along to the end consumer. It is the ultimate flat tax, and even worse - it's a flat tax that is invisible to those actually paying the tax.
Ok. Flat tax concepts aside, I'm not clear why you believe a tax on corporate activity differs so greatly from individual taxation - particularly given that the entire concept of 'corporation' is to create a fictional 'person' for the sake of managing the assets of companies
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Corporations function to make their shareholders a profit. Yes, the tax is levied against the profit, and yes just like individuals they can take losses incurred in one year, and use them against profits in later years. The issue is that corporations focus upon the bottom line, if I tax them an extra 1 percent, they should and will find a way to keep the bottom line constant. They can do this by cutting costs (employees is the easiest way to do this one), or raising their prices... either way the little guy gets the shaft
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I disagree on 20 years of right-wing economic policy. We've see-sawed back and forth as public opinion and political influences wax and wane. It is one of the failings of our system. We don't give current policy time to take it effect, and we fail to recognize current woes with policy decisions made 5, 10, or even 40 years in the past. I see us only getting worse as those of us who were raised on 3 minute videos and 30 second sound-bites take over the reigns of power.
As vastin pointed out, the 'general' economic policy of at least my life time has been to the right of center. Even in the Clinton years we had a Republican congress that pushed that.
However, I think the hidden 'gotcha' that leads to a lot of confusion on the issue is the way that the budget works; namely that it can be both right wing and left wing at the same time. We have not had a coherent economic policy in, like, forever. The only strain of pattern that's been obvious is that to special interest groups
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I would prefer the tack that society has taken; to stop hiding assets and report it transparently. In this case, it is entirely necessary to tax corporations, because they are legal entities and own assets. The individuals who own those corporations get to utilize that money much as they do their own; that's the "Owner's Equity" part of the basic accounting equation. (Which is an equation anyone who talks about corporate stuff ought to know - and I'm personally ashamed that it took me until I was 27 to have a clue about it ( ... )
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Well, actually, we do; that is what the Capital Gains Tax is. You might be talking about things such as reimbursement for business expense - that's a good reason for taxing the corporation in the general. But anyone with Owner's Equity in a business can withdraw money from that business - directly ( ... )
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Now, my argument against raising the corporate tax rate was that taxing corporations doesn't impact the rich as everyone seems to believe, rather it largely punishes the lower income brackets. The tax burden placed upon corporations is simply passed along to the end consumer. It is the ultimate flat tax, and even worse - it's a flat tax that is invisible to those actually paying the tax.
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However, I think the hidden 'gotcha' that leads to a lot of confusion on the issue is the way that the budget works; namely that it can be both right wing and left wing at the same time. We have not had a coherent economic policy in, like, forever. The only strain of pattern that's been obvious is that to special interest groups ( ... )
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