11–20 of 99 posts
Why should I care about the corporate tax burden? Taxes come out of people's pockets, not corporations. There's an argument to be made that we can get foreign shareholders to pay taxes they otherwise wouldn't, but that's a much different argument than "corporations aren't paying their fare share".
That's not correct - corporations are meant to be paying significant tax.
Can’t we just say “your profit for the purposes of taxation is the profit you report to shareholders?”
Can’t we just say “your profit for the purposes of taxation is the profit you report to shareholders?”
So much of the tax avoidance tactics ends up as more investment and propels our economy forward. Amazon is a prime example. The government taxes profits. Amazon instead of making a profit, reinvests the money into its business. Even when corporations do stock buy backs, it's not like most of the money goes to the investors to spend frivolously. Instead most of it just gets reinvested in different businesses that have…
The idea that money is better in private hands than in the collective hands of government is a story that is oft repeated, but is far from proven. Arguably, studies I've seen of late show loss of efficiency and increased cost when privatized. This is a requirement for profit anyways.
Further, money spent by government has had massive effect on economic growth. Hoover dam made the much of the West livable, nasa still had massive scientific output, and welfare programs are incredibly effective.
All these sorts of schemes are doomed to fail for the very simple reason that corporations are more agile than the law making process. Here's an easy plan to end tax avoidance: 1. Any company that sells more than $X/year to people living in the US needs to be registered in the US. 2. Flat tax with no exemptions (all corporations would be taxed like C-corps). 3. No more rules. A plan that won't work is one that adds e…
> Flat tax with no exemptions The difficulty with taxation is not calculating tax rates, that's simple, the difficulty is determining what is taxable income/profit.
They pay, or should pay, for education, health, military, roads and infrastructure and a wide variety of other stuff that is good for everyone.
It puzzles me that people hate taxes so much.
So much of the tax avoidance tactics ends up as more investment and propels our economy forward. Amazon is a prime example. The government taxes profits. Amazon instead of making a profit, reinvests the money into its business. Even when corporations do stock buy backs, it's not like most of the money goes to the investors to spend frivolously. Instead most of it just gets reinvested in different businesses that have…
Amazon benefits from many government-funded programs: educated workforce, road & rail infrastructure, national defense, judicial contract-enforcement, etc.
Is it fair that a company that reinvests gets all that for free while a company that makes a profit pays substantially?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Flat tax with no exemptions The difficulty with taxation is not calculating tax rates, that's simple, the difficulty is determining what is taxable income/profit.
Some sibling comment to oc seems pretty straightforward: the profit taxed is the profit reported to shareholders