The public has a right to know how companies that pay no taxes pull it off

Post by stjohnswarts » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #164

etripe wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are taxed because they are beneficiaries of society's investment in infrastructure and people. They benefit directly from a healthy, educated population, enforcement of construction codes, the operation of the legal system, roads and waterways, etc. Companies aren't entirely benign, either, so part of those taxes goes to environmental impact assessment and handling they don't pay for, such as pollution, health h…

A corporation is an abstraction that does not exist, so it cannot benefit from those things you listed. The human shareholders and human staff benefit (and profit) from those things, and there are already mechanisms in place to tax those human beings, either as shareholders or as staff with ordinary income.

Post by stjohnswarts » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

walto2 wrote: post #315

CWuestefeld wrote: post #312

Although avoiding taxes may be a sort of business "code smell" that makes us suspicious, there's no inherent reason to regard such behavior as evil. The tax code, in all its thousands of pages, is designed (or at least it's supposed to be) to give incentive to certain behaviors that we'd like our businesses (and citizens) to follow. And the more they do this, the less taxes they'll be paying. Thus, to a first approxi…

Sadly though, capitalism has a way of turning everything into a perverse incentive.

Post by caffeine » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #380

adeptus wrote: post #247

I am still confused as to why companies have to pay tax at all? If every single employee including owners already pay income tax, and IVA/GST/purchase taxes, property taxes, xyz additional personal taxes levied by respective governments, why then on top of all that make companies pay tax, doesn't that just detract from people wanting to start companies and/or seek countries with the least taxes/best loopholes? Discla…

Why in the world do you think a company shouldn't pay for taxes on profit? If that were true everyone would just incorporate and no one would have to pay taxes.

Post by stjohnswarts » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #115

andromeduck wrote: post #99

Or we could just focus on taxing the unearned value arising out of land control instead of property. Land tax + VAT would be ideal and difficult to avoid.

Or just tax pollution and resource (land et al) usage. That will rearrange the economy to overcome one of the biggest challenges of our time. Tax on labour and housing are dis-incentivizing "good behavior".

Post by 29athrowaway » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 8:07 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #136

29athrowaway wrote: post #86

The wealthy tax the rest of us. Think about it. Tax avoidance, subsidies, bailouts, stimuli, etc. Want to tax the rich? No. They tax you.

That's not taxing us, that's just them (or businesses they, or non-rich people, run) getting some tax relief. They will still be either paying more tax or employing more people or investing in more companies that employ people than I do, that's for sure.