When corporations pay income taxes, those costs are passed on through the prices of those corporations' products and services. When you buy a loaf of bread, you're paying that bread company's income tax in part of the price. You're also paying the grocery store's income tax and the trucking company's income tax and the gas station's income tax.
By contrast, if the corporations themselves pay NO taxes, then those costs don't get passed along to you.
The idea that corporations are "evil" and need to be taxed is a shell game used to convince gullible people to give the government more of their money. Corporate income taxes are not the corporation's money; they're the corporation's customer's money.
It also reverses "progressive" income taxes: when a low-income customer in the 15% tax bracket buys a product from a corporation in the 28% corporate tax bracket, that customer pays that product's piece of the corporation's taxes at 28% with money that the customer has already had 15% income taken out of. There is no sales tax on food, but there's all kinds of income tax built into it.
Some corporations pay no taxes because they take their profits and reinvest, buying new capital or hiring more workers--things that are not taxable. This is an incentive for corporations to get bigger and bigger. Ever miss a time when a certain company was smaller? The smaller ones treat their customers better. They have a disincentive to stay small, though.
Now that you own a growing business, I suspect you may eventually start to think differently about taxation. And that other great joy of business: litigation.
As for individuals not paying their taxes, start with Obama's new proposed Treasury chief. Democrats are all for raising taxes when the taxes don't apply to them. When the taxes do apply, sometimes they feel exempt from paying them.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chiming
no subject
Date: 2009-01-17 12:00 am (UTC)From:By contrast, if the corporations themselves pay NO taxes, then those costs don't get passed along to you.
The idea that corporations are "evil" and need to be taxed is a shell game used to convince gullible people to give the government more of their money. Corporate income taxes are not the corporation's money; they're the corporation's customer's money.
It also reverses "progressive" income taxes: when a low-income customer in the 15% tax bracket buys a product from a corporation in the 28% corporate tax bracket, that customer pays that product's piece of the corporation's taxes at 28% with money that the customer has already had 15% income taken out of. There is no sales tax on food, but there's all kinds of income tax built into it.
Some corporations pay no taxes because they take their profits and reinvest, buying new capital or hiring more workers--things that are not taxable. This is an incentive for corporations to get bigger and bigger. Ever miss a time when a certain company was smaller? The smaller ones treat their customers better. They have a disincentive to stay small, though.
Now that you own a growing business, I suspect you may eventually start to think differently about taxation. And that other great joy of business: litigation.
As for individuals not paying their taxes, start with Obama's new proposed Treasury chief. Democrats are all for raising taxes when the taxes don't apply to them. When the taxes do apply, sometimes they feel exempt from paying them.