Yeah, I can see how would think about it that way if you get hung up on the idea of deductions as expenses. What I would prefer is if companies acted more like

Yeah, I can see how would think about it that way if you get hung up on the idea of deductions as expenses. What I would prefer is if companies acted more like LLCs/flow-through entities, where all profits or losses flowed through to the owners, in proportion to their ownership stake. Making distributions (dividends) deductible against the corporate tax burden allows companies to closely approximate this. It would encourage them to return cashflow to investors, which is the point: Investors (in theory, owners) should participate in the cash flow of the companies they own, rather than bank on the capital gains/share prices leverage casino.