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Tax for revenue's sake (as opposed as one legislated to change behavior, like a carbon or environment tax) should be 0% on businesses. The rhetoric I see coming
by rland 8y ago
Tax for revenue's sake (as opposed as one legislated to change behavior, like a carbon or environment tax) should be 0% on businesses. The rhetoric I see coming from the left is very worrying. "We will pay for this by just taxing 'corporations.'"
What happens under high corporate taxes is that executives of the corporation manage to extract their share, while using the share of those not in control (the workers) to pay the tax. The end result is that the government does not decide who must pay; instead, those with power in the corporation decide. This outcome is always unfair to the worker: a line cook at McDonalds cannot decide whether McDonald's should cut wages or decrease dividends to pay for the corporate tax this year.
That doesn't even describe the case where a business cannot operate under a heavy tax burden and ceases doing business, which is a loss for everyone in the economy.
Taxes on corporations should be reserved for those situations where we need to control behavior at the corporate level, where a tax at the individual level cannot efficiently be used. For example; a carbon tax levied on a corporation to effect the corporation's behavior re: carbon.
This is not an argument for lower taxes.