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Taxing corporations allows you to impose taxes on the pensions of the middle class, without being seen to do so. Most wealth is in the hands of the middle clas
by cperciva 7y ago
Taxing corporations allows you to impose taxes on the pensions of the middle class, without being seen to do so. Most wealth is in the hands of the middle class either immediately pre- or post- retirement, so you need to tax this; but baby boomers vote so you have to pretend otherwise.
Ok, it's not a good reason... but face it, taxes are determined by politics, not policy.
- netcan 7y agoFor a dissenting opinion, one of the major points in Picketty's nobel-winning dataset is that market returns are, over the long term, pretty fixed. Short term fluctuations aside, they're not really impacted by GDP growth It's an empirical measurment rather than a theoretical point. I don't know if he's right. But, I do think that it's dicey taking conclusions like "corporate tax is a tax on pensions" as fact. Economics is not science. Economic theories that yield these conclusions are not testable. The reason macroeconomics exists as a field is that core theories which seem to work well at the micro level don't seem to make the right predictions at the macro-level.