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Corporate taxes shouldn't exist, especially in their current form. Corporate taxes are just reflected to consumers as higher prices or to workers as lower wages

by pitaj 7y ago

Corporate taxes shouldn't exist, especially in their current form. Corporate taxes are just reflected to consumers as higher prices or to workers as lower wages. In the current structure, corporate taxes benefit large businesses more with large legal departments because they can afford to take advantage of deductions etc. Corporate taxes should be replaced by an increase in capital gains tax.

js2 7y ago
> Corporate taxes are just reflected to consumers as higher prices or to workers as lower wages. The United States has had a corporate income tax since 1909, but in all the years since there is a major question about it that economists haven’t been able to answer satisfactorily: who pays it? [...] Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices. All economists reject that idea. [...] That leaves two remaining groups that may bear the burden of the corporate tax: workers and shareholders. [...] Most economists now agree that the burden of the corporate income tax falls on labor to some extent, but there is disagreement over the degree. [...] People should be aware that even the best academic economists disagree on the basics of who actually pays the corporate tax. https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/who-pays-the-corporate-income-tax/ https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/who-pays-the-c...
- nybble41 7y ago
  Who are the consumers? We are. Who are the workers? We are. Who are the shareholders? We are. No matter which role you allocate the cost of the tax to, in the end it's us who are paying the bill. Even if you're one of those rare individuals without investments of your own, you still benefit from them. Punishing the shareholders who provide the capital to produce goods more efficiently isn't going to make the goods you consume any cheaper.
  - evgen 7y ago
    Who reaps the benefits of government investment into public infrastructure and the common good that these taxes make possible? We do. In fact, since there are many consumers of US products (and shareholders in US companies) who are not resident or citizens of the US then it seems we win more if we raise those corporate taxes. If the shareholder's don't like this deal I suggest they sell.
    - nybble41 7y ago
      The "benefit" of having government decide how to invest that money, as opposed to those who earned it, is strictly negative. All other considerations aside, the moral cost of endorsing the use of force in this manner outweighs any possible material benefit. Using corporate taxes to shift the burden onto foreigners, as you've suggested, is at best a short-term tactic. The other countries would just enact reciprocal policies and we'd be back where we started, except with less international trade and poorer diplomatic relations. Isolationism is not a recipe for domestic economic bliss.

by pitaj 7y ago

js2 7y ago

> Corporate taxes are just reflected to consumers as higher prices or to workers as lower wages. The United States has had a corporate income tax since 1909, but in all the years since there is a major question about it that economists haven’t been able to answer satisfactorily: who pays it? [...] Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices. All economists reject that idea. [...] That leaves two remaining groups that may bear the burden of the corporate tax: workers and shareholders. [...] Most economists now agree that the burden of the corporate income tax falls on labor to some extent, but there is disagreement over the degree. [...] People should be aware that even the best academic economists disagree on the basics of who actually pays the corporate tax. https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/who-pays-the-corporate-income-tax/ https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/who-pays-the-c...

nybble41 7y ago
Who are the consumers? We are. Who are the workers? We are. Who are the shareholders? We are. No matter which role you allocate the cost of the tax to, in the end it's us who are paying the bill. Even if you're one of those rare individuals without investments of your own, you still benefit from them. Punishing the shareholders who provide the capital to produce goods more efficiently isn't going to make the goods you consume any cheaper.
- evgen 7y ago
  Who reaps the benefits of government investment into public infrastructure and the common good that these taxes make possible? We do. In fact, since there are many consumers of US products (and shareholders in US companies) who are not resident or citizens of the US then it seems we win more if we raise those corporate taxes. If the shareholder's don't like this deal I suggest they sell.
  - nybble41 7y ago
    The "benefit" of having government decide how to invest that money, as opposed to those who earned it, is strictly negative. All other considerations aside, the moral cost of endorsing the use of force in this manner outweighs any possible material benefit. Using corporate taxes to shift the burden onto foreigners, as you've suggested, is at best a short-term tactic. The other countries would just enact reciprocal policies and we'd be back where we started, except with less international trade and poorer diplomatic relations. Isolationism is not a recipe for domestic economic bliss.