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Why do you think companies should be taxed? Most people who want to tax corporations actually just want to tax the super-villanous rich people. But here's an i

Why do you think companies should be taxed? Most people who want to tax corporations actually just want to tax the super-villanous rich people. But here's an interesting idea: just tax rich people more. By increasing costs for all companies, you are making products more expensive for all consumers. It's effectively a regressive tax. You also need to remember that a majority of Americans are invested in the stock market[1]. A healthy economy is good for everyone. I believe that money that gets paid out from a company to investors (dividends) should be taxed as regular income, but the income of the company itself should be untaxed. That way we avoid the distortionary effects of double-taxing money but we still tax the evil rich people you're so concerned about. [1]https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-owns-stock.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-own...

Klinky 6y ago
It might work if we did tax the super rich more, but we don't, we often tax them less through capital gains. Taxless corporations would become vehicles for tax avoidance/evasion. The stock market is not "the economy", "the economy" is not doing too well, but the stock market keeps steaming along while a lot of people struggle and congress does its handwringing over the cost of meager stimulus packages. Maybe some extra tax revenue would be useful. Dividends can already get special tax treatment, and many corporations are averting taxation entirely. For a lot of situations we're already at your ideal scenario in a round about way, except we're failing to tax the super rich.
hpen 6y ago
I'm not concerned about the "evil rich". Apparently you are though. I'm more concerned about how that tax revenue could benefit society.
pydry 6y ago
>By increasing costs for all companies, you are making products more expensive for all consumers. It's effectively a regressive tax. Taxing profits has zero impact on costs. The most it would affect is the viability of companies that are on the border of profitable/not profitable because it would detract from their ability to attract capital. Apple is quite possibly the furthest away from this scenario you could possibly imagine. Taxing their profits will have zero impact on apples costs. >here's an interesting idea: just tax rich people more The funny thing is that whenever you try to do that a coterie of economically illiterate paid-to-be-wrong journalists come out telling you how much you're ruining things for everybody else and how little the rich will really be affected. You can almost measure the actual impact of a tax by the intensity of the screams in the popular press about how much the average joe will get screwed and how little the rich will be affected. And, of course, taxes that really are like that get branded differently - they're "necessary evils" or simply just ignored.

Klinky 6y ago

It might work if we did tax the super rich more, but we don't, we often tax them less through capital gains. Taxless corporations would become vehicles for tax avoidance/evasion. The stock market is not "the economy", "the economy" is not doing too well, but the stock market keeps steaming along while a lot of people struggle and congress does its handwringing over the cost of meager stimulus packages. Maybe some extra tax revenue would be useful. Dividends can already get special tax treatment, and many corporations are averting taxation entirely. For a lot of situations we're already at your ideal scenario in a round about way, except we're failing to tax the super rich.

hpen 6y ago

I'm not concerned about the "evil rich". Apparently you are though. I'm more concerned about how that tax revenue could benefit society.

pydry 6y ago

>By increasing costs for all companies, you are making products more expensive for all consumers. It's effectively a regressive tax. Taxing profits has zero impact on costs. The most it would affect is the viability of companies that are on the border of profitable/not profitable because it would detract from their ability to attract capital. Apple is quite possibly the furthest away from this scenario you could possibly imagine. Taxing their profits will have zero impact on apples costs. >here's an interesting idea: just tax rich people more The funny thing is that whenever you try to do that a coterie of economically illiterate paid-to-be-wrong journalists come out telling you how much you're ruining things for everybody else and how little the rich will really be affected. You can almost measure the actual impact of a tax by the intensity of the screams in the popular press about how much the average joe will get screwed and how little the rich will be affected. And, of course, taxes that really are like that get branded differently - they're "necessary evils" or simply just ignored.