4 ms·

Progressive corporate tax would be perfect for this. Lobbyists insist that corporations are people. So we should tax them like people

• marcosdumay 6y ago
  Progressive taxation is a really interesting idea, but it must take into account ownership structures and concentration of control of those corporations. It's not an easy thing to do.
• darksaints 6y ago
  I'd much prefer zero corporate tax, reverting to a passthrough taxation model, with capital gains and dividends taxed as income. The corporate tax, being a profit tax, inherently has infinite forms of tax avoidance because expenses must be accounted for and expenses can be creatively structured to avoid paying taxes. Personal income taxes do not have that inherent susceptibility to avoidance. Perhaps more importantly, corporations effectively form "unions" for wealthy people, which are an effective unit for lobbying. Jeff Bezos, for example, only owns something like 15% of Amazon...but he gets to use 100% of Amazon's resources to lobby the government and try to sell government representatives on the idea that what's good for Jeff is also good for Amazon's employees and the American public. Shift those taxes to personal income, and all of a sudden that sales pitch becomes a lot less convincing.
  • throwaway189262 6y ago
    There's a problem with taxing money extracted from the business as well. Business owners can just go on "company" vacations, drive corporate cars, etc. This already happens to an extent. Without corporate tax, wealthy business owners probably won't pay any tax at all. They'll just pay themselves with absurd benefits from company accounts. Or perhaps, just endlessly take out loans against their ownership stake. No taxes if you never pay them back
    • davinic 6y ago
      But the laws can be structured to deal with those issues, much as they are today.