Before Complaining about Corporate Taxes
. . . consider this note. Many of these corporations don’t actually pay the rate specified, for the very good reason that there are many special loopholes.
This is redistribution, but in which direction and for what purpose? Yet we’re “redistributing” even more via bail-out money. And to those Republicans who will blame this on the Democrats, the biggest and very poorly managed bail-out was passed under a Republican president, and some of the most irresponsible suggestions were made by a Republican candidate.
But the president did not pass the bailout, a Democrat controlled congress did. I am not defending the president, as he has been fiscally liberal and that is disappointing, but do not shift blame away from the Democrats who have been in charge of Congress during this crash. If they spent more time trying to improve our economy the last 2 years and less time on trying to take down the Republicans we would all be in a better place. I have no preference to which political party is in the White House, or has majority control of congress, as long as they are doing the job correctly.
I hardly think that two years of a Democratic congress will absolve the previous six years of Republican government of blame.
As it is, I’m not a Republican because of what the Republicans do, and I’m not a Democrat because of what the Democrats do.
It sounds like we agree then. Your comments in the article sounded like you placed all the blame on the president, the bailout is more the fault of the Democratic controlled congress than it is the Presidents. I do place blame on the Republican controlled congress for out of control spending and the President did nothing to reel them in. But the President has little control over the spending of congress.
I would like to also touch on your point of corporate taxes. I am not an accountant and I have a more than rudimentary understanding of the tax codes of the United States, but I do understand that NO corporate entity pays taxes. Any taxes levied against them is past on to their customers. Check out the book “Fair Tax” for a more intelligent explanation than I can offer.
Thank you for the cordial response and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
Well, I don’t place all the blame on the president, but I should point out that a group of Republicans actually prevented passage in the senate, then this president went and revived the idea.
Of course, the next administration will pursue it in any case, but that’s another step in the process.
Something that confounds me a bit with this issue is demonstrated by your post. Only a company that considers it as it’s ethical responsibility to pay the taxes levied upon it, without seeking to avoid them through legal loopholes, will ever pay the expected rate.
Your post seems to imply (and I would agree even if you didn’t imply it) that the majority of corporations do not pay the tax at the imposed rate. They consider the legal loopholes an acceptable form of evasion, even though ethically they are seriously questionable.
The raising of corporate taxes in no way changes the ethical positions of these companies, and so only becomes a game to see who can find the best legal loopholes around the new taxes. Including getting special legislation from politicians eager to be re-elected or keep their war chest growing.
So I think raising corporate taxes is actually hurtful in that it provides stimulus to undertake even more unethical behavior. Which I think spills over into other areas of the company. But that is just a supposition and something I could never really prove.
What you suggest I implied wasn’t front and center in my mind when I wrote, but I’m fully in agreement with you on it.
I’d go beyond corporate taxes. I think the complexity of the tax system is a temptation to fraud. Honest people are disproportionately taxed.
Hmm. I’d carry that to any excessively complex regulation. Any unnecessary complexity is, in my view an invitation to fraud on both the part of enforcement and those to whom the law applies.
But then complexity is also job security for lawyers.