Incorporate This
Just for the record, folks, you can't tax a corporation. You can only tax PEOPLE. And, yes, according to William Gentry's paper for the Treasury Department, it's labor (you know, actual flesh and bone workers - the people that progressives are supposed to care about) that tends to bear the biggest burden of the corporate tax. Couple that with the fact that a) the corporate tax doesn't really raise all that much money, b) it encourages firms to waste valuable resources on tax avoidance, and c) it's a major factor in lobbying and, yeah, you are kind of forced to see the clumsiness of it............................................................................................My proposal, folks (and, yes, I was glad to see that Megan McCardle of "The Atlantic" essentially has the same one), is to eliminate the corporate income tax completely BUT, in addition, eliminate also the special treatment of capital gains. Have it taxed as regular income, in other words. American companies will no doubt flourish (hell, we might even be able to get a few foreign companies to switch on over) and, AND, we'll still be able to stick it to the fat-cats. I mean, really, who in the hell loses here? I don't see anybody who loses.................................................................................................Oh, and, if you think that it's only right-wingers and "corporatists" who support the elimination of corporate income taxes, think again. One of the articles that supports such a move I actually derived from the progressive blog, "Firedog Lake" (firedoglake.com/newbroomparty/2010/09/29/why-progressives-should-eliminate-the-corporate-income-tax). What do you think about that?........................................................................................................P.S. Just for full disclosure here, the Firedog Lake proposal had as its trade-off a sort of import tax. I myself much prefer Ms. McCardle's proposal of raising the capital gains tax instead. Her article can be had at theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/10/why-we-should-eliminate-the-corporate -income-tax
Les, good ol' ultra-liberal Jersey McJones has been advocating for what you are advocating here for years - but with one first and main addition: A corportaion is not a US citizen. It may not fund election campaigns - period, ever.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, we need a campaign contribution limit of ten dollars.
Without that, you'll never get the other things anyway.
Corporate taxation is preferred by the very wealthy. They know that without those taxes, more tax revenues would have to come directly out of their personal profits.
JMJ
It's good to see that there's at one progressive out there who sees the idiotic nature of this type of taxation. This was my missive, btw.
ReplyDeleteI would also accept your stipulation regarding campaign contributions. Enough already with the dirty stinking money.
ReplyDelete