Posted on 12/01/2004 3:40:03 AM PST by SmithPatterson
End corporate income tax
By Richard W. Rahn
On Nov. 18, in a speech given at the Finance Ministry in Vienna, Austria, the very highly regarded European economist and first woman president of the Mont Pelerin Society, Professor Victoria Curzon Price, called for eliminating the corporate income tax. There, in the center of socialist Europe, was not only the call to get rid of this destructive tax, but almost everyone in an audience of economists, various government finance officials and public policy experts appeared to agree with her.
The idea and practice of the corporate income tax has been dying slowly for the last two decades. The corporate income tax is a highly destructive tax that greatly distorts proper economic decision-making, taxes the same income more than once, is endlessly complex, and provides a declining share of tax revenue in most countries. For instance, in the United States, corporate income tax revenues fell from 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 1967 to only 1.2 percent of GDP in 2003, though there was minimal change in the tax rate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
This is the best thing I have heard this morning.
LOL, this truly cracks me up. Jobs are going offshore, millions of foreign nationals flood across our borders illegaly to take the jobs of U.S. citizens, H1-B visas can't be processed fast enough and we are now running half a trillion dollars worth of trade deficits so that corporations can make ever increasing profits, while U.S. citizens find it harder and harder to keep gainful employment with sound benefits and a reasonable healthcare plan.
I'd say these policies lean fairly well toward the corporations. Now some support the idea that corporations should pay no taxes at all.
Okay, I'll accept that. When my taxes go to zero, I'll support the corporations being treated the same way.
Corporations do not pay taxes, the stockholders do, as well as the consumers of the product or services they provide. Taxing them, you tax yourself. Why is it so hard for some people to understand that? All taxes are included in the end products price.
The call to stop the H1-B abuses fell on deaf ears. The call to stop the outsourcing fell on deaf ears. The call to end the half trillion dollars of trade deficits fell on deaf ears. The call to stop the illegal immigration fell on deaf ears...
What was that you were saying? I can't hear you.
Look, what you say make some sense, but let me tell you, those who make your arguements haven't been listening so my sympathy for your position is just non-existant.
Corporations have been raping this nation and supplying our strategic enemies with the technology and financing they need to destabalize the global balance. I've had it with the 21st century's corporate mind-set.
PING
No leftist could have said it better.
***
My only problem with eliminating the corporate tax is how to tax the individual if he/she lives overseas. The solution is to eliminate the super complex income tax and go to a national sales tax.
That's okay, no socialistic marxist organization could have sold our nation out any worse than our corporations have. I guess the mutual admiration society is alive and well.
I understand where you're coming from, but your pretense that only you have some truth on your side is a flawed premise IMO.
Take care.
I should have responded to your other comments.
If a person lives overseas, I don't care if they pay U.S. taxes or not. As for the sales tax, I'm for it.
I will note that Canada has a full blown income tax AND a 15% VAT though. That can't happen here right... Heh heh heh! Then there are provincial and city taxes on top of those.
In a perfect world I'd rather see us eliminate about 75% of our federal budget, revert to minimal tariffs on imports and do away with income taxes and VATs altogether.
Yes import taxes tax the public. The nice thing about import taxes though is that corporations hate them. Ask yourself, who wields the power with elected officials. Those corporations would keep pressure on to keep those import fees low. You and I haven't any voice when it comes to taxes. At least that's the way it seems.
The federal government doesn't need to be taxing individuals any more than it should be taxing corporations. The better way to for the federal government to collect tax revenue from individuals would be to bill each state for its share. If Uncle Sam decided it needs $2 trillion, it should send each state a bill for its portion based on it's representation in Congress. California would pay 55/435, New York would pay 31/435, Maryland would pay 10/435, Wyoming would pay 1/435.
Each state could decide on its own just how it would raise its share of money. But the repurcussions would be great. The locals could tax the corporation and see job flight, they could tax the individuals and see citizen flight, or they could pressure their national representaives to stop spending so profligately. Those heathens who impose ever more spending would bring their local accomplices into danger of losing their jobs. Citizens would be freed again to vote with their feet. The power would be shifted to the voter - where it belongs.
"All taxes are included in the end products price."
I'm no fan of taxes in any form, corporate or otherwise, but if you think these 'honorable' corporate heads with the multi-million dollar salaries will pass the savings on to the consumer I'd say you're mistaken.
I agree we need to change many aspects of our tax codes but I'll also agree with DoughtyOne that the heads of many large and small corporations have zero loyalty to this country or even their own employees and until they change that they deserve few breaks from us.
IMO.
By far more jobs are insourced to the USA than there are jobs outsourced from the USA. That was just one of the non issues the Democrats tried to dupe the American electorate with.
Thanks for the comments. I obviously agree.
Here's a little test for those who think we're over the top in our critique of corporations.
Let's say a highly successful corporation in the U.S. branches out into Germany, England and China. Five years later, war breaks out between China and the United States.
Does this corporation close it's Chinese affiliate? LOL, dream on. These corporations have no more loyalty to the United States than Mao did. If the U.S. lost the war, the corporation would survive. That's their only concern.
Corporations are there to make profits. Nothing else matters. NOTHING! They will play patsie with Hitler, Zemin, you name it. They see nothing wrong with this and those they ply with their corporate funds WON'T either.
On general principles, I support corporations. It's just the radical rogue ones that have displayed some of the actions ours have over the last decade, that I part ways with them.
I view everything in life, by this simple admonission.
Moderation in ALL things. Capitalism is no exception. Capitalism within markets works the best IMO. When you start venturing out into international situations, nations lose control. Gone are any checks and balances regarding national security, trade policy, employment practices, corporate policies...
Our dealings with China prove this far better than I ever could have.
That's the way I see it.
Hmmm, then your saying that outsourcing is a net gain. No Hank, insourcing good, oursourcing bad. We always had insourcing. We have not always had outsourcing. It's a net loss IMO.
Thanks.
Tarriffs on imports didn't work very well for the US before the income tax. Not only did they contribute to the civil war -- since the cost fell more highly on the Southern States and caused serious resentment and anger -- but they also allowed American progressives to argue that the burden of tarriffs fell most heavily on the poor who ended up paying virtually all of the costs, while millionaire industrialists essentially no taxes at all.
I think had a sales tax been in place then instead of import tarriffs, we could have saved ourselves lots of grief, and avoided that monstrosity of all taxes -- the personal income tax.
I'm not going to address the inequities of the civil war era as it applies to this, because I'm not that familiar with the issue in that time frame. I will say that the United States didn't do all that bad until the early 20th century, without income tax.
I do take issue with your comment that tariffs fall mainly on the poor. I disagree. If every single product the poor could buy came from outside the U.S., that could be argued, but that obviously wouldn't be the case. Most necessities would be available from domestic sources. Not all of them would have imported components. Housing, clothing, food being the most important, these items could be fairly absent impact from tariffs if you so desired.
The wealthier a person is, the more expendable income they would have. Purchasing more discretionary non-necessity items would expose them to tariffs far more than the poor. At least IMO that would be the case.
Please explain the theory that tariffs were more difficult on the southern states when the New England area was probably the largest import region of the nation. Once again, I seem to differ with this premise.
Once you start applying that uninformed "that's not fair" attitude to economic policy you start to run the economy to the ground. Liberals (considering that this is the free republic, I assume in this case that you are an economic liberal) never appreciate that economics is not a zero-sum game.
Liberal economics is the reason why the per-capita GDP of europe (excluding former eastern-bloc nations) is 28,000 and the per-capita GDP of the US is 41,000.
It's more than that. The taxes are rolled into the price along with the overhead to figure out the amount of taxes to add. That's accountants, lawyers, PACs...
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