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Bush May Try to Cut Corporate Tax Rates [Warns China "not to start a trade war"]
Washington Post ^ | Thursday, August 9, 2007 | Peter Baker

Posted on 08/09/2007 7:15:44 AM PDT by indcons

President Bush said yesterday that he is considering a fresh plan to cut tax rates for U.S. corporations to make them more competitive around the world, an initiative that could further inflame a battle with the Democratic Congress over spending and taxes and help define the remainder of his tenure.

Advisers presented Bush with a series of ideas to restructure corporate taxes, possibly eliminating narrowly targeted breaks to pay for a broader, across-the-board rate cut. In an interview with a small group of journalists afterward, Bush said he was "inclined" to send a corporate tax package to Congress, although he expressed uncertainty about its political viability.

The president's comments came as he tried to calm volatile stock and mortgage markets and reassure the country that the economy is fundamentally strong. Despite mounting concern over the downturn in the housing market, he dismissed proposals advanced by prominent Democrats to grant government-chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more freedom to buy mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. And he ruled out any taxpayer bailout of lenders threatened by the subprime home-loan crisis.

In a 48-minute conversation on an array of economic issues, Bush also warned China not to start a trade war, blamed Congress for not doing more to shore up infrastructure such as the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis last week, and pushed back against Democratic presidential candidates who are promising to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bush; china; nafta; taxes; trade
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To: OHelix

Imagine that! Corporations get money from customers which in turns goes to taxes! OH MY GOD! You are a business genius!


81 posted on 08/09/2007 1:45:59 PM PDT by avacado
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To: Kellis91789; OHelix; Bigun
Explain again that they pay NO taxes!

EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION
                          FIRST QUARTER 2006
                 -----------------------------------                 
                 (millions of dollars, unless noted)

                                                       First Quarter
                                                     -----------------
                                                       2006     2005
                                                     -------- --------
Earnings / Earnings Per Share

  Total revenues and other income(1)                  88,980   82,051
  Total costs and other deductions(1)                 73,521   69,148
  Income before income taxes                          15,459   12,903
    Income taxes                                       7,059    5,043
  Net income (U.S. GAAP)                               8,400    7,860

  Net income per common share (dollars)                 1.38     1.23

  Net income per common share
  - assuming dilution (dollars)                         1.37     1.22


Other Financial Data

  Dividends on common stock
    Total                                              1,957    1,728
    Per common share (dollars)                          0.32     0.27

  Millions of common shares outstanding
    At March 31                                        6,050    6,366
    Average - assuming dilution                        6,126    6,421

  Shareholders' equity at March 31                   112,463  103,698
  Capital employed at March 31                       122,286  114,171

  Income taxes                                         7,059    5,043
  Excise taxes                                         7,664    7,238
  All other taxes                                     11,049   10,944
    Total taxes                                       25,772   23,225

  ExxonMobil's share of income taxes
  of equity companies                                    521      493

82 posted on 08/09/2007 1:48:00 PM PDT by avacado
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To: ConservativeMind

“So, he’s trying to sound like a conservative again? He’s not up for reelection, so why bother now?”

Because it is the right thing to do?


83 posted on 08/09/2007 2:12:51 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (When O'Reilly comes out from under his desk, tell him to give me a call. Hunter/Thompson in 08.)
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To: indcons

“Despite mounting concern over the downturn in the housing market, he dismissed proposals advanced by prominent Democrats to grant government-chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more freedom to buy mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. And he ruled out any taxpayer bailout of lenders threatened by the subprime home-loan crisis. “

LOL, I like how this is worded. Once Fannie and Freddie become the dumping grounds for all the toxic mortgage paper the taxpayer funded bailout will have been accomplished.


84 posted on 08/09/2007 2:17:47 PM PDT by hubbubhubbub
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To: avacado

They REMIT taxes.

Try to get it through your head that the person writing the check is not always the person PAYING. In economic terms, the entity that feels the burden is the one that pays.

It’s like saying you “paid” for a hotel while you were travelling for your company. If your company reimburses you for that expense, then you didn’t really “pay” for it in any real economic sense.

A business “pays” taxes in that sense, but then they turn around and get reimbursed by higher prices charged to customers. So in the end, they didn’t really “pay” the taxes.

Think of it this way: If all taxes on business were removed, and they lowered their prices by that same amount, would their profits change ? No, they would not. This clearly demonstrates that they just used higher prices to pay their taxes, using the customer’s money and not their own.

The terrible trap here is that as long as all business competitors incur the same tax costs, THEY DON’T CARE how high taxes get, because they can ALWAYS pass it along to the customer. Since all their competitors face the same increase in costs, they don’t need to fear losing customers through higher prices. As long as the customer NEEDS the product, it is the customer that will get screwed through the higher tax cost SUPPOSEDLY paid by the business. The only thing that has kept government from using this as a vehicle for unlimited government is that there are other governments involved and if they squeeze too hard, they will kill off the local businesses that they can force to pay the taxes. The entire market will be supplied from other businesses they don’t have authority to use force on, and their tax increase will lose them revenue instead of increasing tax revenue.


85 posted on 08/09/2007 2:55:55 PM PDT by Kellis91789 (Liberals aren't atheists. They worship government -- including human sacrifices.)
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To: avacado
I think you're being intentionally obtuse, and I think it's obvious to most readers of this thread.

But I can at least thank you for not posting another link to that same article again.

No one on this thread is suggesting that there is no such thing as corporate income tax.

You offered the article to refute Bigun's post in #45 where he said:

"Well, no! Actually they collected those funds from any combination of their shareholders, their customers, or their employees and forwarded them to the government."

But the article does not refute Bigun's assertion, it validates it with the following:

The magnitude of these tax payments made by US corporations raises the question of tax incidence. In other words, who bears the burden of taxes on the domestic oil industry? Every dollar a corporation spends, whether on taxes or anything else, eventually comes out of the pockets of individuals, specifically three groups of individuals: the corporation’s shareholders, in the form of decreased capital gains and dividends; its workers, in the form of lower wages; or its customers, in the form of higher prices.

I think Kellis best summed up the issue being discussed with the following: "All taxes on business are simply a fiction to hide the total tax burden from the consumer."

Do you not agree that reduction of corporate taxes would benefit our economy by making our companies more profitable and/or more competitive?

86 posted on 08/09/2007 3:35:40 PM PDT by OHelix
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To: in hoc signo vinces
I am simply demonstrating a hypothetical case where the corporation is truly a taxpayer...and not the mythical assumption made by many that corporations never pay taxes, only people do.

The article that avacado keeps posting a link to disagrees with you:

"Every dollar a corporation spends, whether on taxes or anything else, eventually comes out of the pockets of individuals..."

87 posted on 08/09/2007 3:41:21 PM PDT by OHelix
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To: Bigun; avacado

Don’t mind avacado. He’s still learning how corporate America works.

He thinks corporations pay taxes.

Just like houses pay property taxes.


88 posted on 08/09/2007 4:26:17 PM PDT by upchuck (Today there are 10,000 more illegal aliens in yer country than there were yesterday. 10,000! THINK!)
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To: upchuck

Well, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him think! ;>)


89 posted on 08/09/2007 5:11:11 PM PDT by Bigun (IRS sucks @getridof it.com)
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To: Bigun
How true. But it’s not for lack of trying. See our little back and forth beginning here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1876407/posts?page=51#51
90 posted on 08/09/2007 7:18:20 PM PDT by upchuck (Today there are 10,000 more illegal aliens in yer country than there were yesterday. 10,000! THINK!)
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To: upchuck

Oh well! Perhaps someday?


91 posted on 08/09/2007 9:00:56 PM PDT by Bigun (IRS sucks @getridof it.com)
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To: Bigun
I expect acacado will respond to this. Patience :)
92 posted on 08/09/2007 9:18:14 PM PDT by upchuck (Today there are 10,000 more illegal aliens in yer country than there were yesterday. 10,000! THINK!)
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To: in hoc signo vinces
Stop perpetuating the myth that “All taxes are just passed to the consumers”.

But they are. Try Wealth of Nations.
93 posted on 08/10/2007 10:18:20 AM PDT by newguy357
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To: in hoc signo vinces
In speaking of feudalism (which he labels "the barbarous times of feudal anarchy"), Smith discusses some of the economic issues that the feudalists did not understand but had, by Smith's time, since become clear.

In his own words: In those ignorant times, it was not understood, that the profits of merchants are a subject not taxable directly; or that the final payment of all such taxes must fall, with a considerable over-charge, upon the consumers.

It is incredibly interesting that people, usually democrats, suffer from the same ignorance of the feudal era, recovered from more than 250 years ago, by supposing business taxes are ever anything other than a hidden tax on consumers.
94 posted on 08/10/2007 10:29:54 AM PDT by newguy357
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To: avacado
Errrr... post #64 clearly says that corporations pay taxes. Perhaps you need reading glasses? Gee imagine that! A corporation gets money from its customers! Who would have thunk'of'dat!

I'm sorry... you must be retarded. I'm sure that is very challenging.
95 posted on 08/10/2007 10:34:32 AM PDT by newguy357
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