Corporations do not pay taxes, individuals do. It's all a big scam to send money to the central state but it comes off our hides. Politcians figured out that raising incime taxes on individuals would not buy them votes, but they wanted the money anywa, so they inveted corporate taxes and conned the ignorant into believing it a tax on the rich, not realizing that corporate taxes are part of the end price of goods and services.
In reality we all pay higher taxes than the article claims. Only the taxes are backdoor taxes and hidden rather than the obvious income taxes.
Taxes are a scam and eventually stifle economic activity and expansion and that is what is happening everywhere.
This article leaves out one thing, and that is the hidden tax that is called corporate tax.
Same is true of the VAT. Any time government is able to hide or disguise taxation from the electorate as a whole by burying it in inflation or "taxing the rich.", it place is base card:
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw
Until we place the full burden in sight that the cost of largess can be perceived, we will continue to have a Congress more than willing to pander to the basest instincts of the people.
Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813). Scottish jurist and historian:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
That is why we desparately need to establish the National Retail Sales Tax and dump the current tax system into the bit bucket.
The corporate income tax is the most progressive of taxes since the finished product, in most cases, must pass through a pipeline of packagers, transporters and retailers before it even gets to where the consumer may decide to buy it. Each of these entities, essential to our modern economy, adds its tax burden to the final cost of the product.
The best example of this I can think of off the top of my head is the common loaf of bread. The last figures I saw revealed that a single loaf of bread contains roughly four to five cents worth of wheat, which goes to the farmer who grows the wheat. The rest of the cost is added, in turn, by the wholesale purchaser at the grain elevator, the corporate purchaser of the product, the transporter of the wheat, both from the elevator and then again from the corporation to the retail chain and from the chain to its individual sales outlets, and further from the retail outlet itself. Costs of transportation and manufacture are, of course legitimate costs, and should be expected. What is generally forgotten is that each of these private sector business entities must also pay taxes, all of which are added to the product before the consumer even has a chance to pay his overt sales tax on the item.
Just think how a partial cent increase in tax on each gallon of oil percolates through the economy; then think of each and every product one buys in order to live a decent life.
Then, of course, all that you've managed to save in your lifetime, paying taxes all the way, is again taxed when you die. As far as I'm concerned, even the much publicized "tax freedom day" is laughable.
The Republicans have got to come up with a brand-new and fair tax system that gives an immediate, tangible result to the taxpaying citizen. They have got to quit dilly-dallying around. They don't have much time. People are getting angry.