I think we should end the corporate income tax.

[dawg]

And replace the lost revenue by just taxing the living hell out of the rich.

Actually, we wouldn't even have to raise their taxes that much. Start by making dividends fully taxable. Since that income would no longer be double-taxed, there would no longer be any rationale for special tax treatment.

Then, only a modest upper-income tax hike would be all it would take to offset the paltry sums corporations are currently forking over.

This would do several things:

1. Remove the incentive to offshore income.
2. Eliminate the wasteful efforts of all the tax-lawyers and accountants engaged to shift all this income around.
3. Even the playing field for U.S. corporations relative to countries that tax primarily through a VAT.

But the greatest thing this would do, I am convinced, is to ...

SHUT THEM THE HELL UP!

Take their skin out of the game and make the rich pay for it. Then, corporate money in politics becomes less of a problem and much less of a one-sided affair. Once taxes are off the table, U.S. corporations might find they benefit from things like a well-developed infrastructure and an educated workforce.

Of course, corporations would continue to skew to the right, but I think this would take some of the fire out of their bellies. And occasionally, they would find they were actually on the side of the liberals.

As for fairness, is it that big of a deal for corporations not to pay income tax so long as their CEO's and shareholders are making up the difference on their personal tax returns?

[indepat]

1. Some compelling ideas: now with incorporating myself

:patriot:

[pnwmom]

2. Wouldn't that encourage corporations to work a lot of perks

for the owners into the corporate budget? Lavish expense accounts, free cars, etc.? Owners and other top employees could opt for reduced salaries in exchange for more corporate perks.

[dawg]

3. The value of the cars and stuff have to be put in the W-2.

As for the other perks, they are already there, because they are currently deductible for the corporation in addition to not being taxable to the recipient. If the corporation no longer needed or could use the deduction, some of these things might actually become less common than they are today.

[pnwmom]

17. But what about small business owners? Wouldn't it benefit

them to buy things for the corporations that they could then use themselves?

[bvar22]

16. Giving stockholders control over those perks as well as Management Salaries....

...would go a long way toward ending these abuses.

[pnwmom]

18. What about privately held companies?

[drm604]

4. Are you saying that dividends would be taxed progressively according to shareholders' income?

[dawg]

7. Yep.

n/t

[drm604]

5. Your ideas are intriguing but

it strikes me that it only works if they take that income they are currently off-shoring and pay it out in dividends instead.

What if they bring the profits back here but just hold onto them instead of increasing dividends? We still wouldn't be getting any taxes on that money.

What about companies that pay no dividends?

[dawg]

9. If they choose to reinvest the money in the company instead...

that would still be a good thing, as presumably they would be creating jobs and increasing their productive capacity. Of course, they could choose to invest the money overseas, but only if it made economic sense to do so. They would no longer have an additional tax incentive for moving investment offshore.

I also think some changes need to be made to the capital gains tax, so that might be another way of recovering some of the lost revenue.

[hfojvt]

6. you know my Uncle Dave makes his money through his corporation

He doen't take that much out in income, his wealth just grows as the wealth of Koch Industries grows.

Way back when I read a Vance Packard book about the super-rich, those with net worth over $100 million in the 1970s. Most of them claimed to be living on very little. Because their company provided them with a house and with cars.

If my corporation is making $100 million, then there is no need for me to take any profits as salary. Rich people exercise their power through the corporations they control and you are just proposing to give them one huge tax shelter.

There also never was a REAL rationale for lowering the tax rate on dividends. Double taxation was just an excuse and not even a very good one. Last year I had income of about $14,000. Out of that I paid $868 in FICA taxes. Then that $868 was taxed AGAIN through the income tax. How about that, double taxation on workers and all those people shedding crocodile tears about how unfair it is on dividends haven't said a word about it.

Go figure.

[dawg]

10. That money's got to come out sometime.

And perks such as houses and cars are required by law to be included in W-2 income. So there's that.

If someone has a 100% owned corporation, and they want to live off $30,000 a year while the money piles up sheltered from tax, I say - more power to ya' buddy. When you die and your heirs spend it all, the taxman will see you then.

[hfojvt]

13. that's what it would be though - more power to them

they don't need to give themselves a $100,000 salary so they can make a $100,000 donation to the Heritage Foundation, or the RNC, they can just have the company do it, with tax free dollars. The company can provide things like a gym and meals and buy things like property in Montana. It's not then directly compensation to me, but in practice I do own it and can fly out there on the jet my company owns too. Personal use of company property that needs to be taxable income you say? Nonsense, I say, I went to a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Bozeman and then took a couple of weeks of vacation, and stayed at the company owned ranch, which just happens to have a really nice indoor pool too.

[Cascadian]

8. I would be satisfied with keeping it ....AND TAXING THE RICH!

I would even tax the churches especially those arena-style megachurches. Shouldn't they be treated as corporations?



John

[dawg]

11. They should be treated as either charitable nonprofits or political organizations ...

depending on what they do.

[TheKentuckian]

12. Fail: This isn't a hundred years ago. All or even most shareholders may not pay US taxes

while these companies would use and exploit the commons for free.

Certainly, in an age of personhood, corporate capture of regulatory agencies and legislative bodies,along with the ability to sink unlimited funds into the process this is crazy.

Why should these multi-nationals operate with impunity, harvest our resources, sell them to who they will at whatever price and leave us hoping to recoup something from whatever US shareholders are paid out in dividends?

I think you are destined to fail in the objectives you outlined too.

1. They offshore to find cheap, near slave labor and less restrictive environmental and labor laws.
2. Why do you give a damn about what they spend on lawyers and accountants?
3. What are we losing to VAT countries to even make this an issue?

4. Shut them up???? Get real, they aren't like you. Their avarice knows no bounds. The next round of belly aching will be about labor costs, "arduous" labor laws, or "job killing" environmental protections. The more you give the more they take. You think they can be bargained with??? LOL!

[dawg]

15. They are already largely avoiding taxation and exploiting the commons.

That's pretty much the status quo. I would just shift the small amount of income taxes they are currently paying from them to the wealthy individuals who own them.

There would still be an incentive to offshore, but less incentive than now.

As for the money spent hiring accountants to shift income around, it's just a waste. It's just a waste to society and those people could be doing something far more productive.

As for the VAT countries, our corporations would have a disadvantage competing against their corporoations if, you know, they actually paid the corporate income tax.

Lots of small corporations, like the ones I work with, actually do pay corporate taxes. In fact, it seems like the small fish are the *only* ones who do. I know that isn't entirely true, but there is some truth in it.

And I do believe taxing dividends, and if necessary, changes to the upper rates and capital gains, would lead to a more equitable system. If nothing else, one wealthy individual with $400,000 a year in dividend income can afford to hire a cracker jack accountant. But GE can hire its own congressman.

In my OP I admit that corporations will probably always skew to the right. But they are UNITED in their opposition to the Dems on taxes. They are at cross-purposes on lots of other issues. Divide and conquer.

[TheKentuckian]

20. You still didn't address the issue of you can't tax dividends they do not pay to US citizens

You still provide no indication that we are at a competitive disadvantage with countries that use VAT taxes as opposed to corporate income taxes.

I'm still not clear why it in our collective interest to free up the accountants and lawyers hired by thees conglomerates that they freely choose to engage in efforts to evade taxes and why if it is in our common interest why we wouldn't be better served by eliminating the loopholes they engage the suits in finding. More revenue, less wasted human resources.

I don't get the whole thought pattern, these are the most abusive and most coddled fucks in history and all anyone knows how to do is invent ways to further placate them with no demonstrable public benefit.

It sounds like to me that you want to put out a sign for foreign owned companies to rape our land and people, no charge.

What will you trade next in your "divide and conquer" agenda? Wage concessions? Worker safety? Labor laws? Environmental protections? Land?

I just don't get it. Instead of fighting to rein these bastards in we have Democrats joining the Republicans in making surrender as unconditional as possible.

[GeorgeGist]

14. According to SCOTUS, corporations are persons.

Therefore they should be paying Personal income taxes.

[KansDem]

19. Funny how no news program has mentioned this?

Well, not so...considering how news organizations exist to "catapult the propaganda," but really, how does "Citizens United" affect corporations as "people" during tax season?