[zonerboy]

Instead of complaining that big corporations make too much money, why not buy stock in a few of these companies and then you can share in the profits.
Many pay safe and dependable dividends that are way higher than bond interest rates.

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by Challenger

In the final analysis there is only one class of persons who pay taxes-- the ultimate consumer. That includes gasoline taxes corporate income taxes, on and on.

One way or another all taxes are added into the price .

I wonder why that is such a difficult concept for most people to understand.

Bravo.

I've been trying to explain this to people for years. What we have however is a system where politicians believe they can get votes by creating a boogie man. They are usually big corporation, "big oil", (which is not even an entity), the rich and some others. By raising taxes and punishing these bad guys, politicians convince people they are helping them and thus get them to vote for them.

We the people need to learn that every tax comes out of the pocket of the ultimate consumer. Corporations do not pay taxes. They simply pass the money from us to the government. Then the government somehow convinces us that making these corporations take more money from us to give to them somehow benefits us.

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by zonerboy

Instead of complaining that big corporations make too much money, why not buy stock in a few of these companies and then you can share in the profits.
Many pay safe and dependable dividends that are way higher than bond interest rates.

That's an excellent point.

The fact is that many of us do own stock in some of these companies in the form of mutual funds, IRAs and 401Ks. All of that money is invested somewhere and most of don't know exactly where it is. I wonder how many people that want to see oil companies punished by cutting their profits have money invested in them and don't know it.

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Chi-Town

Not to worry. Tax breaks lower it WAY below 39%. Much closer to 12%.

Tax Break Pushes Corporate Taxes to Just 12.1% of Profits, Lowest Level in 40 Years - WSJ

And offshore loopholes lower it even further--even down to 1%. Check this out.

Mylan, Heinz among U.S. companies using Luxembourg for tax reduction | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I'm all for lowering the corporate income tax rate if it will keep jobs in the US. But something has to be done about all the loopholes and end-arounds that enable these large corps to avoid paying taxes. They can be profitable and pay their fair share of taxes as well.

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by bimmertl

Pity the poor corporations. How can they remain competitive,really?

U.S. Corporate Profits Up Year-Over-Year for 12th Straight Quarter - Real Time Economics - WSJ

Would it be better if American corporations were failing? Would it be better if they made less money?

Is making a profit a bad thing?

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by CFrance

And offshore loopholes lower it even further--even down to 1%. Check this out.

Mylan, Heinz among U.S. companies using Luxembourg for tax reduction | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I'm all for lowering the corporate income tax rate if it will keep jobs in the US. But something has to be done about all the loopholes and end-arounds that enable these large corps to avoid paying taxes. They can be profitable and pay their fair share of taxes as well.

Corporations are taking advantage of those "loopholes" because the tax rate is so high. If we did away with corporate taxes, they'd have no reason to go offshore or use "loopholes". And I wonder how many foreign companies might move here if the tax rates were lower than their home country?

Loopholes by the way, are legal deductions and exemptions written into our tax laws. Does anyone who files a return not try to find every exemption and deduction in order to pay the least amount of taxes that they can? I don't know of anyone that doesn't do that.

Now people are going to respond that lawmakers have written these "loopholes" into our tax laws to benefit corporations that contribute to their campaigns and that is totally true.

The entire tax system in this country is broken and needs to be replaced.

This would be the best thing that we could ever do for this country, but I don't believe that it will ever happen because it takes power away from our elected officials in Washington.

Pass the Fair Tax | FAIRtax.org

I'd love to see the Fair Tax combined with term limits limiting all federal politicians to one term.

Representatives one term of six years, senators, one term of nine years and president, one term of six years.

Replace one third of the house and senate every three years.

These two measures would improve this country immensely.

[sunnyatlast]

Abolishing the whole US Tax Code and implementing a Flat Tax for ALL--individuals AND corporations--with little or no tax on incomes below $40,000 or so, is the only thing that makes sense.

But it's not going to happen with all the tax accountants, tax lawyers, and lawyers in the Congress and Administration who feed at this trough.

This was proposed in 2009 by deceased Sen. Specter, a flat tax calculation method that fits on a post card, and it makes sense! (that's why we'll never see it happen, sadly):

Senator Arlen Specter’s Proposal

S. 741. The Flat Tax Act of 2009 was introduced on March 30, 2009, and referred to the Senate Finance Committee. This act is modeled after the Hall-Rabushka proposal, which was previously discussed. The Specter flat rate consumption tax would replace the federal individual and corporate income taxes and the federal estate and gift taxes.

This proposal has two components: a wage tax and a cash-flow tax on businesses. It is essentially a modified VAT, with wages, salaries, and pensions subtracted from the VAT base and taxed at the individual level.

The individual wage tax would be levied at a 20% rate on all wages, salaries, and pensions. In addition, government employees and employees of nonprofits would have to add to their wage base the imputed value of their fringe benefits. The individual wage tax would have “standard deductions” that would equal the sum of the “basic standard deduction” and the “additional standard deduction.”

The “basic standard deduction” would depend on filing status. For tax year 2010, the basic standard deduction would have been the following:

• $25,000 for a joint return;
• $25,000 for a surviving spouse;
• $18,750 for a head of household;
• $12,500 for a married taxpayer filing separately; and
• $12,500 for a single taxpayer.

The “additional standard deduction” would be an amount equal to $6,250 for each dependent of the taxpayer. All deductions would be indexed for inflation.

Congressional Research Service

See this and all other tax proposals for the year at:

http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40414_20100319.pdf

..

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr

Corporations are taking advantage of those "loopholes" because the tax rate is so high. If we did away with corporate taxes, they'd have no reason to go offshore or use "loopholes". And I wonder how many foreign companies might move here if the tax rates were lower than their home country?

Loopholes by the way, are legal deductions and exemptions written into our tax laws. Does anyone who files a return not try to find every exemption and deduction in order to pay the least amount of taxes that they can? I don't know of anyone that doesn't do that.

Now people are going to respond that lawmakers have written these "loopholes" into our tax laws to benefit corporations that contribute to their campaigns and that is totally true.

The entire tax system in this country is broken and needs to be replaced.

This would be the best thing that we could ever do for this country, but I don't believe that it will ever happen because it takes power away from our elected officials in Washington.

Pass the Fair Tax | FAIRtax.org

I'd love to see the Fair Tax combined with term limits limiting all federal politicians to one term.

Representatives one term of six years, senators, one term of nine years and president, one term of six years.

Replace one third of the house and senate every three years.

These two measures would improve this country immensely.

I agree with you on one point: close the loopholes and lower the corporate tax rate to something reasonable--but fair. But I don't believe all loopholes were intentionally written into the laws. I think they were discovered by some very clever attorneys. To me a deduction is far different than a loophole.

And I like your term limit ideas.

What else can we put in our pipe to smoke?

[tcxr750]

If you go to the Deloitte website you can see the corporate tax rates for all countries. Even the Communist countries have lower tax rates. Of course they may not have the tax writeoffs and deductions that are available to corporations here. Our effective tax rates could be lower.
The great philosopher Glenn Beck once said, "Democrats are tax and spend, Republicans are just spend."

[tuccillo]

"Fair share" - I hate that term. Who gets to decide what "fair" is?

In my opinion, the only "fair" thing to do is abolish fed, state, and city taxes, including property taxes, as well as corporate taxes and go to a pure consumption tax with a sliding deduction based on income to reduce/eliminate the regressive aspects. In other words, if you buy something you pay a tax on it. The more stuff/services you buy the more tax you pay. The infrastructure is already in place since most states already collect sales tax. The tax rate on goods and services would go up but other taxes would be eliminated. You would eliminate tax loopholes. If you have a high income, you would not be able to shelter your income, unless you choose to not buy anything, pretty unlikely. If you make most of your income from capital gains it would no longer be taxed at the capital gains rate. You pay taxes when you spend it. The underground economy would be a problem but it is already. I don't have a solution for that.

Originally Posted by CFrance

And offshore loopholes lower it even further--even down to 1%. Check this out.

Mylan, Heinz among U.S. companies using Luxembourg for tax reduction | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I'm all for lowering the corporate income tax rate if it will keep jobs in the US. But something has to be done about all the loopholes and end-arounds that enable these large corps to avoid paying taxes. They can be profitable and pay their fair share of taxes as well.

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by tuccillo

"Fair share" - I hate that term. Who gets to decide what "fair" is?

In my opinion, the only "fair" thing to do is abolish fed, state, and city taxes, including property taxes, as well as corporate taxes and go to a pure consumption tax with a sliding deduction based on income to reduce/eliminate the regressive aspects. In other words, if you buy something you pay a tax on it. The more stuff/services you buy the more tax you pay. The infrastructure is already in place since most states already collect sales tax. The tax rate on goods and services would go up but other taxes would be eliminated. You would eliminate tax loopholes. If you have a high income, you would not be able to shelter your income, unless you choose to not buy anything, pretty unlikely. If you make most of your income from capital gains it would no longer be taxed at the capital gains rate. You pay taxes when you spend it. The underground economy would be a problem but it is already. I don't have a solution for that.

That's similar to the Fair Tax. The underground economy would be less of a problem because only new good purchased by the ultimate consumer would be taxed. It would eliminate working under the table. It would also tax all illegal income such as that made by drug dealers. Unless, as you say they never purchase anything.

The Fair Tax also gives everyone in the country a rebate equal to the amount of the tax on the poverty level so that people earning the poverty level pay zero taxes.

[saratogaman]

And yet sometimes corporations such as General Electric get through the year without paying any corporate tax. The "rate" is a bogeyman when you consider all the loopholes and special tax credits available to various industries as a result of the work of their lobbyists on Congress -- the best Congress money can buy.

[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by saratogaman

And yet sometimes corporations such as General Electric get through the year without paying any corporate tax. The "rate" is a bogeyman when you consider all the loopholes and special tax credits available to various industries as a result of the work of their lobbyists on Congress -- the best Congress money can buy.

There is a campaign to make all private industry the bogeyman. What gives with that?

What would we do without our large companies??? Only eight percent of people work for the government. Most of us worked for For Profit Companies.

I hear all kinds of put downs about how much CEO's make. They didn't just fall into that position and it is NOT easy to bear all that responsibility. There is a nasty movement to poison us all into a class war. After we have worked hard to have what we have, and encouraged our kids to get a good education and be successful...but pity the poor soul who has to tell their friends that their kid is CEO of General Electric.

WHAT is happening to us as a country????

[memason]

Originally Posted by graciegirl

There is a campaign to make all private industry the bogeyman. What gives with that?

What would we do without our large companies??? Only eight percent of people work for the government. Most of us worked for For Profit Companies.

I hear all kinds of put downs about how much CEO's make. They didn't just fall into that position and it is NOT easy to bear all that responsibility. There is a nasty movement to poison us all into a class war. After we have worked hard to have what we have, and encouraged our kids to get a good education and be successful...but pity the poor soul who has to tell their friends that their kid is CEO of General Electric.

WHAT is happening to us as a country????

Well, you started this thread. What did you expect to get for responses??

A lot of folks have stated their opinions on corporate tax rates, or the lack thereof. As well as, corporations that spend HUGE sums of money to lobby congress for laws that increase their ability to earn more profits. But, that's another thread.

[dbussone]

Originally Posted by billethkid

how manyof us would keep our money in a foreign country that had no more risk to loss than here at home but with a return of double or more.....and no taxes on the earnings?



There would be some corporate expatriation of dollars that would come back to the USA if there were a competitive tax advantage. Some of those dollars would/could be invested in facilities and capabilities in the USA to be more competitive. End result no financial disadvantage for the corporate bottom line and the potential for increased employment here at home.



Today the incentive is for corporations to keep foreign earnings offshore.

And it's a shame many of the posters on this thread don't understand what you are stating; instead they seem to feel put upon by whatever organization gave them an opportunity to have a career, earn a living and support their families. It must be terrible living with such a negative perspective on life.