Corporate Taxes

[cattlebaron]

I have issue with why corporate taxes exist and also how suppressive they have been to the US business enviroment. With income taxes, dividend, etc, why also a corporate tax when corporations will avoid paying them at all cost and just deprive us of jobs and economic activity in flight? What are your thoughts behind the relevance or place that corporate taxes have?

Addition: We have the highest top bracket in the world since Japan reduced their own.

[JohnnyReb]

I have issue with why corporate taxes exist and also how suppressive they have been to the US business enviroment. With income taxes, dividend, etc, why also a corporate tax when corporations will avoid paying them at all cost and just deprive us of jobs and economic activity in flight? What are your thoughts behind the relevance or place that corporate taxes have?

Addition: We have the highest top bracket in the world since Japan reduced their own.

Simple answer: Democrat politicians need money to buy votes via freebies and handouts.

[Dori]

Companies will increase their costs to cover their taxes.  The people who get hurt are the end users, the little guy.  So the only affect of raising taxes is to make goods and services more expensive.

Apparently no one understands cause and effect and why it costs so damn much to live in this country. 

[DumbAss Tanker]

A lot of it goes back to the abuses of power by the trusts, back in the day, though our fiscal and monetary management systems have changed completely in the meantime.  Still it has to be said that the private sector did not exactly do itself any favors with the record it created in the golden age of laissez-faire Capitalism.

Our corporate tax rates are kind of a fiction, as fraught with loopholes, special credits, and above-the-line deductions that our Goldbergian tax code has created over many decades of insider dealing between big business and Congresscrooks.  On paper it may be the second-highest in the world, but like Greek or Italian personal income taxes, neither their citizens nor our big corporations really pays that.  Look at GE, one of the foremost megacorporations, earning billions but with a net corporate income tax of ZERO.  I question whether any comparison of them to overseas rates is actually meaningful unless the overseas tax code is as completely eaten up with trap-doors, loopholes, and escape hatches as ours is, and I don't think many of them are.

[Zeus]

A lot of it goes back to the abuses of power by the trusts, back in the day, though our fiscal and monetary management systems have changed completely in the meantime.  Still it has to be said that the private sector did not exactly do itself any favors with the record it created in the golden age of laissez-faire Capitalism.

Our corporate tax rates are kind of a fiction, as fraught with loopholes, special credits, and above-the-line deductions that our Goldbergian tax code has created over many decades of insider dealing between big business and Congresscrooks.  On paper it may be the second-highest in the world, but like Greek or Italian personal income taxes, neither their citizens nor our big corporations really pays that.  Look at GE, one of the foremost megacorporations, earning billions but with a net corporate income tax of ZERO.  I question whether any comparison of them to overseas rates is actually meaningful unless the overseas tax code is as completely eaten up with trap-doors, loopholes, and escape hatches as ours is, and I don't think many of them are.

The fact that GE paid no taxes in 2010 was widely reported earlier this year, but the size of its tax return first came to light when House budget committee chairman Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.) made the case for corporate tax reform at a recent townhall meeting. "GE was able to utilize all of these various loopholes, all of these various deductions--it's legal," Ryan said. Nine billion dollars of GE's profits came overseas, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. tax law. GE wasn't taxed on $5 billion in U.S. profits because it utilized numerous deductions and tax credits, including tax breaks for investments in low-income housing, green energy, research and development, as well as depreciation of property.

"I asked the GE tax officer, 'How long was your tax form?'" Ryan said. "He said, 'Well, we file electronically, we don't measure in pages.'" Ryan asked for an estimate, which came back at a stunning 57,000 pages. When Ryan relayed the story at the townhall meeting in Janesville, there were audible gasps from the crowd.

Ken Kies, a tax lawyer who represents GE, confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD the tax return would have been 57,000 pages had it been filed on paper. The size of GE's tax return has more than doubled in the last five years.