Power-hungry politicians WANT to keep people ignorant of the true tax burden. Complaining about “corporate taxes” just confuses the naive, ignorant and uninformed which serves only politicians. It is useful to them also to divide and conquer so that there are fights just like this. Where one side is arguing for higher corporate taxes “for fairness” while not understanding that THEY and everyone else are going to be the ones paying.
The problem with the corporate tax in general is that only people pay taxes. Corporations do not. Corporations are just groups of people working together: shareholders, employees and consumers. Taxes will be paid by those groups. Usually a corporations biggest cost is payroll which means the people being paid will be paying most of the cost of increase taxes through lower wages. Consumers will be paying the next largest portion through higher prices, followed by a small percent by shareholders. Shareholders are in the most control though because they have the freedom to say “I will invest” or “I won’t invest” at those rates of return.
Corporate taxes – just like the myth of “employers paying half of social taxes etc – just hide the true tax rates that people are paying. It is like saying “charge corporations 100% and people nothing” – people are still paying it, just they don’t know it. They’re paying it through reduced wages, higher prices, and fewer opportunities because people won’t invest money for nothing, whether it is your $100 in your monthly retirement account contributions or Bill Gates.
The point of the arguments about corporate taxes is to get people upset and divided between people who understand that only people pay taxes and the people who don’t. This enables power-hungry politicians to get a group of people upset about corporate taxes rates which is one of the most regressive out there. It is ironic that the poor and unions are being manipulated into supporting an increase in taxes that will impact them the most through higher prices, lower wages, fewer benefits, and less retirement. What is more disturbing is that they are naive enough to go along with increasing an already regressive tax.
Remember that each step of the manufacturing process adds to the cost through hidden taxes. It is the perfect setup for power-hungry politicians so that they can spend as much as they want without people being aware of what is going on. It is perfect to manipulate a population that is unaware that taxing corporations is just another name for using a corporation as a tax collector to collect money from them.
If you want a regressive tax, a corporate tax is the perfect way to hide it and even better for the politicians. The tricksters can dupe the foolish into voting for them because they say they’ll raise the corporate tax. What this means in reality is they’ll just use the corporations to collect the taxes on the people buying the products. which as a percentage of income, is usually the poorer group. And the poorer group is the one clamoring for higher taxes on corporations.
It is a great racket – trick people to be upset that corporations aren’t paying more taxes by fueling envy and class-warfare and then let someone else collect it for you. A divide and conquer strategy at its best.
The tax code is perfect for manipulation – it allows politicians to play the blame game (“well so and so didn’t pay taxes”) never mind the fact that THEY were the ones who put the rules in and people are allowed to follow the laws. And the added “benefit” is that then lobbyists have to be paid to contribute to politicians to protect people from the government and the government’s long arm.
Remember that corporations are nothing but tax collectors and higher taxes on corporations result in the following on you:
1. Higher prices
2. Lower wages
3. Lower benefits
4. Lower return on your retirement and other investments.
This is intentional. Just as withholding taxes hide from people the true cost of their tax burden, corporate taxes hide from people the true cost of their tax burden. It is a great ploy from Washington (and other world capitals) to keep the un-educated upset and ready to follow them over a cliff. The people who are un-educated about the issue are being suckered by the power-hungry and the politicians will keep it going as long as possible.
The best solution is to have people pay taxes with no withholding. There is no masking of the size of government and the tax burden. No hiding behind ignorance while allowing yourself to be manipulated.