Sort of echos' what I've been saying here all along, except I've said American corporations generally pay the same federal tax rate. Little did I know that meant most pay no federal taxes AT ALL - NOT AT ALL. YES - they all pay the same - ZERO! Those that do pay tax.....are able to recoup the tax from a embedded mark-up in the price for their product.
Once upon a time, America had the finest income tax system in the world, until Congress gerrymandered it with loopholes, tax credits and exemptions. Based on sliding-scale brackets of annual income, it used to be those who acquire the greatest percentage of annual wealth also paid the greatest percentage in taxes. Not any more. Consumers and property owners pay the majority of ALL the taxes - regardless of their income.
Excerpt:According to the GOP, the complexity of our tax code needlessly burdens American businesses into paying NO taxes!!.....looks like another corporate tax cut is in order....or another loophole....a tax credit....or a TIF District....or some other taxpayer funded hand-out. SOMETHING!! I mean - how will we compete??
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined samples of corporate tax returns filed between 1998 and 2005. In that time period, an annual average of 1.3 million U.S. companies and 39,000 foreign companies doing business in the United States paid no income taxes - despite having a combined $2.5 trillion in revenue.
Oh, this is charming.
McCain says "cut corporate taxes." How do you cut something from nothing? But wait. Republicans propose that if we lower the tax rate on corporations from a percentage they don't pay anyways, suddenly corporations will start paying. This suggestion must come from the same talking-points memo passed around by GOP Club For Growthers to prove, counter-intuitively I might add, that tax cuts generate more government spending revenue.
Hasn't the redistribution of wealth ushered in by the Bush tax cuts widened the rich/poor gap enough? Nooooooo. They want more.
Tomorrow, there will probably be a report stating the opposite - that American corporations pay the most taxes - it never fails.
2 comments:
Forgive me if I disagree. Corporate taxes should be zero, at least for those whose CEOs are paid no more than 100 times their lowest paid workers and they don't offshore their manufacturing.
As it is, they just pass their taxes on to consumers anyway, so what have we gained? Except for even more regressive taxes.
Let's use tax policy to encourage good corporate citizenship and make our products more competitive than imports. An then let's make our taxes on income (all income) even more progressive than they are.
Jack Lohman
http://MoneyedPoliticians.net
I don't disagree with the zero corporate tax idea because I am among those who realize that the tax is shifted onto consumers anyways. I believe taxes on dividends appears more honest and durable since it is at the end of the reporting profit chain. Yeah, it might discourage some investment, but I think that would be minimal. What other money producing mechanisms are available to those who refuse to lift a shovel outside of illegal activity? Not many.
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