If Companies Are People... Tax them as such

[octoberlib]

HERE’S an idea: why not tax corporations as if they were natural persons, in accordance with their newly discovered rights of free speech? That move would solve any impending fiscal crisis.

Indeed, we used to do just that. For most of the 1950s, corporate income at large companies was taxed at 52 percent, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The federal government, meanwhile, collected about a third of its revenues from this source. Today, thanks largely to the “reforms” ushered in by President Ronald Reagan, the ostensible tax rate on corporate income is no higher than 35 percent — and the corporate-tax share of federal revenue has fallen to about 9 percent.

Personal income taxes (which have stayed at about 45 percent of federal revenues since 1950) and payroll taxes now provide the federal government with almost 80 percent of its yearly revenue.


The now-familiar objection to a tax increase on corporate profits is that it will discourage private investment and thus dampen job creation. The retort is just as obvious: since when have tax cuts on corporate profits led to increased investment, faster job creation and higher per capita consumption out of rising real wages? It didn’t happen after the Reagan Revolution, it didn’t happen during the Clinton boom of the 1990s, and it sure didn’t happen under George W. Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/a-fairer-corporate-tax.html?_r=0

[pipoman]

1. They are..

taxed just like the very wealthy people they are...

[drm604]

2. Yes, but you're talking sense.

Here, hang a couple of teabags from your hat. You'll feel better.

[ewagner]

3. I liked it better...

when legislatures had to vote on corporate charters and those charters had to be renewed at specific intervals...

[reformist2]

4. Raising the top rate won't matter in the slightest, if you don't close the offshore loopholes.

[a kennedy]

5. D*mn right.....tax em. eom

[bemildred]

6. Indeed. They want political rights, let them pay like we do. nt