There is no good reason to tax companies

[Stinky The Clown]

Tax, instead, the personal income of the company owners.

Tax capital gains at the rate of the taxpayer's ordinary income.

Do this at rates that run quickly from 35%-ish for incomes of $250K or less to more than 90% for high earners. Eliminate most deductions on the high earnings.

Bleeding eyes would not necessarily be a bad thing.






Oh . . . . . and work on that personhood thing.

[izquierdista]

1. Got me convinced!

Of course, I've been saying something similar for a long time...

[Dark]

2. That's not a necessarily bad idea. Basically, get the high earners to reinvest their money back into

the company rather than pocket it.

Although, I'd have a low tax rate with tax breaks for employee wellness programs, bonuses for average workers and other such programs.

[Ian David]

3. Companies should pay for their fair share of The Commons and Infrastructure that they use.

All those FedEx planes and trucks should be paying for the interstate highways and air traffic controllers, for example.

[shraby]

4. Companies will just pass on the tax to consumers anyway.

[LiberalFighter]

15. I"ve been saying that for a while. Companies don't really pay the taxes.

Their customers do when they buy their goods or services. Its built into the cost.

[notesdev]

5. I don't get this 90% tax thing

What's the obsession with taxing people at 90%? Why not go for the whole 100%, or are the implications of taking that last 10% too obvious for even the most craven appropriators of other peoples' money?

[RadiationTherapy]

7. Because 10% of $3M = $300,000. That is a nice piece of change considering

that the 90% only applies to income over a certain amount (as opposed to all of one's annual earnings.) So if the line is 1M and someone "earned" $4M, they would still keep $1.3M. The rest goes to making america great again.

[Zebedeo]

14. No tax at all on the first $1 million??

Your example assumes that the first million dollars is untaxed, and the 90% rate applies on all amounts over $1 million. Is that your proposal?

[RadiationTherapy]

18. Hahaha. My apologies. There would probably be some whittling off from the

pre-90% income. Nevertheless, the end result is, essentially, a cap on earning. Lots of ways to play with the numbers, but that is the result.

[notesdev]

26. The rest goes to "making america great again"?

Be real. The rest goes to the banking cartel, or the pharmaceutical industry, or some other politically influential group.

If someone is only going to get to keep 10% of any part of their income, they're not going to earn that extra money, they're going to do something else with their time. Why would anybody work if they only kept 10% of what they made from working?

[RadiationTherapy]

38. I haven't been "real" for years now. Besides, none of those industries would

ever permit these tax rates anyhow, so I left them out of the fantasy.

I fully support people working and earning less. Those people absolutely may go do something else with their time leaving more money and opportunity lying about for others. Plenty of books to be written, songs to be sung, and paintings to be created.

[Zebedeo]

40. Wealth is not a zero sum game

If people stop being productive because you have disincentivized productivity to that point, it will not "leave more money and opportunity lying about for others." It will lead to a spiral of decline in wealth for everybody.

[RadiationTherapy]

41. There is no incentive for productivity now; we all work to live and live to work.

It's not an "incentive" when basic necessities like food and shelter are commodified and have become profit vehicles for the wealthy. When 80% are working with 20% of the wealth, it is all a death spiral anyway. I survive and thrive only through other working class people's "failures". I am not concerned about incentives in the current feudal system.

[doc03]

10. How can they justify even thinking of taxing 90% while 48%

of America pay zero income tax? I don't oppose the rich paying a higher percentage like they did in the Clinton years but 90% that's ridiculous. I think the other 48% should pay at least a token.
News flash we have $13 trillion in debt and either spending has to be cut drastically or people have to pay a little tax. The Bush tax cuts none of which should have ever been passed has been a major reason we are in the mess we are in today.

[RadiationTherapy]

20. They don't earn enough to pay taxes. I am more interested in raising the income

of this "48%" than trying to further tax low-income people.

[Scuba]

21. The 48% who pay no taxes...

...includes children, the destitute and of course billionairs.

[doc03]

22. I believe that is 48% of all households not individuals. I don't

think 48% of the households or even individuals is anywhere near destitute.

[Statistical]

24. False.

48% of Americans pay NO FEDERAL INCOME tax that is a far cry from "no taxes".

total taxation is = federal income tax + state income tax + payroll taxes + sales taxes + real estate taxes + usage taxes (car registration for example) + excise taxes + mandatory govt fees ("taxes" on cable bill, utilities, cellphones, etc) + excise taxes (gasoline, tobacco, firearms)

If the first element is $0 it doesn't mean total taxes are $0 unless the rest are $0. Please find me a single American (even homeless w/ annual income of <$1000) who pays "no taxes".


Still I agree with your larger point. 90% tax rate is just stupid. Please don't use the "no taxes argument though" it is a tool of the rich & powerful to manipulate the debate.

[doc03]

29. I said Federal income taxes. Payroll taxes are supposed to

support SS and Medicare. The other taxes are either for the states or to fund a specific Federal regulatory program. The American people have to grow up and take responsibility (both parties). There are not enough billionaires around to balance the budget if you tax them 100% of their income. The Republicans have this idea nobody should pay taxes and a lot of Democrats think we need income redistribution. I don't know about you but I have never once got a job or received a paycheck from a poor person.

[doc03]

6. Doesn't compute with me. I am a small investor and

invest in stocks and funds attempting to keep up with inflation to supplement my retirement(fixed) income. I earned that money the old fashioned way I worked for it and paid tax on it the first time now you want a 35% tax on it?

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Yeah

[RadiationTherapy]

9. No, just on the capital gains earnings, not the principle.

I don't think he means taxing your principle a second time.

[doc03]

11. But starting at 35% the highest current income tax rate! n/t

[RadiationTherapy]

13. Yep. I think the motive is to somewhat disincetivize the use of the stock market

for income. Not a mind reader though...

[Gaedel]

34. Capital gains

I think the taxes on capital gains should be structured as follows:

Holding 0-2 years = 100% of taxpayers income tax rate

Holding 2-4 years = 80%

Holding 4-6 years = 60%

Holding 6-8 years = 40%

Holding 8-10 years = 20%

Holding more than 10 years = free of tax.

This will reward "investing" in stocks rather than "trading" in stocks.

[billlll]

12. excellent point - cant pass on his inc tx, but somewhat CAN if corporate tx

Tho competition limits passing on
Corporate tax to consumers... Contrary to RW debaters.

PS pls replace bleeding eyes with weeping. Unclear what bleeding means. I never heard that image before.

[doc03]

16. So if a CEO makes $10 million and you take 90% of it

he has $1 million left after taxes. He goes to the board of directors and says the government took $9 million of my salary and I want my income increased to $100 million to make up for it. The board votes him the raise since they too are also CEOs in other companies and want a raise themselves. The cost is then passed on to the consumer in higher prices.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. They can try that.

[doc03]

25. Try it? That's the way the corporate world works. Get

yourself an annual report from any company and look at the board of directors. Most board members are CEOs, CFOs or some other officer of another company and generally he serves on several other boards of directors. You take the CEO of any company and read his bio and usually he sits on several boards of other companies. The board member on company X votes a raise for the CEO of company X because he is the CEO of company Y and the CEO of company X is on his board of directors for comapny Y. What is really needed is stockholders Tea Party.

[Stinky The Clown]

30. Market forces are pretty much held to be the magic elixir for people who enaable the corporatists

The market will limit the activity you describe. They can only raise prices so far before some other company will undercut them - particularly at times like the present.

[doc03]

Yes and that company is most likely in China, so you got even

with all those rich folks and taxed yourself out of a job. Don't get me wrong I am all for eliminating the Bush tax cuts on the rich and eventually on everyone. But it doesn't make sense to me to tax anyone at 90%.

[Stinky The Clown]

39. Yeah, we were impoverished as a nation in the Eisenhower years

All that trickle down that Reagan gave us ..... he wasn't pissing on us and laughing?

[yodermon]

32. ..and his competitor uses the money that *would* have been taxed to hire people

or invest in more equipment or R&D or other stuff to grow their business.... instead of raising prices to keep the CEO on his private island.

as a percentage of GDP tax revenues don't change, even during 90% marginal tax days... see this chart (see the 1950's especially)


compared to this graph:

(which is from http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php)

The point of 90% marginal tax rates is not to increase gov't revenue by vast quantities... it is to incentivize companies to keep money flowing into the economy instead of profit-taking.

oh and news flash: the rich still get to be rich.

[billlll]

19. STC, you think well and you write well

You're a pillar of DU.

[unblock]

23. as a practical matter, this is a major fail

what will happen is that cash will accumulate in corporations investors will avoid selling in order to defer taxes.
then they will vote in republicans who will offer tax-free dividends and/or capital gains, at which point the money will flow to investors. we lose politically, we don't get the tax revenue, and corporate and investor behavior is all screwed up as a result.

i find nothing wrong with taxing corporate profits at 35% and then taxing capital gains and/or dividends as ordinary income. any transfer of money from one entity to another is generally taxable (even gifts to family members, with limited exemptions), so the "double taxation" argument is completely bogus.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. A good point - it only takes a year or two of tax breaks for them to get the money out

which was left to build up tax-free. The problem is that the people in government aren't always thinking "what can I do to run the country fairly and with its long term interests in mind", there will be some, occasionally at least, who just want to enrich their backers.

And so when reasonable people are in government, they can't let future loopholes appear, because they may not stay there long enough to close them.

[Statistical]

28. "even gifts to family members, with limited exemptions"

Well I wouldn't consider $13,000 tax free per person per gift to be "a limited exemption".

For married couple that is doubled.

A married couple could give $26,000 to their son, $26,000 to their daughter, $26,000 to their business partner, $26,000 to a friend. $104K exempt. Every year (until they hit limit of estate tax exemption which will be $1 mil in 2011 unless changed).

[unblock]

31. yes; i didn't say the limit was small :)

though given enough wealth the limit is indeed small.

[Gaedel]

36. No

The $13K per year per recipient per donor does not count against the $1 Mill lifetime exemption (per donor). If yoU give your kid $50K this year, $13K is "free" and $37K comes off the lifetime exemption

[Statistical]

37. Ok. Well that is even worse (makes the "restriction" much less restricting).

I haven't looked at it closely. In my wildest dreams I would never have more than the exempt amount in my estate.

[yodermon]

33. good point Stinky... corp tax rates were never exceedingly high

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/2140.html

they never topped 53%. That was *while* personal tax rates top bracket was 90%.

gotta close all the other loopholes though, and the offshoring

[Greyhound]

35. I don't see any valid reason to tax any entity or income type any differently

than any other. Setting a progressive rate that treats all income equally would best serve the whole nation, including those that so greatly profit from existing in this nation.