While reading the “10% paying 66% of taxes in unfair to the other 90%” thread, it occurred to me that corporate income tax could be considered taxation without representation. While a corporation is more-or-less considered a person legally, it isn’t awarded the privelege that all “real” people are awarded, namely the right to vote. A corporation can’t vote down a politician who raises corporate taxes in the same way that an individual can vote down a politition who raises personal income taxes. Because a corporation can’t vote, and since there would clearly be serious problems involved in letting corporations vote, is it fair to tax them?
You say that corporations cannot vote down a legislator who enacts a law detrimental to them, as can common voters. By this you seem to suggest that corporations are somehow at a disadvantage in our political process.
I work in Washington DC as a lobbyist, and I think it’s fair to say that Exxon, for example, wields far more clout with Representative X than do you with your paltry vote.
Rep. X pleases you; what does he get in return? A single lousy vote. Rep. X pleases Exxon, what does he get in return? Money. A lot of money. Money in the form of PAC and party contributions with which he inundates the airwaves and newspapers with his election ads – in effect buying thousands upon thousands of votes.
Can a corporation vote? No. Does that somehow hobble their political efficacy? Hardly.
either you are envisioning a world ruled by megacorps…or…a world ruled by megacorps.
whether you don’t tax them or give them government powers, seems the outcome is the same for them. Corporations are represented in government just fine by the way…through lobbyists, soft money, payoffs and kickbacks, backroom deals, corruption, bribery, blackmail and all the other power pushes big corps can do. I do not IN THE LEAST feel bad for these poor wittle corps not getting to send their own senators into congress.
There are a couple of taxes on folks who can’t vote. Tariffs are a tax on imports; the burden of the tax is divided between buyer and seller, as are all taxes. In this case, the seller has no power to vote in domestic elections, although obviously they could vote in their own country to elect somebody who’d be a tough trade negotiator.
That didn’t really address the OP, I just didn’t want anybody to overlook other taxation without representations (Tw/oRs).
Another one I just thought of, something of a tortured example. The inheritance tax! Dead people can’t vote! Okay, another weaselly example since the inheritor can vote.
Then there is also the matter of certain consumption taxes. Five grownups will buy 5x units of food and cast five votes; a single mother with four kids will buy ~5x units of food and cast one vote. Sometimes sales taxes take this into account, by exempting children’s food and clothes from taxation; sometimes they don’t. Certainly family exemptions may offset this, but in a narrow sense, the consumption of non-voters is Tw/oR in a simplistic tax code.
I’ll leave the corporate tax law to the experts.
Two great points. In my ideal world, corporations would not pay any income taxes, since they are merely a front for the individuals who own a share of the corporations and pay income taxes on their share of the companies revenues (as paid by dividends), or on the gain of the value of their shares (as capital gains). But I would also like to eliminate lobbying and all campaign contributions by corporations.
I am SO with you there Paul. John McCain has been the only Republican I have considered voting for in years.
Corporations do not pay taxes. Their taxes are figured into the price of the products that they sell. Corporate taxes are really an indirect tax on consumers, the corporations just collect the money for government.
lemartel, that is the weirdest re-definition of “taxes” I’ve heard in a year-and-a-half. If an individual running a business as a sole proprietor pays sales taxes on the products he sells and income taxes on his business profits, those are real taxes. Yes, the prices of the goods the individual sells take his sales and income taxes into account, but that does not mean the consumer is hit with his entire tax bill. Why would the sales taxes and business-profit income taxes a corporation pays be any different from those an individual business proprietor pays?
Individuals do not pay taxes. Their taxes are figured into the paychecks of the wages they earn. In order to earn a “living wage”, you must ask for more wages to pay your taxes. Individual taxes are really an indirect tax on corporations, as they have to pay higher wages for the same work.
Shheeesh!
What’s amazing is, right now 7% of Federal income taxes are paid by corporations, and 93% are paid by individuals (including individuals who own shares of said corporations, of course).
Half a century ago, around 50% of Federal income taxes were paid by corporations, and 50% by individuals.
Ya don’t hear much about corporate representatives screaming “Taxation without representation!” a half-century ago, now do ya?
I won’t get into the right or wrong of it, but corporate taxes do NOT represent taaxation without representation. Corporations are “owned” by shareholders. Other businesses are owned by individuals, partnerships, associations, etc. The point is that every business is owned by one or more individuals. Even when the taxes are submitted in the name of a business, they are paid by the individual(s). Individuals who, for the most part, elect their own representatives. Business owners are free to band together and elect someone who shares similar beliefs.
Corportations are under represented by the US government. Now I’ve heard everything!!!
While it is true that corporations per se lack the right to vote, as has already been said, they have power (too much power INHO) over the government already. Back in the 19th Century corporations shrewdly used the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to have themselves declared “persons” under the Constitution.
Corporations shouldn’t pay any taxes, however, individuals should have to report on their own tax returns all freebies and fringe benefits they get from their corporate employers, but I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon. Nor should corporations be allowed to contribution to politicians campaigns, and politicians should only be able to solicit funds from constituents within their respective districts. One person one vote is supposed to be the law of the land.