How to get Business to Pay their share of taxes
By bobmnu
@bobmnu (8157)
United States
April 6, 2011 7:42pm CST
The US has one of the Highest Business Tax Rates in the industrial World. International Companies will place their money where the tax rate is low and the country is safe. With a rate of close to 39% tax on profits and can not get credit for foreign taxes paid (most countries allow this) why should they bring the money to the US? If we had a tax rate on business of 25%, which is the same or lower than many other countries, we would see more companies bringing the money to the US and pay the US tax. Isn't it better to 25% of something than 39% of nothing? In the US the states with low taxes is seeing economic growth and lower unemployment.
In the economic crisis of 1920 cutting the tax rate from 77% to 25% over an 8 years period showed that the rich paid more of the total bill and every other group saw their percent of the tax bill decrease AND revenues were projected to increase. What surprised the economist was the Federal Revenue went from $300 million to over $700 million in 8 years. Given the choice a business or an individual would rather make less money but keep more of it. As one person put it if you sell 1 million widgets and make make an after tax income of $250 thousand dollars, and the next year you expand your business (increasing your work force by 25%) and produce 2 million widgets but make $275 thousand dollars after taxes why should you put in the effort and take the risk for $25,000 dollars? You expenses double and your income goes up by 10%, why should you risk that. If you could enjoy your life style then why risk the money to make a little more? Let the business and individual keep more of what they make you will generate more tax money.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0302-13.pdf
5 responses
@TTCCWW (579)
• United States
7 Apr 11
We need to bring the tax rate for business down to a competitive level... This would be a real boon to those companies that actually pay taxes..
But we cannot do that as long as we have loopholes for mega corporations and continue to tax on money coming into the country...
As long as the politicians keep talking non-sence issue's they don't have to look at what they don't understand.
1 person likes this
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
8 Apr 11
Business will locate where they have the least number of regulations and the lowest taxes. When it can take 5 years (and thousands of not millions of dollars in reports and court cases) or more to get final approval to expand a plant why should a company locate in the US? Companies do not object to paying taxes. A few years ago Exxon-Mobile made a record profit and the press and government were all over them, what they did not complain about was EM also set a new record for the amount of taxes paid in a single year by one company.
It is better to 25% of something than 40% of nothing.
@TTCCWW (579)
• United States
8 Apr 11
bobmnu,
Agree with you on the fact that they leave our country because of taxes. The regulation is a polital talking point. The top few country's that these company's are running to have stiffer regulation then us.Companies realize that they need to follow rules to keep everyone safe.
Ireland is the number one country for business now and has some of thightest enviromental rules in the world. So the idea that this is about regualtion is just not true. Ireland has also put some of the strongest banking laws in place in the last year.
BP has much tighter rules in the UK then we do and they have not moved out of doing business there.
@irisheyes (4370)
• United States
9 Apr 11
What the hell difference does a tax rate on paper make if they all loophole out of it?
Look at the 2010 facts:
GE profitted $14.2 billion 7 paid $0 taxes.
Chevron profitted $10 billion, paid $0 taxes and was refunded !19 million
XXon Mobil profitted $19 billion, paid no taxes and was refunded $156 million.
I can list and list and list here but what difference does it make? You guys who want "fairness" for business don't make any distinctions. Truth is you just want everybody to lay off BIG business and you could care less what happens to mid level companies struggling to survive. They are the only ones paying any taxes at all & they are not outsourcing jobs and getting tax credits for it the way the big boys do. But you dont recognize that. We're supposed to lay off ALL business & just let the greedy continue to destroy the middle class. Well, your tax numbers mean about as much to me as they do to the greedy corporations that are destroying my country.
1 person likes this
I couldn't have said it better!
Annie
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
7 Apr 11
Like all mindless bigotry, class warfare knows no logic.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
7 Apr 11
If you're trying to convince people on the left, it's like talking to a wall. They don't think in the big picture. They look at economics like it's just a mathematical equation. If 5% brings you $5.00 then 50% will bring you $50.00. They don't understand that exorbitant taxes on business just forces businesses to relocate to areas with lower taxes.
I still see people whining about the tax breaks Walker gave to businesses in Wisconsin even after it's already PROVEN to work by bringing businesses to the state, thus paying taxes there AND employing workers who will pay state income taxes and use their income to purchase goods which means they will also pay more state sales tax.
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
7 Apr 11
People don't know how economics and business works, if they did they would see why it is bad to tax business. In reality we should cheer every time a business reports a record profit.
The market place when left alone will solve most of the social ills too. Weyerhaeuser, a lumber Barron is responsible for planting more trees than his business cut down, Rockefeller, the oil Barron saved the whales and countless lives with the introduction of cheep kerosene to be used for home lightning instead of whale oil or natural gas. Street cars in the South were integrated until the Government passed Jim Crow Laws. Baseball was integrated years before the Civil Rights Act. Almost every one of the so called "Robber Barron's" made their money by producing a product that was need by the consumer and that made life easier for them in the process. These "Robber Barron's" also used their money for the public good.
What has the government produced for the good of the people?
@dark_joev (3034)
• United States
7 Apr 11
This would all work if businesses paid taxes to begin with but as they don't it is completely impossible to tax a Business. This is because Business charge for taxes in the goods and services that they sell so they would have to increase their prices to have factories or locations within the United States. Which might price them out of a now very tight market place as far as prices go.
So there isn't away to have Businesses pay taxes all its another tax for the consumer has to pay. One of the many taxes that consumers have to pay which includes the Business owners. They have to pay it too.
1 person likes this
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
7 Apr 11
It would be nice if business did not have to pay taxes. That would mean more money for expansion which would mean more jobs and more taxes for the state.
A tax on business is great for the government because they get the revenue and the business get blamed for the higher prices. When the business finds the tax too high and tries to pay less they get blasted by the politicians. It is a great set up the politicians do all the dirty tricks and the business gets the blame.
