If corporations are people, why did they get their own Special tax scheme?
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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You're right. Super wealthy should also get their own tax scheme. /s
I hate that you’re so spot on with how they’d implement it.
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Nah bro nah bro you don't get it, just one more tax cut bro then you'll get higher wages I promise. Just one more.
It'll trickle down bro, the trickle is almost there bro, just a little more.
They create jobs. Some workers have two or three jobs! Why do you hate workers!
You know, if you raise the corporate tax rate, there's actually an incentive to pay people more because that is effectively a cost of doing business... Food for thought.
That's a fallacy similar to people who don't understand tax brackets and marginal rates vs effective rates and thinking that sometimes a raise can mean you lose more to taxes than if you didn't get the raise.
IMO if we want legislation to increase average pay, the way to do it is to tie it to other pays, like capping top pay or dividends/profit based on employee pay in some way.
I certainly won't say I'm an expert on the topic.
I also think legislation is a long road that could leave different loop holes. I'd be interested in others thoughts on a variety of approaches here, maybe some form of credit based on percentage of employee compensation related to performance. Obviously there would need to be an incentive to pay employees more and attach it to executive incentives.
Cap CEO compensation to a percentage of the median employee salary. (obviously a bit of legalese is needed to define this exactly so there is no loophole)
Never work. There are too many ways around "compensation".
For example, the company purchases a piece of art from the CEO's wife, to display in their lobby. That wouldn't be considered compensation for his "services" as CEO.
No, the tax structure is a better option. Close the ability for them to invest their excess income in financial assets. Allow them to reduce their taxable income through deductible expenses for tangible goods and services. Crawl up their asses when they try to justify objects with intangible value like artwork, but look the other way when the purchase is of a product or service produced by workers.
I'd impose a securities tax as well: tax a percentage of all registered securities, payable in shares of the security. Transfer the shares to an IRS liquidator, who sells them off slowly over time. Limit the liquidator to a maximum of 1% of total traded volume to minimize the effect on the market price. Exempt the first $10 million held by natural persons from the tax. Suddenly, nobody wants to hold more than $10 million in shares.
If the corpo is taxed more on income, it lowers the profit margin, which probably would make them not especially keen on reducing it even further by paying more to their emloyees.
Noone is going to decrease their profits to pay less taxes. You only pay a fraction anyway, how would that even work?
It becomes a balance of "were losing it anyway, might as well use it to attach/keep good employees.
Instead of giving it away to Uncle Sam
This was literally the case when smart phones first came out.
Companies would buy their workers a phone and pay for the plan and write it off.
The second the irs tightened the rules, companies yanked benefit.
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"Income" is what's left after they pay their expenses, including labor costs. Worker's pay doesn't come out of their profits.
They will increase their deductible expenses. Ideally, they'd increase worker wages, but they'll probably do something corrupt. It's fairly easy to say that the company needs a car to get to and from meetings, so they use their business revenue to buy a $200,000 car that they use "for business". On the books, that's $200,000 less profit, but they get a $200,000 asset. But, even the corrupt act of buying a car (or a yacht, a private jet, a submarine) pays the wages of workers who built the vehicle.
They don't really want a depreciable asset like a car. They'd rather buy a thousand shares of AAPL, or 8000 shares of GME, which wouldn't go toward paying a worker. Except that it's a lot harder to argue that these shares are necessary for their business. They can't really justify financial instruments; they're limited to tangible goods and services that could be used in commerce, which means they are paying the workers who produce those goods and services.
So they stick with claiming luxury goods as necessary for their business, and we let them think they are getting away with something.
"Number one: In 1945 corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent."
"Number Two: In 1900, 90% of Americans were self employed; now it's about 2%... It's called consolidation; strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time."
Make American Great Again and raise corporate taxes to 1950 levels
Any corporate tax paid is a rounding error.
They funnel it all back into "growth" even when no more is really possible.
It feels like there's one person left in this game of Monopoly and they're still fucking rolling the dice.
That's how is used to work, and it was a good thing. Now they funnel it into stock buybacks.
But what if i become rich one day? I am pre-emptively voting against my own interest! The leopards will not eat my face!
Are/were there tax brackets for corporations as well?
Not sure about the US but generally no, you pay the same rate from the first dollar.
It doesn't make sense to have brackets for corporations because they can move their income forward and backward through time to a greater extent than individuals can.
It would incentivise a lot of BS to minimise tax which ultimately isn't "productive".
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You can raise it to 1000%. Most large corporations don't pay taxes. We would be way better off if ALL of them paid...well anything really.
Every time I suggested on Reddit even a 0.1% tax on corporate revenue I get a bunch of people telling me it's a terrible idea, but never with anything resembling a coherent argument as to why.
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