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What about the ones that do?
These are the companies paying the most in taxes:
1. ExxonMobil
• Income tax expense: $31.05 billion
• Earnings before taxes: $78.73 billion
• Revenue: $428.38 billion
•1-year share price change: 6.56%
• Industry: Oil and gas
Exxon Mobil: Made by far the largest profits in the group, but paid less than 1% in U.S. taxes, and yet received oil subsidies along with their tax breaks. Unabashedly reports a 2012 "theoretical tax" of over $27 billion, almost 90% of its total income tax expense. The company was also near the top in contractor misconduct.
The corporate income tax is the most poorly understood of all the major methods by which the U.S. government collects money. Most economists concluded long ago that it is among the least efficient and least defensible taxes.
From an economic point of view, the central problem with the corporate income tax is that, ultimately, only people can pay taxes. Economists have had great difficulty in assessing the incidence of the corporate tax—that is, determining on which groups of people the burden falls.
Originally posted by charles1952
I ran across an interesting article about the corporate tax. It may be worth your while. It isn't very academic, but I found it instructive.
www.econlib.org...
Here are a couple of the summary statements;
The corporate income tax is the most poorly understood of all the major methods by which the U.S. government collects money. Most economists concluded long ago that it is among the least efficient and least defensible taxes.
From an economic point of view, the central problem with the corporate income tax is that, ultimately, only people can pay taxes. Economists have had great difficulty in assessing the incidence of the corporate tax—that is, determining on which groups of people the burden falls.
May I post another paragraph from the article?
From an economic point of view, the central problem with the corporate income tax is that, ultimately, only people can pay taxes. Economists have had great difficulty in assessing the incidence of the corporate tax—that is, determining on which groups of people the burden falls.
If you find you have the time, the entire article might be worth your while.
Modern economic opinion is divided on the incidence of the corporate income tax, but few economists today believe its burden falls entirely on the owners of capital. The latest thinking is that, since capital is mobile, it will flow to investments that produce the highest after-tax returns. The corporate income tax raises the cost of capital and reduces after-tax returns in the corporate sector, and thus leads to a migration of capital into noncorporate or taxexempt sectors of the economy. This migration has two effects: it lowers the supply of capital available to corporations, and it causes a reduction in rates of return in the noncorporate sector as capital becomes more plentiful there. The ultimate effect, therefore, is to lower returns for all owners of capital across the economy.
One important result of this capital migration is that the burden of the corporate income tax, over time, shifts to workers: with a smaller capital stock to employ, workers are less productive and earn lower real wages. In a 1996 survey, public finance economists were asked to estimate what percentage of the corporate income tax in the United States was ultimately borne by owners of capital. While their answers varied, the average response was 41 percent, meaning that the professional consensus is that more than half the burden is eventually shifted from owners of capital to workers or other groups.
Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by korathin
Dear korathin,
You've got me a little confused. I assume that your judgment of "ridiculous" is based on one of the two general paragraphs I posted, but I'm not sure which. Perhaps it's the second.
May I post another paragraph from the article?
From an economic point of view, the central problem with the corporate income tax is that, ultimately, only people can pay taxes. Economists have had great difficulty in assessing the incidence of the corporate tax—that is, determining on which groups of people the burden falls.
If you find you have the time, the entire article might be worth your while.
Modern economic opinion is divided on the incidence of the corporate income tax, but few economists today believe its burden falls entirely on the owners of capital. The latest thinking is that, since capital is mobile, it will flow to investments that produce the highest after-tax returns. The corporate income tax raises the cost of capital and reduces after-tax returns in the corporate sector, and thus leads to a migration of capital into noncorporate or taxexempt sectors of the economy. This migration has two effects: it lowers the supply of capital available to corporations, and it causes a reduction in rates of return in the noncorporate sector as capital becomes more plentiful there. The ultimate effect, therefore, is to lower returns for all owners of capital across the economy.
One important result of this capital migration is that the burden of the corporate income tax, over time, shifts to workers: with a smaller capital stock to employ, workers are less productive and earn lower real wages. In a 1996 survey, public finance economists were asked to estimate what percentage of the corporate income tax in the United States was ultimately borne by owners of capital. While their answers varied, the average response was 41 percent, meaning that the professional consensus is that more than half the burden is eventually shifted from owners of capital to workers or other groups.
With respect,
Charles1952