Need help fleeing high-tax liberalism in California. (Sacramento: insurance, credit)

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by TheEconomist

No. California can't pay its bills in large part because its public sector is freeloading on the backs of the private sector. Prison guards in California can make 6 figures a year which is more than lots of lawyers make in Houston. The real estate bubble did derail the economy. However, the real estate bubble was caused by the government backing virtually all home loans. Private businesses tend to take reckless risks when they have nothing to lose.

No. California struggles to pay its bills at the moment because of the national (and international) economic crash -- which crash was very much a function of toxic financial products, based almost entirely on inflating real estate -- everywhere.

The public sector is out of control -- as always -- as has been pretty much always the case in all governments because all governments suck and fail due to simple factors of human nature. And the private sector is also out of control -- as always -- because, etc. This is a natural dynamic. One that needs to constantly be balanced. No political or economic (or social) system has ever sustained long-term balance over many successive generations without major hiccups and upheavals and gross adjustments. Change is universally axiomatic. Life is opportunistic and changes with the dynamics of larger change.

Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Corporations are not individuals. Individuals pay taxes. Why should a ficititious entity pay a tax? It makes no sense. The PEOPLE who derive their profit from the corporation should be taxed. The corporation can simply pack up and leave an area that penalizes it which is what most corporations have done in California to the great detriment of the people there, but to the benefit of Texans.

Correct: "Corporations are not individuals" ... even though the U.S. Supreme Court treats them that way by, for example, giving them the right to contribute as individuals to political campaigns. The Supreme Court also has declared money, in this scenario, as "free speech". Make any sense to you? Not to me. If a corporation can be granted such individualistic, anthropomorphic status -- then they can damn well pay taxes like individuals too.

Or, as you say, tax the people who profit from the corporations, at the very least. But that doesn't happen either -- because of the clever ways that corporations are made legal "beings".

Yes, the corporations can pack up and leave. And sometimes do. And others start up / move in. Part of the continually changing dynamic of life. But, NO, "most corporations have [not] done [so] in California." And who cares about Texas anyway? This is not a sporting contest between the two communities. Let Texas prosper. California will, as well. California and Texas will each ebb and flow at different rates / different times. Texas will attract at this time due to lower cost of living factors. And Texas has some good resources. But no single state in the union can match the breadth and depth of California's resources. In the big picture California will always be a huge economy.

Originally Posted by TheEconomist

And then there are those who are not defiant but who prefer to keep their head in the sand. Like Candide from Voltaire, they keep telling themselves, "I live in the best of all possible worlds. There is no place better than where I am now."

You know, a little common sense here will present you with this question: "What other world could you live in at all, than this one where you are?" For me, the realization of "this is where I am" keeps this world at the top of my personal list. I'll take it. A number of times in my past, I was confronted (violently) with the option of not being here. I chose to stick it out every time.

Originally Posted by Boompa

Actually it was caused by the bankers who run the state pension boards investing in toxic derivatives. California will survive and still be a better place to live than most

Yep.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Corporations are not individuals. Individuals pay taxes. Why should a ficititious entity pay a tax? It makes no sense.

Why shouldn't a corporation pay taxes? That is what makes no sense to me. They derive benefits (profits) from their activity and they should pay their fair share of operating the infrastructure and government.

Or looking at it a different way, why should corporations be allowed to hire lobbyists and influence elections and legislation? After all they aren't real people, they are fictitious!

And just as a matter of practicality if corporations paid no taxes then the tax burden would become onerous for individuals. Are you ready to pay double or triple your income taxes so that corporations can get a free ride?

[Voyageur]

Originally Posted by nullgeo

Correct: "Corporations are not individuals" ... even though the U.S. Supreme Court treats them that way by, for example, giving them the right to contribute as individuals to political campaigns. The Supreme Court also has declared money, in this scenario, as "free speech". Make any sense to you? Not to me. If a corporation can be granted such individualistic, anthropomorphic status -- then they can damn well pay taxes like individuals too.

Yep. Corporations are persons. The word person in Amendment XIV applies to corporations, per the United States Supreme Court.

But regardless, the last time I checked the Constitution did not limit the collection of income tax to individuals, so the premise that a corporation can't be taxed because it isn't an individual is baseless, even absent the precedent of corporate personhood.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by Rpche

The things California has to offer do not come courtesy of the government.

The government, in fact, is a hindrance to the good life in California.

Oh really? What about highways, airports, harbors? You gonna take your goods to market on a dirt road? You got enough money to build your own airport, and seaport?

Schools? They educate your workforce, and your customers. You want to not have schools, or spend money for them?

Public Safety? What about police and fire services? They help protect the public.

Look, we all have issues with public policy and government, but to make mindless comments like that just isn't grounded in reality. Makes you want to suggest going to the Sudan, where they don't have much of a government.

[TheEconomist]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

Why shouldn't a corporation pay taxes?

Why doesn't your shirt pay taxes? It is just as much a person as a corporation. Maybe your pencil should pay its fair share too.

All a corporate entity reflects is a group of people who have come together to engage in enterprise and the laws of the corporation govern who makes decisions and how income is to be divided.

[hoffdano]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

Why shouldn't a corporation pay taxes? That is what makes no sense to me. They derive benefits (profits) from their activity and they should pay their fair share of operating the infrastructure and government.

Or looking at it a different way, why should corporations be allowed to hire lobbyists and influence elections and legislation? After all they aren't real people, they are fictitious!

And just as a matter of practicality if corporations paid no taxes then the tax burden would become onerous for individuals. Are you ready to pay double or triple your income taxes so that corporations can get a free ride?

Taxing corporations is an illusion. Yes the corporate entity gets a tax bill, and writes a check to the taxing body. But that tax is an expense, ultimately no different than what a business pays for other goods. The business must set the price of their product high enough to make a profit. So the buyer ultimately pays for the corporate income tax.

I think this is an inefficient way to levy taxes. It is complicated from an accounting perspective, keeps too many CPAs and lawyers employed, and creates way too many opportunities for deception and bookkeeping tricks.

[BRinSM]

when a corporation pays taxes, it's actually the shareholders paying the taxes indirectly in the form of reduced share prices and dividends. if corporate taxes dissapeared you would see an instant increase in company value and dividends. these gains would then eventually be realized by the shareholders who would have to pay taxes on them, so taxes are being paid either way. it's not like taxes are going to magically dissapear if the corporate tax is eliminated. however, the total tax liability of the shareholders would probably be less than the corporation due to higher rates for corporations as opposed to individuals.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Why doesn't your shirt pay taxes?

My shirt doesn't run a business. My shirt doesn't make a profit, and my shirt doesn't hire people or lobby lawmakers to change the laws to favor shirts.

Don't BS me. I'm an ex-CEO/President of a corporation. A corporation is a legal entity equivalent to a person. If they want to be equal to persons in privileges then they need to man up to paying their fair share of supporting the government and supporting the infrastructure.

Yes of course they pass their cost of doing business including their taxes to their customers. That is the stimulus that lawmakers (as our representatives) have to lever control over corporations. Tax laws are designed to favor beneficial behavior and penalize harmful behavior. Without that corporations are free to rape the lands and rape the citizenry.

I'll be willing to exempt corporations of taxation if in return they give up the other benefits of being corporate persons. That includes their right to lobby and to contribute political funds.

Have it your way or have it my way but it is unreasonable to have the best of both ways and the worst of neither.

[TheEconomist]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

Don't BS me. I'm an ex-CEO/President of a corporation. A corporation is a legal entity equivalent to a person. If they want to be equal to persons in privileges then they need to man up to paying their fair share of supporting the government and supporting the infrastructure...

Without [government] corporations are free to rape the lands and rape the citizenry.

You crack me up, Lovehound. I'll bet you are an ex-CEO/President of something other than a non-profit "corporation" dedicated to saving the hump-back whales. Sure, you are. Or perhaps you run an easy-bake oven restaurant or lemonaid stand. Did your company fold under your leadership or did you resign to start a support group for self-loathing capitalists? Maybe you refused to charge more than 25 cents a cup for lemonaid so that the kids down the street could afford to drink too.

Let me ask you, this though: If corporations are comprised of people who need government to prevent them from raping the lands and citizenry (your words), and governments are also comprised of people, who will stop the government from raping the lands and citizenry (again, your words)? Should we establish a higher government to regulate the government. If so, where does it stop? How much regulation is enough?

What I don't understand is I clearly explained to you why corporations don't need to pay taxes, but you instead had to go off on a tangent about how companies are evil.

Why are people who work in corporations evil but people who work in government good? That makes no sense.

[hashbrown]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

My shirt doesn't run a business. My shirt doesn't make a profit, and my shirt doesn't hire people or lobby lawmakers to change the laws to favor shirts.

Does the corporation run the business or is it the employees? Does the corporation make a profit or the employees? Does the corporation hire people or the employees? Does the corporation lobby lawmakers or the employees? Are their incomes and capital gains being taxed already, excluding a corporate income tax?