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You are anthropomorphizing a corporation. Being a person in law is just a convenience.
If you tax a corporation, the "real people" running it will decide if, by passing along and COLLECTING that tax, they still have a market for their product. The company itself isn't a person and doesn't care.
If you tax a "real person," they decide in a similar way and might go off the books and work outside the system. The "real person" does not behave the same way than the [not a] "real person."
Taxing a company provides no benefit to society in general that a sales tax doesn't provide. It's just a way to tax individual people more and convinces some of or most of the population that they are getting something that someone else is paying for.
Corporations exist based upon the income they produce. If they are not producing income they generally cease to exist. If they are making income they can share it with the government. That does not suggest the amount of taxes that are levied is not important. It is unlikely any corporation would stay in business if all the income was taken as tax. Then again there are non-profits...some of which seem quite successful without a profit motive.
Sales taxes in some versions may be harder on the corporation than income taxes.
corporate tax breaks are a big factor in Republican supply side economics. If you boil it down, what it translates to is: give a company extra cash so they can plow that money into producing more goods. The extra labor (extra shifts?) from producing the goods eventually (as in trickle down) produces jobs and the new jobs helps drive the economy by increasing demand.
This has been proven time and again on a local level to not work. See Scott walker in Wisconsin, and Bobby Jindal in Louisianna.
In Demand side economics, you give money to the consumers to buy goods which drives demand and eventually production which drives jobs.
in the last 10 years or so, we've seen companies that are flush with cash pay their leadership obscene amounts of money and nobody puts the extra money into production because it costs money to store the goods which don't get purchased.
All that money sitting in a rich person's bank is not making jobs ANYWHERE.
Thzt is not the bad decision. The corporation was always a legal person.
A corporation was never a legal person until Dartmouth v Woodward. The chief justice of the US Supreme Court at the time was Marshall, who said:
A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence.
That view (read the entire decision) led to the belief that corporate charters could only be granted if the corporation performed a public service. If you read these early articles of incorporation, you'll see they go to tremendous lengths to justify their usefulness to the public.
Which brings us to Amesbury Nail Factory Co. v. Weed, 17 Mass. 53 (1820)
In spite of the 1st Amendment's prohibition on establishing religion or preventing the free exercise thereof, Massachusetts permitted taxation to support churches.
Amesbury argued that the nail factory had no soul and so the tax didn't apply. The court ruled that the factory benefits in the same way an individual benefits from any tax, and so the tax must be paid.
That leads to Goodell Mfg. Co. v. Trask, 28 Mass. (1831).
The argument here was that since none of the shareholders lived in the church parish, the company could not be taxed. The court ruled that "a corporation is an independent legal person" and subject to the tax.
A corporation was never a legal person until Dartmouth v Woodward. The chief justice of the US Supreme Court at the time was Marshall, who said:
A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence.
That view (read the entire decision) led to the belief that corporate charters could only be granted if the corporation performed a public service. If you read these early articles of incorporation, you'll see they go to tremendous lengths to justify their usefulness to the public.
Which brings us to Amesbury Nail Factory Co. v. Weed, 17 Mass. 53 (1820)
In spite of the 1st Amendment's prohibition on establishing religion or preventing the free exercise thereof, Massachusetts permitted taxation to support churches.
Amesbury argued that the nail factory had no soul and so the tax didn't apply. The court ruled that the factory benefits in the same way an individual benefits from any tax, and so the tax must be paid.
That leads to Goodell Mfg. Co. v. Trask, 28 Mass. (1831).
The argument here was that since none of the shareholders lived in the church parish, the company could not be taxed. The court ruled that "a corporation is an independent legal person" and subject to the tax.
That was wonderful. Learned a lot I had not come across. So I modify my statement to say that in modern times the corporation has been a legal person.
Basically though I think we are having an agreement.
All that money sitting in a rich person's bank is not making jobs ANYWHERE.
True enough, except for, well, every word you wrote.
The wealthy do not take their money and stuff it in a mattress, or put it in a bank.
The rich invest. That provides capital to entrepreneurs, capital to fund small business expansion, capital to fund public sector public works projects, capital to allow failing companies to restructure, capital for -- well, capital for capitalism.
True enough, except for, well, every word you wrote.
The wealthy do not take their money and stuff it in a mattress, or put it in a bank.
The rich invest. That provides capital to entrepreneurs, capital to fund small business expansion, capital to fund public sector public works projects, capital to allow failing companies to restructure, capital for -- well, capital for capitalism.
Much of the very rich money is essentially stored as savings. Stocks, bonds and cash are basically savings, mostly outside a bank per se. Some of the rich of course do have and more actively invest using money as you suggest.
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