finknottle Posted November 17, 2008 Share Posted November 17, 2008 Maybe... Hey, it is their own doing. "...Overall federal taxes were not that diffferent during the period of fast grwoth than they are today. Federal taxes averaged 18.5% of the GDP from 1950 to 1973, 19.4 from 1973 to 2002, and stood at 18.2 in 2002. The composition of federal taxes has changed greatly since then. For example, Social Security taxes were only 10.9% of federal revenues in 1950 compared to 35.3% in 2002, while corporate income taxes declined 35.3% of revenues to 9.5% over the same span. Looking at only personal income Social Security taxes gives the impression of substantial increases in taxes, but that is misleading because the higher corporate tax payments of the 1950's were inevitably passed on to individuals either in the form of lower wages, lower returns to investment, or higher consumer prices. Substituting taxes on corporations for taxes on individuals does not make the burden of taxes go away." ~Taxing Ourselves By Joel Slemrod, Jon M. Bakija Interesting find. Suprisingly, it bears out my point. My fear is a banana republic situation where it becomes the norm for the rich to cheat outright rather than the current unsavory but legal way of doing it (hire a good accountant to find you all the tax breaks he can). People don't cheat because their corporate taxes are too high. A CEO simply sends a letter to the shareholders explaining their company's lack of expansion. People start cheating when their personal taxes are too high. That's when they start hiding assets overseas, not reporting income, and not even filing at all. In any event, think about your numbers. Corporate income tax declining as a percentage of revenue does not mean that the rates are falling. It simply means that the companies are not as profitable. Of course, this factors in tax breaks, so we would need to see what portion of the GDP they would be without the breaks. But if it still showed a decline, than that would support the argument that the tax rates on corporations are too high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledInIllinois Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Interesting find. Suprisingly, it bears out my point. My fear is a banana republic situation where it becomes the norm for the rich to cheat outright rather than the current unsavory but legal way of doing it (hire a good accountant to find you all the tax breaks he can). People don't cheat because their corporate taxes are too high. A CEO simply sends a letter to the shareholders explaining their company's lack of expansion. People start cheating when their personal taxes are too high. That's when they start hiding assets overseas, not reporting income, and not even filing at all. In any event, think about your numbers. Corporate income tax declining as a percentage of revenue does not mean that the rates are falling. It simply means that the companies are not as profitable. Of course, this factors in tax breaks, so we would need to see what portion of the GDP they would be without the breaks. But if it still showed a decline, than that would support the argument that the tax rates on corporations are too high. Or either we had it "right" years ago and places started to offer tax breaks to entice companies to move to their area... Then we headed down the slippery slope, slowly eating everybody apart and pushing companies to move overseas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaska Darin Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Why don't you also quote the points made in the final two-thirds of the article that won't get you your virtual high-five from the rest of the right-wing suck-ups? I'm glad there's little evidence that projections on stuff like this are generally completely wrong [/ignorance of the current economic crisis that is almost completely rooted in really bad projections] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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