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From: ems@amdahl.UUCP (ems)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.taxes
Subject: Re: Corporate income tax
Message-ID: <1229@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Mar-85 20:58:21 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.1229
Posted: Mon Mar  4 20:58:21 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 00:43:02 EST
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Organization: Circle C Shellfish Ranch, Shores-of-the-Pacific, Ca
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Xref: utcs net.legal:1488 net.taxes:693

> By the way, there's been a lot of criticism of corporate tax rates
> in this group.  What good does taxing corporations do?  They pay
> their taxes out of income, you know, which comes from the consumers
> who buy their products.  Individuals pay all the taxes in the end.
> 
Not quite so.  Lets say that a coporation from a foreign country
comes here and mines silver.  They then sell some of the silver
to fund the operation and take the rest back to their home land
as 'profit'.  They are a socialist country and these funds go
into the national account.  Should they not pay a tax for the
privilege of taking our natural resource for their own use?
In this case a foreign government is the tax payer.

This argument can be generalized in several ways.  The first is to
say that the socialist government is in fact a set of stock holders.
In that case, the 'individuals' paying the tax are not citizens of
our country.  The next is to say that yes, the stock holders can
be anywhere in the world, even here.  This still shows the tax comming
from a (supposedly) more powerful group for the right to
exploit the national heratage or minerals.

The final generalization is to say that it is not silver, but
instead is a resource of some other kind.  Beach front property
in California, wharehouse space in New York.  Still, you are
taxing the entity (company == stockholders) for the use of their
share of public resources and facilities (police, fire, dirtying
the water and air) etc.

At this point you can see why many third world countries do not
greet the corporate world with open arms.  In we come to
monopolize the sources of wealth and export the gain to our
own shores. (In some of their eyes...)  While we talk of making
jobs and building industry.  In an international economy there is
a need for corporate taxation.  Even within our own borders, tax
on coporations can communicate to them the true costs to society
of their actions.  (You make the polution, you pay to clean it
up and figure the cost into your profit equations...)

E. Michael Smith  ...!{hplabs,ihnp4,amd,nsc}!amdahl!ems

Computo ergo sum

The opinions expressed by me are not representative of those of any
other person - natural, unnatural, or fictional - and only marginally
reflect my opinions as strained by the language.