Newsgroups: can.general Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave From: dave@lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: Re: Flat-Rate Tax Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) Date: Mon, 25-Sep-89 12:30:28 EDT Summary: the has to be tax at the corporate level Message-ID: <1989Sep25.123029.20626@lsuc.on.ca> References: <1989Aug26.214344.24140@utzoo.uucp> Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto In article <1989Aug26.214344.24140@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >jmsellens@watdragon.waterloo.edu (John M. Sellens) writes: >>>Ideally, business >>>income should be untaxed. You can tax business income by >>>taxing the dividend and capital gains incomes of individuals. >> >>So that someone earning a lot of money in a business can just leave >>it there earning more money and delay paying any taxes for as long >>as he likes. Make the poor pay! :-) > >Yup. Clearly, creating jobs and investing in our economy is evil and >should be discouraged by taxing it. Or rather, by taxing people who >are *successful* at it and therefore make money. > >And people wonder why our economy is steadily sliding downward... > >"Your deep seated resentment of people who make profits is showing." I think you're mistaken, Henry. I'm all in favour of making profits. What you're overlooking is that if there's no taxation at the corporate level, there is a very strong incentive to leave funds in the corporation, whether they are invested in bank deposits, the stock market or anything else. This would create a bias to investment over consumption. It would also allow those who earn investment income through a corporation to effectively defer taxation indefinitely. It would also be inequitable unless you allow those earning income directly (not through a corporation) to defer taxation on all invested income as well. Kind of like no limits to RRSP contributions. That kind of system has been proposed; when you examine it carefully you realize it's much like the GST -- a pure tax on consumption (i.e., everything you don't save). David Sherman -- Moderator, mail.yiddish { uunet!attcan att utzoo }!lsuc!dave dave@lsuc.on.ca