Reply to post: The problem with getting rid of corp tax

Ireland's tax arrangements are as clear as a pint of Guinness

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

The problem with getting rid of corp tax

While it is true that people end up paying all taxes, including corporate tax, it isn't as simple as just "stop taxing corporations". A corporation is a more desirable structure due to the liability shield. Isn't that protection that allows the corporation to go bankrupt without affecting the finances of its owners worth something? Obviously it is, and that's a big reason why corporation tax should continue to be collected. Corporations are also given other benefits in the US, such as "corporate personhood" that arguably should be paid for (or better yet, eliminated)

Even if you say "we'll address that by taxing dividend income at a higher rate than normal income" that works fine if the corporation and its owners are in the same country, but in today's world that's often not the case. Ideally the corporate tax would be low enough that dividends could simply be treated as normal income, one of the main reasons why we've ended up (in the US) with dividends being taxed at a lower rate is because of the high corporate tax rate.

It would also be easier to justify taxing worldwide income if the corporate tax rate was say 10-15% with most loopholes eliminated, such as the one that allows delaying taxes for an arbitrary amount of time so long as the money is left overseas.

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