given that it is paid by the employer, that is correct. you can argue that otherwise the employee would receive that money, but any actual dispersion in it's sudden lack would be utterly dependent on the pressures of the given industry - just like any reduction in cost to the employer.
While there may be some variation depending on the industry, for the vast majority of industries the lion's share of the employer contribution comes directly out of the employee's overall compensation. As would be the case with any direct tax on a factor of production: If you reduce an employer's property taxes, he's relatively more likely to spend it on land than labor. If you reduce an employer's WACC through accounting or tax cuts, he's relatively more likely to spend his savings on acquiring more capital than land or labor.
This is independent of the industry. While the exact proportions will vary depending on how land-, labor-, or capital-intensive the industry is, an employer who gets a tax cut in one specific factor of production is going to be more likely to spend it on that same factor of production, than the same employer would if he just stumbled upon an equal amount of money. This is because that factor of production now costs him less, and is therefore relatively more productive.
Employees pay their half, Employers pay theirs. Your figures counted both halves against the Employee.
Both parts SHOULD be counted against the employee for the most part. 100% of the employee's contribution, and some pretty substantial fraction of the employer's contribution as well.
yup. so is the cost of OSHA compliance. Would you say that's a tax that employees pay?
Yes, although that tends to scale better than payroll taxes do. The marginal OSHA cost of hiring an additional employee doesn't tend to be especially high, relative to the employer's overall OSHA costs. There may be certain industries that are exceptions to that, but generally speaking if a factory is safe for 100 people it's also safe for 101 people.
I get the argument you're making. It just doesn't hold up, as what the employer would otherwise do with that money is up to the employer - and that employer will follow the specific pressures of the market he is in. If the resource being most fiercely competed for in the market is productive labor, then probably yes, it will go into higher pay. If it's land, then it will go into land. If it's automation, it will go into automation.
I think this is much less important than which specific factor of production the tax cut applies to.
pshaw, in that case, progressive income taxes are regressive because the wealthy hire fewer workers and invest in less business expansion, thus costing those who would otherwise have jobs.
Except "the wealthy" are actual human beings, whose income and taxes are already captured in the study I cited. Corporations, on the other hand, do not have minds of their own. All corporate taxes are ultimately paid by human beings. Since corporate taxes wouldn't be included in a calculation (thus skewing the results), they estimate who is actually paying them.
but you didnt' answer the point about this. They were measuring NET TAX.
So, in otherwords, if your business earned 100,000 and paid 25% corporate tax before distributing $50,000 of dividends that were then taxed at 15%, then the total tax paid on that $100,000 was 32.5% (25% of a 100,000 + 15% of 50,0000). That's how it works in the US. In Canada, you get to count dividends under expenses. They are using that method instead of ours, and saying that they only taxes after dividends should count, which means that they measure that 25% not against the 100,000 that it was actually paid on, but against the $50,000 that was left after dividends. Then they count the capital gains taxes (15% of the 50,000), but drop the corporate taxes of 25% on that same 50K that was paid to the government prior to dispersal. They are simply ignoring (in our model) $12,500 paid in taxes on the $50K that was dispersed in order to bring down the overall rate.
It's been a while since I've had any accounting classes so I can't really speak to this point. But I will say this: Accounting dollars are not necessarily the same as economic dollars, so theoretically it should be possible to get the same results for an economic study using any accounting system you like.
If I understand you correctly, they're including the capital gains taxes that are actually paid out. That makes sense to me; those are indisputably paid by the shareholders. But (again if I understand you correctly) they aren't including the corporate taxes; this is probably somewhat more difficult to determine who is actually paying them...but in any case, if they aren't included it would actually skew the numbers toward a MORE progressive system than we actually have, because corporate taxes tend to be regressive. To the extent that they're paid at all, they tend to be paid by consumers and workers (and deadweight loss) more than shareholders. Corporate taxes are one of the least efficient, least fair forms of taxation in this country.
Where do you see that they aren't including corporate taxes?
I mean, especially the FICA swap is ridiculous. It's so blatant that the move was done simply to increase the employees tax burden v the employers - because otherwise you have the problem that, for every dime of payroll tax that a lower or middle class person is paying, his employer is paying the exact same amount.
:roll: well hells bells, if we're allowed to throw out who actually "pays the tax", then this becomes alot easier.
Having someone pay the tax on paper is not necessarily indicative of who is ACTUALLY paying the tax. For example, I think that most everyone would agree that sales taxes are extremely regressive (because lower-class people tend to spend nearly all of their disposable income on consumption). What a lot of people don't know is that sales taxes are actually levied on businesses, not consumers. Most businesses just CHOOSE to directly pass the bill on to you (and even itemize it for you on your receipt), but they are under no obligation to do so. By your logic, sales taxes must be progressive because they're technically being paid by Wal-Mart rather than Wal-Mart shoppers.
Or look at it another way: Suppose that a poor man owes the IRS $2,000 in taxes. Bill Gates agrees to pay his tax bill in exchange for 200 hours of the man's labor. Now, who really paid that tax?
Everything dime in tax the employee pays came to him from the employer. Ergo, the Employer has 100% of the tax burden, as he was the source of the money that was only "technically" paid by the worker.
No, the employee provided something of value for the employer which is not taxed (i.e. the government doesn't make the employee spend 1 hour of his 8-hour shift working for the government). The reverse is not true; the employer's compensation to the employee IS taxed.
if we reduced the corporate tax rate to zero, or adopted Canadian accounting methods (see above), yes. however, the capital gains tax is extremely elastic; small changes can produce large swings in supply of capital. A sudden hike of the kind you are discussing would give us very sudden, very negative effects.
It doesn't need to be sudden. But the capital gains tax should be gradually raised to parity with other forms of income. And the corporate tax should be reduced and eventually phased out.
(Incidentally, I think I read somewhere last year that the US is finally starting to move toward international accounting standards, so it's possible that in the next few years we will indeed be keeping our books the same way that Canada does.
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If they don't work here they are subject to a 30% tax on dividends - which are then usually again taxed by their home nation as income or capital gains of some sort. We would need to sharply reduce or (better) get rid of this as well; however at that point, we have made it easier for foreigners to invest in our shores than for Americans. We would be better served by getting rid of the Capital Gains tax all together - we shouldn't be discouraging people from investing in our nation.
There's not much we can do about foreign governments taxing their own citizens. And even if they're technically subject to a US capital gains tax, most won't pay it anyway. Foreigners can buy and sell shares of American stock without ever setting foot in the US. So I'm pretty skeptical that eliminating the capital gains tax will have any significant impact on making us a global investment haven...eliminating the corporate tax would go a lot farther toward that goal.