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Corporations Aren't People

Harshaw said:
It doesn't say they don't pay the rate. It says they don't pay much more in a monetary sense than corporations in other countries.

And as for that "55 percent" which supposedly paid no federal income taxes . . . did they make a profit? Such a number is meaningless without context.
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A lot of the statistics the socialist wing give out are misleading anyway. Many corporations had actual losses a few years back during the recession, which they are able to carry forward to offset recovery income, thereby reducing taxable income.

Of course, as you pointed out, about half of Americans in any given year actually get money back from the government not actually earned (EIC, child credits, etc.) or have an effective taxable income of 0. The left like to leave that little stain out.
 
Gipper said:
Piece of cake.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/effective-corporate-tax-rates/





Now for individuals:

Effective individual tax rates hover around 20%. The IRS will give you figures to look at here. If you want to view, however, you will need Excel or some form of Excel reader. The source information is here:

SOI Tax Stats - Individual Time Series Statistical Tables

Or, if you can read .pdf files, you can go here. It goes up to 2005.

Page Not Found - Debate Politics Forums

Corporations pay a much higher effective tax rate. It's not close.
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Here is a source that quotes different and my source uses more than one year: The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com

But there is another source of federal revenues that receives less attention: corporate income taxes. According to the Wall Street Journal’s recent study of Congressional Budget Office numbers, corporations are paying an effective rate of 12.1%, the lowest in at least 40 years. So why are some of the biggest and most powerful entities in our society getting away with paying so little? The story is complicated, but the biggest factor in the recent collapse in corporate tax receipts appears to be a set of tax breaks built into recent stimulus efforts.

In 2010 and 2011, companies were allowed to deduct the full cost of the purchases of new equipment, while normally these costs would be expensed over several years. In 2012, this deduction will go down to 50% and be eliminated altogether thereafter, causing the effective tax rate to return to roughly the 25.6% average effective tax rate corporations paid since the late 1980s, according to CBO forecasts.



Read more: The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
Here is a source that quotes different and my source uses more than one year: The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com

But there is another source of federal revenues that receives less attention: corporate income taxes. According to the Wall Street Journal’s recent study of Congressional Budget Office numbers, corporations are paying an effective rate of 12.1%, the lowest in at least 40 years. So why are some of the biggest and most powerful entities in our society getting away with paying so little? The story is complicated, but the biggest factor in the recent collapse in corporate tax receipts appears to be a set of tax breaks built into recent stimulus efforts.

In 2010 and 2011, companies were allowed to deduct the full cost of the purchases of new equipment, while normally these costs would be expensed over several years. In 2012, this deduction will go down to 50% and be eliminated altogether thereafter, causing the effective tax rate to return to roughly the 25.6% average effective tax rate corporations paid since the late 1980s, according to CBO forecasts.



Read more: The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com
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Oh, good lord; "fair share." :roll: Something people LOVE to toss around but nobody wants to define, so that it can always mean "more than they're paying now."
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
Sad to see you can't debate back because you have nothing to back up your insults.
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No. You've simply offered little to back up your factual assertions, and I've told what the problem is with those things you HAVE offered.

If that's all you've got, then there isn't much else to say. You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about, and you don't even know why your "support" doesn't actually . . . support you. (Even though I've told you.)
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
Here is a source that quotes different and my source uses more than one year: The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com

But there is another source of federal revenues that receives less attention: corporate income taxes. According to the Wall Street Journal’s recent study of Congressional Budget Office numbers, corporations are paying an effective rate of 12.1%, the lowest in at least 40 years. So why are some of the biggest and most powerful entities in our society getting away with paying so little? The story is complicated, but the biggest factor in the recent collapse in corporate tax receipts appears to be a set of tax breaks built into recent stimulus efforts.

In 2010 and 2011, companies were allowed to deduct the full cost of the purchases of new equipment, while normally these costs would be expensed over several years. In 2012, this deduction will go down to 50% and be eliminated altogether thereafter, causing the effective tax rate to return to roughly the 25.6% average effective tax rate corporations paid since the late 1980s, according to CBO forecasts.



Read more: The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share? | TIME.com
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Yeah, let's include corporations that actually show losses. Tell me - what's the effective tax rate on 0 profit?

Also, they're expensing up front. That does not change the overall taxable income. It only changes how it's recorded. It's the same difference between doing a straight-line depreciation and a declining balance depreciation. If you want to reduce more taxable income early on, you go declining balance. This will give you a tax break early on by deducting more earned income immediately, but you record less income in the future. In the end, a) you still have the same tax basis, and b) you still have the same ending number. All you're doing is delaying the inevitable. That's the same reason why companies with losses in the late aughts are able to carryover now. It's just creative accounting. The long term numbers do not change.
 
Harshaw said:
Yes, if they're correct, but that isn't the claim you made. Or if you did, you did so poorly.



It doesn't say they don't pay the rate. It says they don't pay much more in a monetary sense than corporations in other countries.

And as for that "55 percent" which supposedly paid no federal income taxes . . . did they make a profit? Such a number is meaningless without context.
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I did quite well. And, the other countries they were talking about are suppose to have a lower effective rate than US corporations only many US corporations are paying less due to a myriad of breaks and loopholes.

If you are interested in seeing which corporations paid no taxes to see if they were profitable, here is a link: Thirty companies paid no U.S. income tax 2008-2010: report | Reuters
 
Gipper said:
A lot of the statistics the socialist wing give out are misleading anyway. Many corporations had actual losses a few years back during the recession, which they are able to carry forward to offset recovery income, thereby reducing taxable income.

Of course, as you pointed out, about half of Americans in any given year actually get money back from the government not actually earned (EIC, child credits, etc.) or have an effective taxable income of 0. The left like to leave that little stain out.
Click to expand...

No, some of these corporations are quite profitable. They get the breaks because of powerful lobbying efforts.
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
I did quite well. And, the other countries they were talking about are suppose to have a lower effective rate than US corporations only many US corporations are paying less due to a myriad of breaks and loopholes.

If you are interested in seeing which corporations paid no taxes to see if they were profitable, here is a link: Thirty companies paid no U.S. income tax 2008-2010: report | Reuters
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Are you as concerned with individuals that pay low, to no, income taxes due to current loopholes?
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
No, some of these corporations are quite profitable. They get the breaks because of powerful lobbying efforts.
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Propaganda. I've explained in as simple of economic and accounting terms as to why business show losses quite frequently.

Also, it's funny how you argue the profitability of corporations this fresh after "too big to fail" got burned into the American psyche.
 
Harshaw said:
No. You've simply offered little to back up your factual assertions, and I've told what the problem is with those things you HAVE offered.

If that's all you've got, then there isn't much else to say. You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about, and you don't even know why your "support" doesn't actually . . . support you. (Even though I've told you.)
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No, you haven't.
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
I did quite well.
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:roll:

More "yuh-HUHH!" You didn't say what you thought you said, and just as before, I already explained why.

And, the other countries they were talking about are suppose to have a lower effective rate than US corporations only many US corporations are paying less due to a myriad of breaks and loopholes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I said that. It doesn't mean the US corporations paid a lower rate on their adjusted taxable income.

If you are interested in seeing which corporations paid no taxes to see if they were profitable, here is a link: Thirty companies paid no U.S. income tax 2008-2010: report | Reuters
Click to expand...

If they were offsetting past losses, profitability in one specific year doesn't mean much.
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
No, some of these corporations are quite profitable. They get the breaks because of powerful lobbying efforts.
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Maybe you can elaborate on exactly what breaks they are getting? It seems to me all the breaks go to the poeple that don't pay a dime of federal income tax. Plus they get all the freebies like welfare, medicare, food stamps, section eight housing, forgiveness of student loans, free medical, etc etc etc the list goes on from there.
 
Gipper said:
Propaganda. I've explained in as simple of economic and accounting terms as to why business show losses quite frequently.

Also, it's funny how you argue the profitability of corporations this fresh after "too big to fail" got burned into the American psyche.
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It's not propaganda. Bank of America, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, FedEx, GE, Honeywell, Microsoft, Pfizer and Verizon all made very high profits while paying record lows on corporate income tax. The did NOT show losses.
 
Born Free said:
Maybe you can elaborate on exactly what breaks they are getting? It seems to me all the breaks go to the poeple that don't pay a dime of federal income tax. Plus they get all the freebies like welfare, medicare, food stamps, section eight housing, forgiveness of student loans, free medical, etc etc etc the list goes on from there.
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The whole "blame lobbies" red herring is just a baseless tautology used by leftists and the uninformed. They want someone to blame, and they want to believe in crap like this. They do the same thing with all these "loopholes", yet frequently refrain from supplying them. That's basically what they'll use to describe economic windfalls used to increase positive externalities and encourage employment levels, along with domestic revenue.

It's like they have a playbook full of buzzwords that they shout to replace any legitimate or respectable argument or evidence.
 
Harshaw said:
:roll:

More "yuh-HUHH!" You didn't say what you thought you said, and just as before, I already explained why.



Yeah, I said that. It doesn't mean the US corporations paid a lower rate on their adjusted taxable income.



If they were offsetting past losses, profitability in one specific year doesn't mean much.
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Care to prove they were offsetting past losses? TIA
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
It's not propaganda. Bank of America, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, FedEx, GE, Honeywell, Microsoft, Pfizer and Verizon all made very high profits while paying record lows on corporate income tax. The did NOT show losses.
Click to expand...

Do you know what their effective corporate tax rates are? Go look them up. I'll wait.

I know Exxon-Mobil's. If you want a hint, it's the age most 40-something women say they are.

Feel free to supply some of the rest...you know - so you can show me what tax cheats they are.
 
Gipper said:
She's just digging a massive hole. Every large corporation does loss carryover. Every last one.
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I know, but I'm having a bit of fun while waiting for my granddaughter to arrive with her parents... :mrgreen:
 
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