All these companies should be ashamed of themselves. They are not good citizens of the countries that have rewarded them with so much riches. And, our government is nothing but hacks enabling theses companies to rip us all off. We desperately need more revenue so the government can provide vital services for its citizens.
Haven't you already been arguing "the wealthy" aren't paying their "fair share"? The FairTax flattens the playing field and everyone pays except for the "prebate" for the very, very poor.
Also, the comments section on that page features comments that directly address the misleading "cons" in the article.
Sorry for being a skeptic...since nothing works quite as planned. Also this does not eliminate the state taxes, state sales taxes, property taxes. The comments section is not exactly a credible source of information. This also about the middle class where most people reside.
Who Really Pays?
With the prebate program in effect, those earning less than $15,000 per year would see their share of the federal tax burden drop from -0.7 percent to -6.3 percent. Of course, if the poorest Americans are paying less under the FairTax plan, then someone else pays more. As it turns out, according to the Treasury Department, “someone else” is everybody earning between $15,000 and $200,000 per year. The chart below compares the share of the federal tax burden for different income groups under the current system and under the FairTax. Those in the highest and the lowest brackets will see their share decrease, while everyone else will see their share of taxes increase.
Also, I'm all for reforming the tax code in a fair and balanced way. Frankly, I don't think you are capable of any critical thought beyond your rigid political ideology.
Sorry for being a skeptic...since nothing works quite as planned. Also this does not eliminate the state taxes, state sales taxes, property taxes. The comments section is not exactly a credible source of information. This also about the middle class where most people reside.
<p style="border:0px;color:rgb(68,68,68);margin-bottom:5px;vertical-align:baseline;">With the prebate program in effect, those earning less than $15,000 per year would see their share of the federal tax burden drop from -0.7 percent to -6.3 percent. Of course, if the poorest Americans are paying less under the FairTax plan, then someone else pays more. As it turns out, according to the Treasury Department, “someone else” is everybody earning between $15,000 and $200,000 per year. The chart below compares the share of the federal tax burden for different income groups under the current system and under the FairTax. Those in the highest and the lowest brackets will see their share decrease, while everyone else will see their share of taxes increase.</p>
<p style="border:0px;color:rgb(68,68,68);margin-bottom:5px;vertical-align:baseline;">Also, I'm all for reforming the tax code in a fair and balanced way. Frankly, I don't think you are capable of any critical thought beyond your rigid political ideology.</p>
Do you seriously think things are good or "fair" right now? Are you kidding me? The tax code is a goddamn mess!
Wow! I'd never have imagined that the idea of fair taxation would ignite a fire under so many people!
If you don't have at least a notional understanding of the word 'fair' then we are in a mess aren't we? Taxes are to provide things that make society work - public healthcare, infrastructure maintenance, libraries, council services, environmental safeguards and much more. Taxing goods unfairly burdens poorer people so increased rates of taxation should be levied on those with greater income - "From those with the greatest means to those with the greatest need". The extraordinary concentrations of wealth in the world today ( http://inequality.org/wealth-inequality/ are very unhealthy and destabilising to society.
Loopholes, as another poster pointed out, are indeed created by governments. I imagine that this is partly due to having such complex taxation systems in place, but any government that conceives of such systems must be able to identify those loopholes and close them if the will is there. Again, it is the wealthy who get even wealthier from taking advantages of these as they can afford to, to do things that you and I do not have the resources to do even if we wished. A company's profits should be taxed in the country where they were made - If Apple, or any company, wants to sell products to us here in the UK then it is fair that they should pay taxes on those profits to the UK government. An entry on tax havens in Wikipedia states "A study of 60 large US companies found that they deposited $166 billion in offshore accounts during 2012, sheltering over 40% of their profits from U.S. taxes."
Someone else also commented on one of my posts that governments should stop spending so much so they don't need to raise so much in tax. I absolutely agree that government expenditure should be reduced to the minimum to provide the benefits and facilities expected from society and no more. That is a point of politics of course. If you were a selfish person and never read, for example, you may think that the government could save a fortune by closing every library. You might think that the all publicly funded schools should be closed and that all eduction should be private thus saving huge amounts of government expenditure. Many, many here in the UK would disagree. These are the kind of political choices that we vote for at election time. In the UK, about 1% of the population are millionaires whereas in the cabinet (the government's inner decision making group) 79% are millionaires! They might well have different priorities to you and I.
As one of my current email signatures reads - "For being four minutes late at a job centre you can lose your home and any money to feed your children. Help already well off people bury their money in secret accounts and you get a nice career in government and a peerage.”
Costs are always passed along. If extra costs make a business non-competitive, then costs must be cut. I take it you don't own a business.
Whether he owns a business or not is irrelevant.
A business in the USA or in Europe would not be allowed to dump any toxic manufacturing by-products in the nearest river but must have them processed correctly to minimise environmental damage and health concerns - that obviously increases cost of disposal for a company and so reduces its profits. Are you saying that such a requirement should be removed and that your nearby river (for example) could be used as a dumping ground for effluent? You wouldn't care if the wildlife died, or it produced a noxious stench so that if you lived beside the river that you could not go into your own garden because of the smell? Is that OK?
The reason why the USA makes so little compared to 50 years ago, and is true for the UK as well which manufactures hardly anything any more, is that it's more costly for a business to manufacture things where there are strong environmental and labour laws than in a country that does not have them. If, in country X, you can pour effluent directly into the nearby river because the government doesn't care or people are all bribed not to notice, then companies will move their production to country X to reduce costs. The people in country X then pay the price for lax laws and/or lack of enforcement. Apple made the original Macintosh in the USA but no longer and of course Apple makes iPhones in China now and not in Texas. It's the same reason why M&S here in the UK, who proudly proclaimed on large signs in their stores in the 1970s that "95% of our products are made in the UK" do not say that any more - you would be hard pressed to find any clothing for sale in M&S that is made in the UK and because of that our clothing manufacturing industry has been pretty much destroyed. Now we rely on nail bars, hairdressers, tanning salons and tattooists and beauty therapists to keep the economy going ...
As long as they make one, I, and many others, will be happy, as long as the camera doesn't protrude.
As to the tax, seeing as it is just 4% more, it's going to make no material difference to Apple.
Benjamin,
UK corperation tax is 21% now, the whole issue is that Apple DO NOT PAY THAT. They pay 4% through Ireland. This new tax gives them the option of paying the regular 21% (now reduced to 20%) or 4% through Ireland plus 25% in the new Diverted Profits Tax for a total of 29%. Tax should be paid in the country it was earned !
Because it is another expense which means they have to raise their prices to compensate. It is not that difficult to understand -- all corporate taxes are paid by the consumer. When pricing their product, taxes are an expense that factors in to the overall cost.
Too high taxes means price too high and they cannot sell the product.
Mmmh. You just invented a complete new corporate accounting practice. Taxes on profits are never included in the cost of a product (it is illagal and impossible to do so) and can never impact the selling price. Taxes for corporates are calculated on the profits made on all products sold (of which some might be loss making), it is not possible to include them in the product cost of any product that has to be sold, as it would be pure speculation how much profit each product would make. On top of that profits are impacted by e.g. selling/buying participations, by interest on loans, by investments ..., all things that don't impact the cost of a product. If Apple invests in a new campus, the product cost of the iPhone is not changed, but profits of Apple are.
I don't understand why a lot of you fulminate against taxes on corporate profits. Corporates make use of the infrastructure (roads, legal system, safety) of a country, so it is only fair that they contribute to it if they make profits.
I don't like at al that I, owning a small software company, have to pay 30 % corporate taxes on the profits my company makes, while large companies like Google and Apple have the means and the power to set up constructions that evade these taxes, and pay only 1% on their profits. Such an unfair competition must be stopped.
I agree with this law. It is the UK government that maintains law and order in the UK, and therefore creates an environment where Apple can conduct commerce and make a profit in the first place. Asking for 20% of that profit to pay for said law and order is not unreasonable, and Apple shouldn't try to get out of it.
I got my business degree at Wharton what about you big mouth?
Businesses don't pay taxes they collect them. Money only comes from one place, consumers, not the government. If you don't get this you should go back to school.
I've never heard of Wharton but I'm a chartered accountant. How about the staff who work for the corporations; you don't think higher taxes affect their wages for example, regardless of whether they "consume" Apple's products? Do you regard Apple itself as a consumer, in that increased taxes can put downward pressure on their suppliers? Presumably if you were on Apple's board and were told corporation tax was being increased by 1%, you would simply say "we need to increase all our prices by 1%!" Good job nobody from Wharton is on their board.
No, because I didn't argue against a straw man, I used an alternative example to prove the definition of a word. If abuse is tied to illegality, as is your postulation, then that needs to be true in all instances of the word abuse, which includes tax abuse, domestic abuse, and any other kind of abuse. If you only mean that tax abuse is tied to illegality, then you should have said that.
You cannot prove the definition of a word from a single example. Alternatives examples are required. So my argument was certainly not a straw man.
The reason you (and most places) have a variety of taxes is not to cover all the bases. It is to extract as much blood as possible as politicians like to pander to their special interests by promising them benefits paid for by other peoples' money.
Well that sounds like a well reasoned argument that it's worthwhile arguing against. /s
The income tax is terrible tax and should be abolished everywhere. Although this is a US based tax proposal, I don't see why it couldn't be applied elsewhere: www.FairTax.org
Strawman. Assault and the such are still a crime even if the domestic violence laws are lax.
Not everywhere.
And the need to provide an alternative illustrative example does not make an argument a straw man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chadbag
Paying the taxes as outlined by the law of the land, even if some people disagree with the amount, is not a crime.
That was never the claim. The claim was that financially engineering your business to avoid tax by exploiting loopholes for reasons they were not intended to be used for is abusive. Not illegal, not a crime, but abusive.
I've never heard of Wharton but I'm a chartered accountant. How about the staff who work for the corporations; you don't think higher taxes affect their wages for example, regardless of whether they "consume" Apple's products? Do you regard Apple itself as a consumer, in that increased taxes can put downward pressure on their suppliers? Presumably if you were on Apple's board and were told corporation tax was being increased by 1%, you would simply say "we need to increase all our prices by 1%!" Good job nobody from Wharton is on their board.
Your never having heard of Wharton says a lot about your knowledge of business.
Here is how they are rated "Wharton is widely regarded as one of the world's top institutions for business education. In 2014-2015, the U.S. News & World Report ranked Wharton's undergraduate program #1,[92] MBA program #1,[93] and Executive MBA program #1,[94] making Wharton the only school to ever be ranked #1 in all three categories simultaneously. The undergraduate program at the Wharton School has been ranked #1 by U.S. News & World Report every single year since inception.[92] The Financial Timeshas ranked the Wharton School as #1 in the world in every single year between 2000 and 2009, and again in 2011, conferring Wharton with the best overall performance in the rankings.[95] The Wharton School has also been ranked #1 by Bloomberg Businessweek four times in a row.[96]"
Suffice it to say, you don't seem to grasp how businesses operate. As the cost to manufacture a product goes up, a business has few choices. They can look for ways to lower costs, they can increase prices or they can stop selling a product that is unprofitable. The reason many companies move production off-shore is to lower the cost of both labor and taxes.The driver for this is to make their products more competitive in their market. Corporate tax is no different to a businesses bottom line than the cost of electricity or the cost of labor. As I said, Corporations don't pay taxes, they collect them for governments. Consumers are the source of the money so they are paying the tax and seldom are aware of it.
But encouraging certain behaviours is a nanny state. I don't want a nanny state which thinks it knows what is best for me.
Tax and government isn't about whats best for you, its about whats best for a group of millions of people. You have your own money to spend on yourself. Tax is about collecting money to spend on things that benefit everyone, even if it isn't a direct benefit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nouser
I got my business degree at Wharton what about you big mouth?
Businesses don't pay taxes they collect them. Money only comes from one place, consumers, not the government. If you don't get this you should go back to school.
And where do consumers get there money? That's right businesses who employ them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cropr
I don't understand why a lot of you fulminate against taxes on corporate profits. Corporates make use of the infrastructure (roads, legal system, safety) of a country, so it is only fair that they contribute to it if they make profits.
I agree, but even more importantly than what corporates use is the market that they are given. If they didn't have the UK market then they would have 100% less profit, not just 20%.
But encouraging certain behaviours is a nanny state. I don't want a nanny state which thinks it knows what is best for me.
Tax and government isn't about whats best for you, its about whats best for a group of millions of people. You have your own money to spend on yourself. Tax is about collecting money to spend on things that benefit everyone, even if it isn't a direct benefit.
I got my business degree at Wharton what about you big mouth?
Businesses don't pay taxes they collect them. Money only comes from one place, consumers, not the government. If you don't get this you should go back to school.
And where do consumers get there money? That's right businesses who employ them.
I don't understand why a lot of you fulminate against taxes on corporate profits. Corporates make use of the infrastructure (roads, legal system, safety) of a country, so it is only fair that they contribute to it if they make profits.
I agree, but even more importantly than what corporates use is the market that they are given. If they didn't have the UK market then they would have 100% less profit, not just 20%.
Complete rubbish.
Governments tax certain foods and drinks heavily because they can use the mantra of health as an excuse to get as much money as possible. So alcohol is taxed heavily, whereas milk isn't. That is the nanny state. The government is arbitrarily taking it upon themselves to dictate what they think is best. Our huge 20% VAT rate also discriminates against the poor, as it pushes up the price of everyday goods for everyone.
This is why income tax should be substantially increased, and all the loopholes should be closed. VAT should be abolished and all tax on food and drink likewise. The same for fuel. Then, people will pay much more closely according to income, which is fairer for everyone. It also makes life more affordable for the retired. They have lower incomes, but goods and services would be cheaper.
Calling someone 'big mouth' does you no favours.
Saying that consumers get their money from businesses who employ them is the most idiotic statement. I wonder where all those millions of self-employed people get their income from?
A high tax on business serves only to restrict trade artificially. Businesses raise their prices; consumers buy less; less tax is raised. Everyone loses.
I've never heard of Wharton but I'm a chartered accountant. How about the staff who work for the corporations; you don't think higher taxes affect their wages for example, regardless of whether they "consume" Apple's products? Do you regard Apple itself as a consumer, in that increased taxes can put downward pressure on their suppliers? Presumably if you were on Apple's board and were told corporation tax was being increased by 1%, you would simply say "we need to increase all our prices by 1%!" Good job nobody from Wharton is on their board.
What you aren't noticing is that Apple has already made allowances for the taxes they would eventually owe (if they ever pay them). There's zero need to add any more or raise prices to cover them as they're already part of the equation. The only thing the Brits are trying to do is get Google, Apple and the others to actually pay them and not endlessly defer by shifting the profits around.
I agree. You always here the term "fair share" bandied about especially by politicians, but no one has yet quantified what a fair share is. I think I pay more than my "fair share" of taxes, but my city, state and federal governments think otherwise.
Fair share is usually defined as, what someone else thinks should be done with YOUR money!
Comments
Pure statist rubbish!
Haven't you already been arguing "the wealthy" aren't paying their "fair share"? The FairTax flattens the playing field and everyone pays except for the "prebate" for the very, very poor.
Also, the comments section on that page features comments that directly address the misleading "cons" in the article.
Sorry for being a skeptic...since nothing works quite as planned. Also this does not eliminate the state taxes, state sales taxes, property taxes. The comments section is not exactly a credible source of information. This also about the middle class where most people reside.
Who Really Pays?
With the prebate program in effect, those earning less than $15,000 per year would see their share of the federal tax burden drop from -0.7 percent to -6.3 percent. Of course, if the poorest Americans are paying less under the FairTax plan, then someone else pays more. As it turns out, according to the Treasury Department, “someone else” is everybody earning between $15,000 and $200,000 per year. The chart below compares the share of the federal tax burden for different income groups under the current system and under the FairTax. Those in the highest and the lowest brackets will see their share decrease, while everyone else will see their share of taxes increase.
http://www.factcheck.org/2007/05/unspinning-the-fairtax/
Also, I'm all for reforming the tax code in a fair and balanced way. Frankly, I don't think you are capable of any critical thought beyond your rigid political ideology.
Do you seriously think things are good or "fair" right now? Are you kidding me? The tax code is a goddamn mess!
Wow! I'd never have imagined that the idea of fair taxation would ignite a fire under so many people!
If you don't have at least a notional understanding of the word 'fair' then we are in a mess aren't we? Taxes are to provide things that make society work - public healthcare, infrastructure maintenance, libraries, council services, environmental safeguards and much more. Taxing goods unfairly burdens poorer people so increased rates of taxation should be levied on those with greater income - "From those with the greatest means to those with the greatest need". The extraordinary concentrations of wealth in the world today ( http://inequality.org/wealth-inequality/
are very unhealthy and destabilising to society.
Loopholes, as another poster pointed out, are indeed created by governments. I imagine that this is partly due to having such complex taxation systems in place, but any government that conceives of such systems must be able to identify those loopholes and close them if the will is there. Again, it is the wealthy who get even wealthier from taking advantages of these as they can afford to, to do things that you and I do not have the resources to do even if we wished. A company's profits should be taxed in the country where they were made - If Apple, or any company, wants to sell products to us here in the UK then it is fair that they should pay taxes on those profits to the UK government. An entry on tax havens in Wikipedia states "A study of 60 large US companies found that they deposited $166 billion in offshore accounts during 2012, sheltering over 40% of their profits from U.S. taxes."
Someone else also commented on one of my posts that governments should stop spending so much so they don't need to raise so much in tax. I absolutely agree that government expenditure should be reduced to the minimum to provide the benefits and facilities expected from society and no more. That is a point of politics of course. If you were a selfish person and never read, for example, you may think that the government could save a fortune by closing every library. You might think that the all publicly funded schools should be closed and that all eduction should be private thus saving huge amounts of government expenditure. Many, many here in the UK would disagree. These are the kind of political choices that we vote for at election time. In the UK, about 1% of the population are millionaires whereas in the cabinet (the government's inner decision making group) 79% are millionaires! They might well have different priorities to you and I.
As one of my current email signatures reads - "For being four minutes late at a job centre you can lose your home and any money to feed your children. Help already well off people bury their money in secret accounts and you get a nice career in government and a peerage.”
That's unfair.
Costs are always passed along. If extra costs make a business non-competitive, then costs must be cut. I take it you don't own a business.
Whether he owns a business or not is irrelevant.
A business in the USA or in Europe would not be allowed to dump any toxic manufacturing by-products in the nearest river but must have them processed correctly to minimise environmental damage and health concerns - that obviously increases cost of disposal for a company and so reduces its profits. Are you saying that such a requirement should be removed and that your nearby river (for example) could be used as a dumping ground for effluent? You wouldn't care if the wildlife died, or it produced a noxious stench so that if you lived beside the river that you could not go into your own garden because of the smell? Is that OK?
The reason why the USA makes so little compared to 50 years ago, and is true for the UK as well which manufactures hardly anything any more, is that it's more costly for a business to manufacture things where there are strong environmental and labour laws than in a country that does not have them. If, in country X, you can pour effluent directly into the nearby river because the government doesn't care or people are all bribed not to notice, then companies will move their production to country X to reduce costs. The people in country X then pay the price for lax laws and/or lack of enforcement. Apple made the original Macintosh in the USA but no longer and of course Apple makes iPhones in China now and not in Texas. It's the same reason why M&S here in the UK, who proudly proclaimed on large signs in their stores in the 1970s that "95% of our products are made in the UK" do not say that any more - you would be hard pressed to find any clothing for sale in M&S that is made in the UK and because of that our clothing manufacturing industry has been pretty much destroyed. Now we rely on nail bars, hairdressers, tanning salons and tattooists and beauty therapists to keep the economy going ...
As long as they make one, I, and many others, will be happy, as long as the camera doesn't protrude.
As to the tax, seeing as it is just 4% more, it's going to make no material difference to Apple.
Benjamin,
UK corperation tax is 21% now, the whole issue is that Apple DO NOT PAY THAT. They pay 4% through Ireland. This new tax gives them the option of paying the regular 21% (now reduced to 20%) or 4% through Ireland plus 25% in the new Diverted Profits Tax for a total of 29%. Tax should be paid in the country it was earned !
Because it is another expense which means they have to raise their prices to compensate. It is not that difficult to understand -- all corporate taxes are paid by the consumer. When pricing their product, taxes are an expense that factors in to the overall cost.
Too high taxes means price too high and they cannot sell the product.
Mmmh. You just invented a complete new corporate accounting practice. Taxes on profits are never included in the cost of a product (it is illagal and impossible to do so) and can never impact the selling price. Taxes for corporates are calculated on the profits made on all products sold (of which some might be loss making), it is not possible to include them in the product cost of any product that has to be sold, as it would be pure speculation how much profit each product would make. On top of that profits are impacted by e.g. selling/buying participations, by interest on loans, by investments ..., all things that don't impact the cost of a product. If Apple invests in a new campus, the product cost of the iPhone is not changed, but profits of Apple are.
I don't understand why a lot of you fulminate against taxes on corporate profits. Corporates make use of the infrastructure (roads, legal system, safety) of a country, so it is only fair that they contribute to it if they make profits.
I don't like at al that I, owning a small software company, have to pay 30 % corporate taxes on the profits my company makes, while large companies like Google and Apple have the means and the power to set up constructions that evade these taxes, and pay only 1% on their profits. Such an unfair competition must be stopped.
I agree with this law. It is the UK government that maintains law and order in the UK, and therefore creates an environment where Apple can conduct commerce and make a profit in the first place. Asking for 20% of that profit to pay for said law and order is not unreasonable, and Apple shouldn't try to get out of it.
It was a straw man fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Structure
No, because I didn't argue against a straw man, I used an alternative example to prove the definition of a word. If abuse is tied to illegality, as is your postulation, then that needs to be true in all instances of the word abuse, which includes tax abuse, domestic abuse, and any other kind of abuse. If you only mean that tax abuse is tied to illegality, then you should have said that.
You cannot prove the definition of a word from a single example. Alternatives examples are required. So my argument was certainly not a straw man.
The reason you (and most places) have a variety of taxes is not to cover all the bases. It is to extract as much blood as possible as politicians like to pander to their special interests by promising them benefits paid for by other peoples' money.
Well that sounds like a well reasoned argument that it's worthwhile arguing against. /s
The income tax is terrible tax and should be abolished everywhere. Although this is a US based tax proposal, I don't see why it couldn't be applied elsewhere: www.FairTax.org
Don't you have issues with the name?
Strawman. Assault and the such are still a crime even if the domestic violence laws are lax.
Not everywhere.
And the need to provide an alternative illustrative example does not make an argument a straw man.
Paying the taxes as outlined by the law of the land, even if some people disagree with the amount, is not a crime.
That was never the claim. The claim was that financially engineering your business to avoid tax by exploiting loopholes for reasons they were not intended to be used for is abusive. Not illegal, not a crime, but abusive.
Pure statist rubbish!
There's the crux.
I've never heard of Wharton but I'm a chartered accountant. How about the staff who work for the corporations; you don't think higher taxes affect their wages for example, regardless of whether they "consume" Apple's products? Do you regard Apple itself as a consumer, in that increased taxes can put downward pressure on their suppliers? Presumably if you were on Apple's board and were told corporation tax was being increased by 1%, you would simply say "we need to increase all our prices by 1%!" Good job nobody from Wharton is on their board.
Your never having heard of Wharton says a lot about your knowledge of business.
To assist you in your education, here is Wharton: http://www.wharton.upenn.edu
Here is how they are rated "Wharton is widely regarded as one of the world's top institutions for business education. In 2014-2015, the U.S. News & World Report ranked Wharton's undergraduate program #1,[92] MBA program #1,[93] and Executive MBA program #1,[94] making Wharton the only school to ever be ranked #1 in all three categories simultaneously. The undergraduate program at the Wharton School has been ranked #1 by U.S. News & World Report every single year since inception.[92] The Financial Times has ranked the Wharton School as #1 in the world in every single year between 2000 and 2009, and again in 2011, conferring Wharton with the best overall performance in the rankings.[95] The Wharton School has also been ranked #1 by Bloomberg Businessweek four times in a row.[96]"
Suffice it to say, you don't seem to grasp how businesses operate. As the cost to manufacture a product goes up, a business has few choices. They can look for ways to lower costs, they can increase prices or they can stop selling a product that is unprofitable. The reason many companies move production off-shore is to lower the cost of both labor and taxes.The driver for this is to make their products more competitive in their market. Corporate tax is no different to a businesses bottom line than the cost of electricity or the cost of labor. As I said, Corporations don't pay taxes, they collect them for governments. Consumers are the source of the money so they are paying the tax and seldom are aware of it.
It will severely affect Apple sales in the UK, and if Europe follows suit, there as well. But more fundamentally, business shouldn't pay tax.
But encouraging certain behaviours is a nanny state. I don't want a nanny state which thinks it knows what is best for me.
Tax and government isn't about whats best for you, its about whats best for a group of millions of people. You have your own money to spend on yourself. Tax is about collecting money to spend on things that benefit everyone, even if it isn't a direct benefit.
I got my business degree at Wharton what about you big mouth?
Businesses don't pay taxes they collect them. Money only comes from one place, consumers, not the government. If you don't get this you should go back to school.
And where do consumers get there money? That's right businesses who employ them.
I don't understand why a lot of you fulminate against taxes on corporate profits. Corporates make use of the infrastructure (roads, legal system, safety) of a country, so it is only fair that they contribute to it if they make profits.
I agree, but even more importantly than what corporates use is the market that they are given. If they didn't have the UK market then they would have 100% less profit, not just 20%.
Complete rubbish.
Governments tax certain foods and drinks heavily because they can use the mantra of health as an excuse to get as much money as possible. So alcohol is taxed heavily, whereas milk isn't. That is the nanny state. The government is arbitrarily taking it upon themselves to dictate what they think is best. Our huge 20% VAT rate also discriminates against the poor, as it pushes up the price of everyday goods for everyone.
This is why income tax should be substantially increased, and all the loopholes should be closed. VAT should be abolished and all tax on food and drink likewise. The same for fuel. Then, people will pay much more closely according to income, which is fairer for everyone. It also makes life more affordable for the retired. They have lower incomes, but goods and services would be cheaper.
Calling someone 'big mouth' does you no favours.
Saying that consumers get their money from businesses who employ them is the most idiotic statement. I wonder where all those millions of self-employed people get their income from?
A high tax on business serves only to restrict trade artificially. Businesses raise their prices; consumers buy less; less tax is raised. Everyone loses.
I agree. You always here the term "fair share" bandied about especially by politicians, but no one has yet quantified what a fair share is. I think I pay more than my "fair share" of taxes, but my city, state and federal governments think otherwise.
Fair share is usually defined as, what someone else thinks should be done with YOUR money!