Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Oh geez.... You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Oh geez.... You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Lol...kettle meet pot.
Whether a corporation decides to absorbs some of the tax cost or not for tactical business reasons doesn’t mean any of the other stuff you wrote is correct. Pricing isn’t always optimized, new taxes is new stimulus that impacts the equilibrium and often results in new pricing, sales taxes like VAT and stamps obviously impact sales and therefore must be accounted for when providing guidance on net profit, which is post tax.
But the most important thing that you finally admit is that corporations do not pay for any new taxes. Only individuals do and that’s one of the few things that economists agree on when debating corporate taxation.
You don’t understand the topic and continually seek to simplify to the point where you think you can declare victory because the real world is complex and can’t meet an absolute simplistic assertion. Yeah, tax burden is shifted and where it’s shifted depends but it is false to say “economists agree that it’s not paid by the consumer” when there is data that shows that corporations have raised prices beyond what is needed to cover the burden when hit by new taxes and increased profits. There are other times when something different happens because the real world is complex but when folks are honest about the complexities you jump up and down and pretend you have won the argument.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Oh geez.... You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Lol...kettle meet pot.
Whether a corporation decides to absorbs some of the tax cost or not for tactical business reasons doesn’t mean any of the other stuff you wrote is correct. ... corporations do not pay for any new taxes. Only individuals do and that’s one of the few things that economists agree on when debating corporate taxation.
YAY! We've made it to the same page!
VAT and Sales tax are primarily consumer taxes and not corporate. Corporate taxes are primarily ownership/stockholder taxes and not consumer. Yes there's some element of bleed-over.
I've not once claimed that consumers pay no part of Apple's tax obligations. It was the OP claiming that consumers pay it all in the form of higher product prices. You acknowledge that claim to be wrong now too.
A simple read of what I actually posted rather than what you seem to selectively (and erroneously) remember may clear it up.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
I'm sorry, but this is one of the most misinformed posts I've seen here in some time.... Do you really think Apple would pay, say, a new 10% VAT our of pocket? Really?
VAT is not an Apple-paid tax, simply collected from end-users and remitted, so the irony of your post is blaring.
Fair enough...I mislabeled it. But "irony" it's not.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Oh geez.... You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Lol...kettle meet pot.
Whether a corporation decides to absorbs some of the tax cost or not for tactical business reasons doesn’t mean any of the other stuff you wrote is correct. ... corporations do not pay for any new taxes. Only individuals do and that’s one of the few things that economists agree on when debating corporate taxation.
YAY! We've made it to the same page!
VAT and Sales tax are primarily consumer taxes and not corporate. Corporate taxes are primarily ownership/stockholder taxes and not consumer. Yes there's some element of bleed-over.
Corporate taxes are not primarily ownership/stockholder taxes. I have provided enough citations in this thread to show that economists do NOT all agree with that statement.
We're not on the same page no matter how many times you claim this.
Corporate status itself, and all of the various protections/advantages it brings, comes from the government itself and is only possible with the government. Thus all the whining about taxes is ultimately moot.
Not in a free society. Corporations derive their power from the freedom of economic organization that free societies provide for (within certain limit that are established by the government with the support of the people). Governments only are to derive their power from the consent of those governed through a social contract that obligates both sides, but that is ultimately under the control of free people themselves. That is the very essence of a free society.
This is what differentiates the Founding of the U.S. from other countries, especially in Europe, that have constitutions that provide for legal rights, but that do not recognize the inherency of the Bill of Rights in the classic American sense, i.e. government exists to serve the people - not vice versa. Those European countries, ostensibly “free” societies, have never really bought into the notion of the power of the individual, and historically and culturally remain rooted to the Power of The State, with a few trappings of a free society. It remains thus because Europeans are culturally more attuned to accept the Power of the State, and define their version of “freedoms” accordingly. If that is what they like, then that is their choice, but it does not align with basic American Ideals. This is the real reason why America is not well suited to European-style socialism.
When this is understood by more people, the misalignment of views on taxes, etc that create the rifts in the Atlantic relationship will be more understandable and manageable.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Oh geez.... You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Lol...kettle meet pot.
Whether a corporation decides to absorbs some of the tax cost or not for tactical business reasons doesn’t mean any of the other stuff you wrote is correct. ... corporations do not pay for any new taxes. Only individuals do and that’s one of the few things that economists agree on when debating corporate taxation.
YAY! We've made it to the same page!
VAT and Sales tax are primarily consumer taxes and not corporate. Corporate taxes are primarily ownership/stockholder taxes and not consumer. Yes there's some element of bleed-over.
Corporate taxes are not primarily ownership/stockholder taxes. I have provided enough citations in this thread to show that economists do NOT all agree with that statement.
We're not on the same page no matter how many times you claim this.
Well there was always hope. "economists do not ALL agree"... Isn't that something you called arguing dishonestly earlier?
You believe corporate taxes are primarily a consumer-centric tax then just as the OP implied? Certainly reasonable to think there's some economist or two out there somewhere who believes that and has supporting documentation. Even tho you say you've "provided enough citations" I can't find even ONE you've offered...
I do sometimes miss stuff like everyone else so please point me to the ones you posted that supposedly say consumers are paying most of the corporate taxes via product price increases and I'll have a look. I don't mind learning new stuff.
So perhaps not every economist agrees that corporate tax on profits in general (that means not entirely nor all the time, just more so than not in case you don't get that) is paid by owners and stockholders. Well I can't say for sure either way if those economists exist so I'll accept your word for it.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Oh geez.... You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Lol...kettle meet pot.
Whether a corporation decides to absorbs some of the tax cost or not for tactical business reasons doesn’t mean any of the other stuff you wrote is correct. ... corporations do not pay for any new taxes. Only individuals do and that’s one of the few things that economists agree on when debating corporate taxation.
YAY! We've made it to the same page!
VAT and Sales tax are primarily consumer taxes and not corporate. Corporate taxes are primarily ownership/stockholder taxes and not consumer. Yes there's some element of bleed-over.
Corporate taxes are not primarily ownership/stockholder taxes. I have provided enough citations in this thread to show that economists do NOT all agree with that statement.
We're not on the same page no matter how many times you claim this.
Well there was always hope. "economists do not ALL agree"... Isn't that something you called arguing dishonestly earlier?
You believe corporate taxes are primarily a consumer-centric tax then just as the OP implied? Certainly reasonable to think there's some economist or two out there somewhere who believes that and has supporting documentation. Even tho you say you've "provided enough citations" I can't find even ONE you've offered...
I do sometimes miss stuff like everyone else so please point me to the ones you posted that supposedly say consumers are paying most of the corporate taxes via product price increases and I'll have a look. I don't mind learning new stuff.
So perhaps not every economist agrees that corporate tax on profits in general (that means not entirely nor all the time, just more so than not in case you don't get that) is paid by owners and stockholders. Well I can't say for sure either way if those economists exist so I'll accept your word for it.
I provided a link to a paper as well as cited authors and years...which would be an easy google if you simply didn't delete them. Since anyone can simply scroll up I'll just mark this down to Gg being his usual d-bag self.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Oh geez.... You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Lol...kettle meet pot.
Whether a corporation decides to absorbs some of the tax cost or not for tactical business reasons doesn’t mean any of the other stuff you wrote is correct. ... corporations do not pay for any new taxes. Only individuals do and that’s one of the few things that economists agree on when debating corporate taxation.
YAY! We've made it to the same page!
VAT and Sales tax are primarily consumer taxes and not corporate. Corporate taxes are primarily ownership/stockholder taxes and not consumer. Yes there's some element of bleed-over.
Corporate taxes are not primarily ownership/stockholder taxes. I have provided enough citations in this thread to show that economists do NOT all agree with that statement.
We're not on the same page no matter how many times you claim this.
Well there was always hope. "economists do not ALL agree"... Isn't that something you called arguing dishonestly earlier?
You believe corporate taxes are primarily a consumer-centric tax then just as the OP implied? Certainly reasonable to think there's some economist or two out there somewhere who believes that and has supporting documentation. Even tho you say you've "provided enough citations" I can't find even ONE you've offered...
I do sometimes miss stuff like everyone else so please point me to the ones you posted that supposedly say consumers are paying most of the corporate taxes via product price increases and I'll have a look. I don't mind learning new stuff.
So perhaps not every economist agrees that corporate tax on profits in general (that means not entirely nor all the time, just more so than not in case you don't get that) is paid by owners and stockholders. Well I can't say for sure either way if those economists exist so I'll accept your word for it.
I provided a link to a paper as well as cited authors and years...which would be an easy google if you simply didn't delete them.
I don't think it's possible for me to delete your citations. Post number? I suspect you're referring to the only link I can see you've posted, but it was about tariffs not corporate taxes. That's not being very honest if that's the one you're trying to hit me over the head with.
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You're missing the point. Let's try this again. Corporations don't bear the burden of taxes, people do. Those people might not be "YOU," but they are people.
... Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be passed on in terms of higher prices.
Well of course "people" pay.
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
Nope. Read up on supply and demand. Depending on price elasticity and other factors, the burden of even taxes applied at retail with no involvement by the manufacturer are ultimately shared between all stakeholders. Sales taxes increase the price of a product and therefore cause consumers to purchase less (reducing profits), to compensate firms may lower their own prices (reducing profits).
Oh geez.... You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Lol...kettle meet pot.
Whether a corporation decides to absorbs some of the tax cost or not for tactical business reasons doesn’t mean any of the other stuff you wrote is correct. ... corporations do not pay for any new taxes. Only individuals do and that’s one of the few things that economists agree on when debating corporate taxation.
YAY! We've made it to the same page!
VAT and Sales tax are primarily consumer taxes and not corporate. Corporate taxes are primarily ownership/stockholder taxes and not consumer. Yes there's some element of bleed-over.
Corporate taxes are not primarily ownership/stockholder taxes. I have provided enough citations in this thread to show that economists do NOT all agree with that statement.
We're not on the same page no matter how many times you claim this.
Well there was always hope. "economists do not ALL agree"... Isn't that something you called arguing dishonestly earlier?
You believe corporate taxes are primarily a consumer-centric tax then just as the OP implied? Certainly reasonable to think there's some economist or two out there somewhere who believes that and has supporting documentation. Even tho you say you've "provided enough citations" I can't find even ONE you've offered...
I do sometimes miss stuff like everyone else so please point me to the ones you posted that supposedly say consumers are paying most of the corporate taxes via product price increases and I'll have a look. I don't mind learning new stuff.
So perhaps not every economist agrees that corporate tax on profits in general (that means not entirely nor all the time, just more so than not in case you don't get that) is paid by owners and stockholders. Well I can't say for sure either way if those economists exist so I'll accept your word for it.
I provided a link to a paper as well as cited authors and years...which would be an easy google if you simply didn't delete them.
I don't think it's possible for me to delete your citations. Post number? I suspect you're referring to the only link I can see you've posted, but it was about tariffs not corporate taxes. That's not being very honest if that's the one you're trying to hit me over the head with.
"WHO BEARS THE CORPORATIONINCOME TAX?" is about tariffs? I also wrote twice about the empirical results by Krzyzaniak and Musgrave (1963). First directly as a reference and then in the Goode paper that references their work and disagrees with their conclusion but not the data which still shows profits increased after taxes and prices went up. But he just hand waved his disagreement and quickly moved on without presenting any disproving data.
There are better papers regarding taxation and oligopolies but they sit behind paywalls (I have access to the National Bureau of Economic Research). Folks did and do attack K&R in the past but almost all of the corporate taxation modeling assumes perfect competition which is certainly not true for oligopolies. Imperfect Competition is no longer a heretical thought for incidence theory. Overshifting of the tax burden is shown by Delipalla and Keen (1992) for certain commodities. Hall in 1998 shows that retail is not always competitive.
At the end of the day, it's a complex subject and you can argue that prices rising with tax rates is due to demand shift vs corporate overshifting of tax burden onto the consumer but the empirical data shows this price rise occurs (Besley and Rosen 1998 Sales Taxes and Prices: an empirical analysis).
These companies must have expected that this tax was the only long term outcome of their tax avoidance schemes. Countries need tax income to function and if the economic parties operating in their borders legally avoid paying taxes then the laws will change. Google, for example, could take money from a French company to advertise their products in a French media outlet to French eyeballs and yet because they bank the cheques in Ireland, they think they didn't need to pay French tax. If they want to benefit from revenue from a developed society like France, they need to contribute to that society.
An idealistic point of view that I don’t disagree with. However, companies also have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and are in competition with other firms, if not directly on a product or service basis, at least in competition for a finite pool of consumer dollars/euros, et al. These facts put pressure on companies to seek optimal marketing, R&D, sales, production, and yes, tax strategies. They hire multitudes of accountants to review the convoluted tax laws that, as one previous poster stated, are put in place typically to favor some constituency favored by the lawmakers, and then exploit that strategy for their own benefit.
Who, in the end, is to blame? It’s the lawmakers who burdened the corporations with the legal obligation to maximize shareholder returns (shareholders can and have sued when they have evidence a corporation has not acted in their interests) and with convoluted tax law designed to favor some over the majority.
It’s great press to villianize the big profitable corporations, but they make their money through fair exchange with willing consumers. That’s a bit different from the force applied by government when taxing first our income, then again each time we spend it.
That flies in the face of what Tim Cook said when the EU/Irish State Aid case hit the press.
When Apple was accused of paying 0.005% in one example and paying too little taxes in general, he claimed the accusations were untrue and that Apple had 'values'.
"When you’re accused of doing something that is so foreign to your values, it brings out outrage in you"
Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.
If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?
Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed. How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that.
"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.
All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."
Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc? None. There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.
If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services. Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.
This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.
Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA? None.
So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax? Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services. So not them.
So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?
As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer. It's just another tariff.
What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer? About $60 a year.
Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.
Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens. Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?
I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no.
Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden. Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers. Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.
By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.
This is the comment that began the discussion: "Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."
How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did: Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases.
If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot.
Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said.
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!" This part is true.
"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true, *and therefore also partially wrong.*
tl;dr: Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.
Huh, only partially right in your opinion...
@carnegie made a very good post just above yours (#46), including this excellent point: "...Corporate income taxes are raised from, e.g., 25% to 30%, the way to maximize after-tax profit is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profit. If X is greater than Y, then 75% of X is greater than 75% of Y as surely as 70% of X is greater than 70% of Y. Say a company is making $100 million a year before incomes taxes and $75 million a year after taxes. Income taxes are raised from 25% to 30%. So to make that same after-tax $75 million, it needs $107 million in pre-tax profit. If it thinks that raising prices would increase its pre-tax profits to $107 million (e.g., because it wouldn't hurt demand that much), then why wouldn't it raise prices regardless of the tax increase? Then, without the tax increase, it could make $80 million a year after taxes instead of $75 million."
Be that as it may, and in order to clarify your position: You believe that when the French law taxing digital services above a certain threshold goes into effect that Apple will simply raise the price of Apple Music specifically for France so that its users are the ones paying? Seems as tho that would assist Spotify, Deezer, Napster and others assuming they stay under the threshold where the tax kicks in. And if Apple thought they could raise the price without reducing their profits why don't they already do so? What about Apple Pay, how will Apple pass thru the tax on the profits from that? Similar questions could be asked about Google services such as Cloud and ads passing thru the tax as a price increase for French citizens.
Perhaps you'' get lucky tho. There's another proposal on the table to tax digital advertising 3%. Apple only has a little finger dipped in those waters, so that one is targeting Google and Facebook.
You and Carnegie are both wrong in your assumptions and therefore conclusions:
“According to orthodox theory, there are vital differences between an increase in profits tax rates and increases in excise taxes or wage rates and raw-material prices. Whereas the latter raise marginal variable costs and thus ordinarily push up the equilibrium price, the profits tax does not directly affect the elements that are supposed to enter into the calcu- lation of the optimum price in the short run. Furthermore, the increase in variable costs affects all producers more or less equally whereas the profits tax per unit of output varies widely among producers according to their individual profitability. The usual view has been that highly profitable firms will be deterred from raising prices, in an effort to recoup the corporate tax, by the threat of loss of business to less-profitable competitors. The shifting hypothesis stresses the price-leadership role of large oligopolistic firms.
...
K & M find that the corporate tax was more than 100 per cent shifted in the period 1935-42, 1948-59. Their results for their so-called "standard model" indicate that the degree of shifting was 134 per cent, and many of their other results are close to this figure.4 These startling findings imply that the short-run effect of an increase in the corporate tax is to raise
after-tax profits rather than to depress them. ... K 8CM's findings imply that consumers are willing and able to spend more in the aggregate for manufactured goods whenever prices are raised because of an in- crease in the corporate tax. Furthermore, K & M do not suggest that additional expenditures for manufactures are offset by reductions in other outlays. Hence, aggregate money expenditures must rise, and it seems that the ratio of consumption expenditures to disposable income of consumers will have to rise, despite a decrease in the real value of cash balances and other fixed claims. “
There are, of course, other papers that argue a different conclusion but most of those are model based and not empirical. Later studies using empirical method show varying shifting of the tax burden to wages or shareholders but clearly you cannot assume that pricing is already optimized. You would know that, and be able to make a cogent counter arguments, if you actually read papers rather than quote huffpo and random internet posters like Carnegie.
But since you can’t all you can attempt to hide the major flaws in you arguements by deleting the text where I already address your incorrect claims.
What assumption (that I presumably made) was I wrong in?
There are, of course, macroeconomic effects of tax policies which cause different groups to feel different effects from them. Some groups are harmed, some helped. Some effectively bear more of the burden of tax policy changes, some bear less of that burden or reap benefits. Tax policy changes affect economies in myriad ways, and those effects are felt by different participants in those economies in different ways. An increase in corporate income taxes can certainly have deleterious effects on economies which are felt by different people - not just by owners of corporations. And supply / demand balances can be affected by tax policy changes with different people being affected to different degrees by supply / demand balance changes. I don't think anyone here is arguing to the contrary. For my part at least, I haven't argued to the contrary.
But that isn't what I was referring to. I was addressing whether particular corporations pass through increases in corporate income taxes to consumers (e.g., in the form of higher prices). For the most part they don't. Other kinds of taxes are different, of course. Excise taxes, e.g., create effects which factor into, e.g., pricing decisions. What makes sense from a pricing standpoint without an excise tax may be quite different from what makes sense with one.
But an increase in the corporate income tax rate (mostly) only affects what portion of pre-tax profits a corporation retains after taxes. That being the case, the best way to maximize after-tax profits is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profits. (Corporations, of course, don't always do the best possible job of this. Through their decisions they often leave money on the table, and there are long-term considerations to be taken into account. But that can be the case with or without income tax rate increases. And, at any rate, it isn't the income tax rate increases - or the lack thereof - which causes the less-than-optimal business practices or the consideration of long-term effects.)
To believe that a given corporation would pass through a corporate income tax rate increase to consumers (e.g., in the form of price increases) one has to believe that the corporation would otherwise have chosen to make only a certain amount of after-tax profit - that it would have chosen not to make more than X, even though it thought different business decisions (e.g. higher prices) would have resulted in making more than X. That belief would, for the most part, be mistaken. The way to make the most after-tax profit with a 30% income tax is the same as it is with a 25% income tax. The Krzyzaniak-Musgrave Study doesn't suggest otherwise. Even if we accept that they could accurately measure that which they sought to (which I don't think we should), what they sought to measure was something different.
Are the harms of corporate income tax policy felt by more than just the owners of corporations? Of course. Those harms - e.g., from corporate income tax increases - can be felt by society in general - workers, consumers, owners. That's the case with a lot of tax policy. But that's not the same as the taxes themselves effectively being paid by one group or another.
Good for France and other "woke" nations. For those that are crying on Apple's behalf each nation has rules for those that live and earn income within that country. Apple and other tech giants have reaped massive amounts of money and by exploiting loopholes in the tax laws have managed to avoid paying what other business' are already paying.
Yes Spam there is such a thing as "fair share" it is what the tax laws say is fair and not what a fan boy says it is for poor, little Apple.
Perhaps someday you will move out of mom’s house and pay taxes of your own. At that point you will try and use “loopholes” to reduce your tax burden, just like everyone else on the planet Earth. Good luck.
...and every once in awhile if you tread too close to the edge the loophole you think you discovered may not actually be legal and you'll find yourself paying taxes/penalties you thought you crafted a way to avoid.
So how do you make sure that what you want to do, when it comes to tax accounting practices, is actually legal such that you won't later be asked to pay additional taxes or penalties?
You ask the proper taxing authority, of course. In the U.S., you might ask for a private letter ruling. In Ireland, you might ask for what's called an advance opinion. Most jurisdictions (at least in advanced economies) have comparable processes for determining what is and isn't allowed under those jurisdictions' tax laws. But that's all you can do: Ask the entities in charge of deciding such things what the rules are. Then you should be able to rely on what they tell you and act accordingly.
So in the EU it’s not allowed to lower unilaterally/for one company taxes (Ireland), but raising taxes unilaterally (France) ís allowed?
What France is doing is confined to their borders, what Ireland did went beyond theirs
How so?
Agree with Irelands' tax policies or not (even as they were determined to apply to Apple's situation in particular), the policies in question only affected what Ireland was to collect in tax revenue.
They didn't affect what other jurisdictions were entitled to collect under their own tax policies. There wasn't a dispute over whether the taxes in question (which some thought there should have been more of) were owed in other jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions have general tax policies which meant that those taxes weren't due in those jurisdictions. Those are the policies they themselves chose (for good reasons I won't get into here). Generally speaking, jurisdictions apply income tax liability based on where value is created, not based on where transactions happen. They capture tax revenue based on where transactions happen in other ways - e.g., with VATs.
Comments
As for sales tax or VAT Apple isn't passing a penny of that along in higher product prices. Apple simply acts as an agent of the government to collect VAT/Sales taxes due from end-buyers and remit them to the state. It's not a tax Apple themselves pay and is not a cost of business except for those things they consume rather than sell.
VAT and sales tax has in essence zero effect on the profits and prices Apple sets.
You said "Yes, as you suggestion, if the tax is strictly a tax on corporate profits, then they are less likely to be passed on to consumers. But if it's implemented like a sales tax or VAT, you can bet your bottom euro that at least part of that will be PASSED ON IN TERMS OF HIGHER PRICES."
Pretty darn obvious you're CYA and making believe you meant something else. Just say you might have been mistaken and move on. It's OK.
Whether a corporation decides to absorbs some of the tax cost or not for tactical business reasons doesn’t mean any of the other stuff you wrote is correct. Pricing isn’t always optimized, new taxes is new stimulus that impacts the equilibrium and often results in new pricing, sales taxes like VAT and stamps obviously impact sales and therefore must be accounted for when providing guidance on net profit, which is post tax.
But the most important thing that you finally admit is that corporations do not pay for any new taxes. Only individuals do and that’s one of the few things that economists agree on when debating corporate taxation.
You don’t understand the topic and continually seek to simplify to the point where you think you can declare victory because the real world is complex and can’t meet an absolute simplistic assertion. Yeah, tax burden is shifted and where it’s shifted depends but it is false to say “economists agree that it’s not paid by the consumer” when there is data that shows that corporations have raised prices beyond what is needed to cover the burden when hit by new taxes and increased profits. There are other times when something different happens because the real world is complex but when folks are honest about the complexities you jump up and down and pretend you have won the argument.
It’s bogus and typical of you.
VAT and Sales tax are primarily consumer taxes and not corporate. Corporate taxes are primarily ownership/stockholder taxes and not consumer. Yes there's some element of bleed-over.
I've not once claimed that consumers pay no part of Apple's tax obligations. It was the OP claiming that consumers pay it all in the form of higher product prices. You acknowledge that claim to be wrong now too.
A simple read of what I actually posted rather than what you seem to selectively (and erroneously) remember may clear it up.
Fair enough...I mislabeled it. But "irony" it's not.
We're not on the same page no matter how many times you claim this.
Not in a free society. Corporations derive their power from the freedom of economic organization that free societies provide for (within certain limit that are established by the government with the support of the people). Governments only are to derive their power from the consent of those governed through a social contract that obligates both sides, but that is ultimately under the control of free people themselves. That is the very essence of a free society.
This is what differentiates the Founding of the U.S. from other countries, especially in Europe, that have constitutions that provide for legal rights, but that do not recognize the inherency of the Bill of Rights in the classic American sense, i.e. government exists to serve the people - not vice versa. Those European countries, ostensibly “free” societies, have never really bought into the notion of the power of the individual, and historically and culturally remain rooted to the Power of The State, with a few trappings of a free society. It remains thus because Europeans are culturally more attuned to accept the Power of the State, and define their version of “freedoms” accordingly. If that is what they like, then that is their choice, but it does not align with basic American Ideals. This is the real reason why America is not well suited to European-style socialism.
When this is understood by more people, the misalignment of views on taxes, etc that create the rifts in the Atlantic relationship will be more understandable and manageable.
"economists do not ALL agree"...
Isn't that something you called arguing dishonestly earlier?
You believe corporate taxes are primarily a consumer-centric tax then just as the OP implied? Certainly reasonable to think there's some economist or two out there somewhere who believes that and has supporting documentation. Even tho you say you've "provided enough citations" I can't find even ONE you've offered...
I do sometimes miss stuff like everyone else so please point me to the ones you posted that supposedly say consumers are paying most of the corporate taxes via product price increases and I'll have a look. I don't mind learning new stuff.
So perhaps not every economist agrees that corporate tax on profits in general (that means not entirely nor all the time, just more so than not in case you don't get that) is paid by owners and stockholders. Well I can't say for sure either way if those economists exist so I'll accept your word for it.
America (or Original America): “Government only has the powers that the people allow it to have.”
There are better papers regarding taxation and oligopolies but they sit behind paywalls (I have access to the National Bureau of Economic Research). Folks did and do attack K&R in the past but almost all of the corporate taxation modeling assumes perfect competition which is certainly not true for oligopolies. Imperfect Competition is no longer a heretical thought for incidence theory. Overshifting of the tax burden is shown by Delipalla and Keen (1992) for certain commodities. Hall in 1998 shows that retail is not always competitive.
At the end of the day, it's a complex subject and you can argue that prices rising with tax rates is due to demand shift vs corporate overshifting of tax burden onto the consumer but the empirical data shows this price rise occurs (Besley and Rosen 1998 Sales Taxes and Prices: an empirical analysis).
When Apple was accused of paying 0.005% in one example and paying too little taxes in general, he claimed the accusations were untrue and that Apple had 'values'.
"When you’re accused of doing something that is so foreign to your values, it brings out outrage in you"
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/technology/apple-tax-ireland-tim-cook.html
There are, of course, macroeconomic effects of tax policies which cause different groups to feel different effects from them. Some groups are harmed, some helped. Some effectively bear more of the burden of tax policy changes, some bear less of that burden or reap benefits. Tax policy changes affect economies in myriad ways, and those effects are felt by different participants in those economies in different ways. An increase in corporate income taxes can certainly have deleterious effects on economies which are felt by different people - not just by owners of corporations. And supply / demand balances can be affected by tax policy changes with different people being affected to different degrees by supply / demand balance changes. I don't think anyone here is arguing to the contrary. For my part at least, I haven't argued to the contrary.
But that isn't what I was referring to. I was addressing whether particular corporations pass through increases in corporate income taxes to consumers (e.g., in the form of higher prices). For the most part they don't. Other kinds of taxes are different, of course. Excise taxes, e.g., create effects which factor into, e.g., pricing decisions. What makes sense from a pricing standpoint without an excise tax may be quite different from what makes sense with one.
But an increase in the corporate income tax rate (mostly) only affects what portion of pre-tax profits a corporation retains after taxes. That being the case, the best way to maximize after-tax profits is the same as it was before: Maximize pre-tax profits. (Corporations, of course, don't always do the best possible job of this. Through their decisions they often leave money on the table, and there are long-term considerations to be taken into account. But that can be the case with or without income tax rate increases. And, at any rate, it isn't the income tax rate increases - or the lack thereof - which causes the less-than-optimal business practices or the consideration of long-term effects.)
To believe that a given corporation would pass through a corporate income tax rate increase to consumers (e.g., in the form of price increases) one has to believe that the corporation would otherwise have chosen to make only a certain amount of after-tax profit - that it would have chosen not to make more than X, even though it thought different business decisions (e.g. higher prices) would have resulted in making more than X. That belief would, for the most part, be mistaken. The way to make the most after-tax profit with a 30% income tax is the same as it is with a 25% income tax. The Krzyzaniak-Musgrave Study doesn't suggest otherwise. Even if we accept that they could accurately measure that which they sought to (which I don't think we should), what they sought to measure was something different.
Are the harms of corporate income tax policy felt by more than just the owners of corporations? Of course. Those harms - e.g., from corporate income tax increases - can be felt by society in general - workers, consumers, owners. That's the case with a lot of tax policy. But that's not the same as the taxes themselves effectively being paid by one group or another.
You ask the proper taxing authority, of course. In the U.S., you might ask for a private letter ruling. In Ireland, you might ask for what's called an advance opinion. Most jurisdictions (at least in advanced economies) have comparable processes for determining what is and isn't allowed under those jurisdictions' tax laws. But that's all you can do: Ask the entities in charge of deciding such things what the rules are. Then you should be able to rely on what they tell you and act accordingly.
How so?
Agree with Irelands' tax policies or not (even as they were determined to apply to Apple's situation in particular), the policies in question only affected what Ireland was to collect in tax revenue.
They didn't affect what other jurisdictions were entitled to collect under their own tax policies. There wasn't a dispute over whether the taxes in question (which some thought there should have been more of) were owed in other jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions have general tax policies which meant that those taxes weren't due in those jurisdictions. Those are the policies they themselves chose (for good reasons I won't get into here). Generally speaking, jurisdictions apply income tax liability based on where value is created, not based on where transactions happen. They capture tax revenue based on where transactions happen in other ways - e.g., with VATs.