Just a couple of off-the-wall questions (1 Viewer)

[JasenP]

...don't let the wonderful liberal machine tell you different

You might choose your words more carefully in the future, you may come across as ignorant.

 

[BrianB]

You can debate and argue against the wording of the questions, but you know what I was asking.

You asked if corporations pay tax, not where they get the income from to pay those taxes.

 

[RogerB]

The answer to #1 is YES.

5.3 million corporate tax returns were filed in 1998 and the IRS collected $213 billion in corporate taxes.

Q: Who sent the IRS $213 billion?

A: Corporations

 

[Dheiner]

The answer to # 1 is YES, as Roger points out above. Saying the answer is no, is the same as saying that we, as consumers, pay our own salaries.

 

[RobertR]

Couldn't you argue that employees of corporations don't pay taxes either, since the money came from corporations?

 

[Bill Griffith]

No its not the same.

If I had worded it. Are corporations Taxed? then the answer would be yes. I asked do corporation pay taxes?

These are 2 very different questions. the answewr to one is yes, the answer to the second is no.

If you want to believe that corporations don't cover there taxes by passing it on to the consumer than be my guest, but your going to be wrong.

 

[Bill Griffith]

Couldn't you argue that employees of corporations don't pay taxrs either, since the money came from corporations?

No you couldn't becaue I know that once a year I pay taxes because I make a certain mount of money but I only pocket about 2 thirds of it.

 

[RobertR]

corporations merely pass that cost onto the purchaser as cost of goods sold.

Corporations aren't always able to pass costs on to the consumer. Depending on market conditions, they must sometimes absorb those costs. Also, since corporations pay tax on profits, not revenue, a reduction in their net profit does not directly reduce their revenue.

 

[Bill Griffith]

First companies are not just taxed on there profits, and second I don't know if your right or wrong as I can't think of a company thats in business today that isn't always able to pass on there costs.

If you could give me an example (of a corporation that isn't able to pass on their costs) of what your talking about it would help.

 

[RogerB]

If I had worded it. Are corporations Taxed? then the answer would be yes. I asked do corporation pay taxes? These are 2 very different questions. the answewr to one is yes, the answer to the second is no.

Like I said, 5.3 million corporate tax returns were filed in 1998 and the IRS collected $213 billion in corporate taxes. These corporations paid the taxes directly to the IRS. I didn't pay it. You didn't pay it. The CORPORATIONS paid it.

Corporations are both TAXED and they PAY taxes. If they fail to PAY their taxes, someone goes to JAIL.

 

[Ryan Wright]

If they fail to PAY their taxes, someone goes to JAIL.

No they don't. The whole idea of incorporating is to protect yourself and your assets. If they fail to pay their taxes the government may sieze what's left of the corporation, but rest assured nobody is going to jail.

 

[RobertR]

companies are not just taxed on there profits,

I thought we were talking about the corporate income tax. What taxes are you talking about?

As for businesses being able to arbitrarily raise their prices to cover the cost of a tax on income, it would not be the case with a fiercely competitive industry with a highly elastic price/demand curve.

 

[Michael Pineo]

I'd have to agree with RogerB on this one. The question asked was "Do corporations pay taxes?" The answer is yes. Sure, they pay the taxes with money that they get from consumers, but they are still paying taxes. I think everyone here realizes that these costs most likely get passed on to consumers, but the question didn't ask "Where do corporations get the money to pay their taxes?"

To me, saying corporations don't pay taxes because they pass the cost on to the consumers, would be like saying that I don't pay taxes, becuase my taxes are paid by the money I get from the company I work for, so, in essence, my company pays my taxes. This isn't a perfect analogy since I can't pass on the cost of my taxes to my employer (wouldn't that be nice), but you get the idea.

MikeP

 

[BrianW]

If you want to believe that corporations don't cover there taxes by passing it on to the consumer than be my guest, but your going to be wrong.

I really don't think anyone here actually believes that corporations don't pass their tax bills along to consumers. It's just a matter of knowing that, wherever they get their money, corporations, not consumers, are responsible for the taxes which they have incurred.

Saying that consumers pay corporate taxes instead of corporations is like saying that I don't pay my income tax, my employer does - because that's where I get the money to pay it in the first place.

If you want to believe that, then that's fine, but it doesn't make everybody else wrong.

[Edit: Michael beat me to it and said essentially the same thing, dag-nab it. Jinx! Ha! now you have to be quiet for an hour! ]

 

[BrettB]

Q. Does dog poop smell bad?

A. No. The food the dog ate smells bad after passing through the digestive system of the dog.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Is this right wing rhetoric cloaked in a triva contest?

 

[Michael Pineo]

[Edit: Michael beat me to it and said essentially the same thing, dag-nab it. Jinx! Ha! now you have to be quiet for an hour! ]

Well, if you look at my post count you'll see I can be quiet for a lot longer than an hour

 

[RogerB]

The whole idea of incorporating is to protect yourself and your assets. If they fail to pay their taxes the government may sieze what's left of the corporation, but rest assured nobody is going to jail.

I'm no lawyer but I think you're wrong. While current laws may be ambiguous enough to get a lot of corporate crooks off the hook, I'm sure that more than a few have served jail time for tax evasion. For example:

"WASHINGTON, D.,C. - Two brothers who operated 11 trucking and construction companies on Long Island, New York were sentenced to jail time and ordered to pay restitution for their involvement in a tax evasion conspiracy set up to avoid paying taxes on more than $15 million in gross corporate receipts, the Justice Department announced today.

Anthony Sainato was sentenced to 6 years in jail and his brother, Vincent Sainato, to a 40-month prison term late on Friday, March 2, 2000. Each also was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release. Following a six-week trial, the Sainatos were convicted in March, 2000. In addition to the conspiracy charge, Anthony Sainato was also convicted of corporate tax evasion, aiding and abetting the filing of a false corporate tax return, and two counts of signing and filing a false corporate tax return. He was acquitted of tampering with a witness."

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

It's called 'piercing the corporate veil.'

But, aye, the entire point of a corporation is to create a fictitious, yet legal, entity that can be dealt with separately than a sole proprietor or business partnership.

The corporation as an entity is licensed, is taxed, and pays taxes. The fact that the money comes from consumers is superfluous; as is the fact that the taxes are probably physically given to the gov't by a human being; the human being is merely acting as a proxy to the entity of the corporation.

 

[Danny R]

No one will go to jail if the corporation does things legally. Both of the cases you cited involve tax evasion.

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Saying corporations don't pay taxes presumes that there is an ultimate source of money: the consumer. That simply is not the case, as every consumer has to obtain their money from someplace else. The only actual source of money is the goverment, because every dollar is backed by the faith in the state as a whole, without which its just a piece of paper.