"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:reeWe.330700$x96.16375@attbi_s72...
All U.S. for profit businesses are subject to income, property and
various use and consumption taxes *in addition* to involuntary servitude
as tax and information collector for local, state and federal
government.

Yes, but I suspect the O.P. was making the point that businesses pay no
"real" tax, in that every tax they pay is passed along to consumers.

Which is why the Left's diversionary arguments about "making the
corporations pay more" always rings so hollow to my ears, BTW.
--

The issue is not a simple zero-sum pass-through as you suggest. There *is*
some balance to be struck.

The tax burden is shared by the workers (payroll income tax), the
shareholders (dividend income tax), and the consumers (sales taxes and/or
passed-through corporate tax).

In the cases where all three of these entities are the same person, you may
very well be correct: who cares whether the State gets its money from you
as dividend income, or as salary income, or as a sales tax on the end
product.

But on the other hand, the shareholder is not usually also the worker.
Where corporations have millions of shareholders, a great many shareholders
may even be outside the country. Hence taxing corporate profits before
distribution, probably guarantees a better chance of getting at the money
before it leaves the country, whether it is going to legitimate
shareholders, into dodgy tax havens, or being siphoned illegally by the
executive.

The left's argument is, of course, that the tax pendulum has swung too far
to the worker (payroll income tax), and away from the corporate shareholder
and executive. So taxing the corporations would "put more money in the
consumer's pocket" (workers being consumers). Of course the right suggests
this is nonsense, because in their mind, it is the shareholders that are the
consumers.

Neither is wrong, and the question becomes: What is the correct balance?
I am sure both sides can put up "today's" financial numbers and projections
to suggest that *they* are the ones paying too much and that any a reduction
of *their* tax will have huge benefits for the overall economy of the
nation.

Each may be right, or not... but the issue is not a simple zero-sum
pass-through as you suggest.