"Doug Carter" wrote in message
ire.net...
On 2005-09-16, Icebound wrote:

But if the shareholders are a substantially large and different
population
than the workers, for example: if the shareholders were foreigners (or
tax
sheltered entities), then it makes a great *deal* of difference as to
whether we tax the corporation's pre-dividend profits, or whether we tax
the
worker's wages, to get the same level of government revenue.

Not in actual practice. Increased corporate tax burdens are passed on
the consumer, not the shareholder. Return on invested capital is very
constant through periods of varying tax rates.

Interesting. That must mean large corporations are operating in a monopoly
position, because in a free market, increased prices would probably be
accompanied by reduced volume.



You can't protect the poor slob at the end of the line by raising
corporate tax rates; he just pays more for his products. Reducing
government revenue demand is by far the best way to lower the net burden
on labor.

If you are worried about the little guy getting hosed then fight to
simplify the tax code so that congress has less opportunity to funnel
vast sums to their friends for unnecessary projects at the direct
expense of the consumer. This would have a much greater effect on the
bottom line.

Efficiency is a whole other issue :-)

As far as "protecting the poor slob", I am personally intrigued by the
various proposals that call for elimination of all current forms of tax, and
replacing them a single tax-on-fund-transfers sort of approach.
http://users.ixpres.com/~concepts/ for one example.
Implementation might be a bitch, or not. But the simplicity and inherent
fairness is intriguing.

Another proposal is Linders Bill:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/taxes/a/aafairtax.htm
which *does* put it all explicitly consumer's head. If that bill ever sees
the light of day, it will interesting to hear the debate.