This has gotten completely out of hand. They have more rights than the average American and contribute proportionately less. They enjoy representation without taxation.
We need an amendment to the constitution to ban political donation and undo Citizens United. I also feel like we should ban stock trading by congress and make their pay where someone would want to do the job for the betterment of our society and not resort to unscrupulous means to make money.
In the past only rich white men who were in high society were in politics and congress. They didn't need to worry about having a home in DC as well as their home state.
They also didn't have to convene any where near as much as they do now. We're talking about about a few times a year to it being an all year long process now.
Today, unless you're going into congress already a millionaire, or selling out to become one once you're in.. Then you're struggling to pay for the time it takes to be in DC.
What has always stroke me as extremenly unfair is that companies are able to subtract their expenses from the income taxes while individuals cannot.
If a taxi driver needs fuel to earn money so do I need food to earn money.
Why are they allowed to subtract fuel costs but I'm not allowed to subtract my food expenses?
If you mean an actual revenue tax, that's been tried and abandoned. It gives a huge competitive advantage to large corporations over small and medium businesses because it favours vertical integration.
Is this an economics subreddit? Because nearly every economist I've seen polled thinks taxes on businesses should be as low as possible. Even ones who support increasing taxes on the rich thinks taxing businesses and corporations is one of the worst and least effective ways of doing it while also harming US competitiveness. More economists than not think capital should be taxed lower than labor.
Taxing capital income disincentivizes investment in capital, but taxing labor income disincentivizes investment in human capital. There are as many distortions to taxing labor. Economists who already value capital more than labor as an input make up story about why capital should be taxed less than labor. News at 11.
You can't tax the companies because: it's bad.
You can't tax the rich because: eh they will flee or change their income structure or the wealth is not really income.
I guess I am the only one to tax since I am an employee.
Although many American companies pay very little taxes thanks to tax deductions and benefits, those that are most concerned about their impact on the public deficit are not necessarily those that pay “zero”, but the giants that receive enormous tax advantages. According to an analysis cited by Fortune, companies such as Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and JPMorgan concentrated a disproportionate part of corporate tax aid and deductions, saving tens of billions of dollars in taxes.
The elite say it’s The best government money can buy and we taxpayers are paying the bill and paying for them and what do we get in return for paying our fair share of taxes ? Less and less- it needs to get fixed fast
I mean, it’s right in the sense that corporate tax is an income tax, and Tesla made less than $1B of income last quarter vs $45B for Microsoft and $40B for Google.
The big difference is the OBBB’s 100% bonus depreciation for capital investments paired with huge AI spending.
Effectively, these companies are pulling the tax benefit of their capital good purchases up to the year they buy them, while the depreciation on their books appears over its useful life.
If you look at Google’s latest balance sheet, they already have $40B in deferred/non-current tax liabilities on their books, up from $11B at the end of last year.
It does but all those same groups also poured money into Trump's election because they knew he's a pay to play leader they can bribe for favorable taxes and benefits. A lot of Republicans/politicians are like that but Trump is in a league of his own.
Remember kids: if you owe the IRS $2,000, that's your problem. If 114 corporations owe the IRS $0, that's macroeconomic strategy. I pay more federal income tax than Tesla every year which I guess makes me a major shareholder in America.
If Tesla paid $0 in current federal income tax and I paid $1 literally any positive dollar amount means I paid more than them. The math isn't mathing chief.
Income tax expense includes deferred taxes. The ITEP report specifically looked at Current Federal Income Tax Expense which is the actual amount of cash owed for that tax year. That line item was $0. Moving the goalposts to payroll or sales tax doesn't change the fact that their federal corporate income tax check was $0.
So first you claimed you personally read Tesla’s private corporate tax return and now you’re claiming to know what they paid IRS Form 1120 three weeks ago? Either you’re committing a federal crime by leaking confidential tax records or you’re completely making this up. Which one is it? 😂
If you don’t unstable capital gain is hard to grasp this concept.
Let just take simple concept. You purchased your house for $250k. After 5% 20 year mortgage you have paid it off for paying close to $350k. Your house is now valued $500k after 20 years.
You decided to sell it for $500k should pay income tax on that $500k you get from selling it. Should you pay income tax on your profit only of $250k. Which would put you in top tier income tax. Or should you do concept of capital gain. When you pay capital tax on profits only since you used income taxed money to earn to do purchase and this profit should exclude from income taxes money.
I just explained how companies tax work extremely simplified and bit inaccurate to get concept across
The think tank that billionaires own are saying they're not the problem. That is some take I guess. I wonder how many will believe it? Probably enough to make it pretty effective.
Anytime they post something like this for one year, you should ignore it. Compound it the fact that businesses are taxed on net profit after expense. So in most cases, it's just businesses that have made significant investments.
Why should an average person have to pay thousands of dollars in taxes every year—money that could go toward rent or food—while corporations pay next to nothing compared to how much they earn, or sometimes pay nothing at all? And what do they even do with all that money? Just use it to measure their dicks against each other, because they have more money than they could ever spend in ten lifetimes?.
When an ordinary citizen needs government assistance, they're treated like a parasite, even after spending years contributing at least 10% of their income directly to the government through taxes. Meanwhile, corporations receive billions in government contracts and subsidies, only to turn around and refuse to pay taxes.
So I'm a big fan of raising corporate tax rates, but this is kind of a silly way to argue the point. We're talking about public companies here. What they do with all that money is either reinvest it for growth, pay dividends, or do share buy backs. All of which are done with the goal of making the company more valuable for the owners. In this case the owners are the public.
Your 401ks and S&P 500 index funds and pensions and HSA and every other investment vehicle that drives the wealth of the average person is tied up in those companies.
Those earnings are often smaller than you think when aggregated out to the owners. Now, Tesla is an egregious example of this because it's an idiotic stock but I'm going to use it since it's the one cited in the article. Tesla earned 0.48 per share last year, and a share currently costs $399. So as a percentage of the value of the company, they basically earned nothing. So we look it as this huge behemoth of a company because of market cap, but the actual taxable money is TINY in comparison.
Share buybacks should be banned. Either distribute dividends or reinvest the funds. Share buybacks are a way to manipulate market prices and evade taxation on capital gains.
Eh, the impact on share price is usually nebulous. They’re more flexible in terms of taxes, but the selling shareholders still owe capital gains on the sale (and the corporation itself owes an excise tax)
It is absolutely true, which is why they do share buybacks instead of dividends. It rewards shareholders without triggering a taxable event for the company or it's investors, which is bullshit.
Buybacks are used because they’re more flexible, they’re needed to prevent dilution from stock option plans, they’re needed for recapitalizations, and they’re needed to prevent takeovers
There’s nothing inherent to a buyback that increases share price
Share buybacks absolutely increase share price. A companies value is based on its future earnings and growth in addition to its current book value. By reducing the number of outstanding shares each share is entitled to more of that future earnings and growth, so the share price rises. Share buybacks wouldn't be the preferred method for rewarding shareholders if they didn't increase share price.
>each share is entitled to more of that future earnings and growth
Treasury stock is contra equity. Total equity (and total assets) of the company decline proportionally from a buyback, meaning that value per remaining share is unchanged
Buybacks can signal that a company is undervalued, but this price action isn’t contingent on the buyback itself
But if they didn't do the buyback, they would have the cash, which would pay interest and/or could be used to invest in future growth. It is a bit of a mixed bag.
All you're doing with that policy is screwing the middle class. The billionaires don't care, they are avoiding capital gains with loans and can find enough deprecation in assets to offset taxes on dividends.
Forcing dividends to be taxed does however fuck the middle class out of a lot of compounding.
I mean, it avoids dividends, but I don't see anything wrong with share buybacks. The decision between dividend and share buy back isn't usually made based on taxes. It's made based on valuation of the company. If the board believes that the company is currently undervalued, then buy backs are the right choice. If the board believes the company is overvalued then dividends are the right choice.
I'm not sure why you guys have latched onto share buybacks as a bad thing.
Share buybacks are a way to avoid businesses having to pay taxes on their earnings while simultaneously rewarding shareholders. None of this is hypothetical - it's why the number of profitable businesses paying dividends has been steadily declining for decades.
Money doesn't just sit in corporate vaults forever. It gets passed through. Taxing the corporation raises the cost of doing business and lowers their ability to research things, pay people more, or lower prices (whether they do so or not is a different question, but it does get in the way of doing so). Taxing the gains and/or dividends bypasses that problem entirely.
There's a good reason many economists view corporate taxes as inefficient compared to other taxes.
I do some work for Tesla. When I ship from Canada, they don't want to pay the tariff. At time of kick off, there were no tariffs. They pay no tax and I had to fight to get them to pay the tariff
Thinking about all the money Elon put into the elections, because he loves democracy, but not enough to support it financially. That job is for the taxpayers…
Voting a straight blue ticket will flood the zone with Dems. It's the only way to shut down this out of control GOP chain reaction. This content was removed by moderators twice because it is too short, which is why I am posting it again with gratuitous words.
The rich play by different rules in society, and now you’re saying the richest companies play by different rules too!? I am shocked! Shocked!! Well not that shocked
The “Corporate Tax Breaks” are rules enacted by legislators to drive investment/economic interests. Reducing your income by previous year losses make sense, so does accelerated depreciation when the government wants to stimulate certain sectors. That is not shenanigans, its policy making prioritized by the legislators.
bumpachedda | 11 hours ago
This has gotten completely out of hand. They have more rights than the average American and contribute proportionately less. They enjoy representation without taxation.
DRAWVE | 7 hours ago
We need an amendment to the constitution to ban political donation and undo Citizens United. I also feel like we should ban stock trading by congress and make their pay where someone would want to do the job for the betterment of our society and not resort to unscrupulous means to make money.
Darksmithe | an hour ago
They make enough. It was called service in the past not a career.
Devil_Demize | 49 minutes ago
In the past only rich white men who were in high society were in politics and congress. They didn't need to worry about having a home in DC as well as their home state. They also didn't have to convene any where near as much as they do now. We're talking about about a few times a year to it being an all year long process now.
Today, unless you're going into congress already a millionaire, or selling out to become one once you're in.. Then you're struggling to pay for the time it takes to be in DC.
Darksmithe | 39 minutes ago
The poor Congress people. Suffering on $174,000 per year or more. Cry me a fucking river!
paulwesterberg | 11 hours ago
Considering the way our federal government wastes money on unnecessary wars perhaps it’s better that they pay zero taxes. /s
naijaboiler | 10 hours ago
who do you think the wars are in the interest of? people? No.
Corporations? yes
fp_weenie | 5 hours ago
The Iran war screwed over plenty of big companies, the only ones who wanted it were Israel.
Snoo-85072 | 11 hours ago
That's not true at all. They enlist our representation to ensure they have no taxation.
Ateist | 2 hours ago
What has always stroke me as extremenly unfair is that companies are able to subtract their expenses from the income taxes while individuals cannot.
If a taxi driver needs fuel to earn money so do I need food to earn money.
Why are they allowed to subtract fuel costs but I'm not allowed to subtract my food expenses?
kaspar42 | an hour ago
That's called VAT and we already have that.
If you mean an actual revenue tax, that's been tried and abandoned. It gives a huge competitive advantage to large corporations over small and medium businesses because it favours vertical integration.
Ateist | an hour ago
The other way around.
I'm not asking for revenue tax.
I'm asking for income tax deduction for food/rent/utilities/basic clothing expenses.
WingerRules | 9 hours ago
Is this an economics subreddit? Because nearly every economist I've seen polled thinks taxes on businesses should be as low as possible. Even ones who support increasing taxes on the rich thinks taxing businesses and corporations is one of the worst and least effective ways of doing it while also harming US competitiveness. More economists than not think capital should be taxed lower than labor.
CrayonUpMyNose | 7 hours ago
Misrepresenting a highly controversial opinion as mainstream = a political agenda.
> nearly every economist I've seen
Double hedging with weasel words = not a worthwhile proposition.
AddleDale | 5 hours ago
So true. If you only watch economists on right wing media then that's all you're going to hear.
WingerRules | 7 hours ago
I follow polling of economists such as from the Chicago Booth of Economics Experts Panel. This is the consensus of most economists.
CrayonUpMyNose | 7 hours ago
Yes and the Chicago School is famously non-partisan /s
WingerRules | 6 hours ago
Chicago Booth Experts panel polls economists from different schools across the country and world.
bumpachedda | 7 hours ago
Guess that would make sense if they were pass throughs. Instead they hoard cash.
zeugma_ | 2 hours ago
Taxing capital income disincentivizes investment in capital, but taxing labor income disincentivizes investment in human capital. There are as many distortions to taxing labor. Economists who already value capital more than labor as an input make up story about why capital should be taxed less than labor. News at 11.
tradingpostinvest | 7 hours ago
It's not really an economics subreddit
Raizer88 | 4 hours ago
You can't tax the companies because: it's bad. You can't tax the rich because: eh they will flee or change their income structure or the wealth is not really income.
I guess I am the only one to tax since I am an employee.
Good luck I guess.
[OP] Sufficient_Fuel5269 | 12 hours ago
Although many American companies pay very little taxes thanks to tax deductions and benefits, those that are most concerned about their impact on the public deficit are not necessarily those that pay “zero”, but the giants that receive enormous tax advantages. According to an analysis cited by Fortune, companies such as Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and JPMorgan concentrated a disproportionate part of corporate tax aid and deductions, saving tens of billions of dollars in taxes.
User-NetOfInter | 11 hours ago
If their owners were paying taxes it wouldn’t be an issue.
The issue is neither the owners nor the company are paying. Only the employees
2020willyb2020 | 10 hours ago
The elite say it’s The best government money can buy and we taxpayers are paying the bill and paying for them and what do we get in return for paying our fair share of taxes ? Less and less- it needs to get fixed fast
DonnaSummerOfficial | 8 hours ago
I know just the milquetoast centrist
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTnLkuloplhSWkot7flPmzvod-_jCs-TY0y9yLt7vXK-xXmHGpi_MdyHRY&s=10
Poppy-Velvets7 | 8 hours ago
it's wild how much of the tax burden seems to fall on employees while companies find ways around it.
yourparadigm | 11 hours ago
They are when there's a taxable event, like selling stock. Gains on the value of the company are taxed.
User-NetOfInter | 10 hours ago
Which doesn’t take a genius to avoid.
The top 10% went from 30%+ of consumer spending in the late 90s to 50% today
skratchx | 5 hours ago
How do you avoid paying tax on stock sales without losing real money by e.g. selling other assets at a loss?
Raizer88 | 4 hours ago
Using the stock as collateral for a loan. You get the money and you don't get taxed.
filtarukk | 12 hours ago
That simply sounds wrong
thri54 | 11 hours ago
I mean, it’s right in the sense that corporate tax is an income tax, and Tesla made less than $1B of income last quarter vs $45B for Microsoft and $40B for Google.
The big difference is the OBBB’s 100% bonus depreciation for capital investments paired with huge AI spending.
Effectively, these companies are pulling the tax benefit of their capital good purchases up to the year they buy them, while the depreciation on their books appears over its useful life.
If you look at Google’s latest balance sheet, they already have $40B in deferred/non-current tax liabilities on their books, up from $11B at the end of last year.
Imaginary_Manner_556 | 7 hours ago
Corporations should pay taxes on earnings reported to Wall Street. It’s beyond ridiculous at this point
Dreamsofjetpacks | 11 hours ago
It does but all those same groups also poured money into Trump's election because they knew he's a pay to play leader they can bribe for favorable taxes and benefits. A lot of Republicans/politicians are like that but Trump is in a league of his own.
AmethystOrator | 11 hours ago
Even if they aren't "the biggest threats" then I think that both the no and low taxation rates are still a topic worth discussing.
There is likely some overlap, or at least similarities, in both cases.
alilhillbilly | 11 hours ago
We need to tie those deductions to worker pay.
If 75%+ of your workforce is paid a middle class salary you're getting whatever deductions or tax breaks.
If less than that? We tax you to make up for it.
Either you're part of society or you're not. If not? Well then you're a leech. GTFO.
WillTheyKickMeAgain | 11 hours ago
All should pay and the giants with the tax advantages need to see them removed. Full stop. It isn’t in America’s interests any other way.
campshaw1958 | 11 hours ago
Set up a corporate minimum tax exclusive of deductions
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 11 hours ago
We already have one
Straight-Ad6926 | 11 hours ago
Remember kids: if you owe the IRS $2,000, that's your problem. If 114 corporations owe the IRS $0, that's macroeconomic strategy. I pay more federal income tax than Tesla every year which I guess makes me a major shareholder in America.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 10 hours ago
You definitely don’t pay as much in tax as Tesla. As someone who has seen their 2025 corporate tax return, I can assure you they pay much more
Straight-Ad6926 | 10 hours ago
If Tesla paid $0 in current federal income tax and I paid $1 literally any positive dollar amount means I paid more than them. The math isn't mathing chief.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 10 hours ago
Tesla didn’t pay $0 of federal income tax. But there’s also other federal taxes they pay
The article is quoting their federal income tax expense, which isn’t the same thing as the federal income tax paid
Straight-Ad6926 | 10 hours ago
Income tax expense includes deferred taxes. The ITEP report specifically looked at Current Federal Income Tax Expense which is the actual amount of cash owed for that tax year. That line item was $0. Moving the goalposts to payroll or sales tax doesn't change the fact that their federal corporate income tax check was $0.
naijaboiler | 10 hours ago
exactly. trying to shift goalposts. and give Tesla credit for essentially taxes paid by their employees. Payroll taxes are coming off workers wages.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 10 hours ago
>which is the actual amount of cash owed
Again, that’s wrong. Their current income tax expense was calculated back in March, and their tax return was filed 3 weeks ago.
Tesla’s federal income tax paid, reported on their 1120, was more than $0
Straight-Ad6926 | 8 hours ago
So first you claimed you personally read Tesla’s private corporate tax return and now you’re claiming to know what they paid IRS Form 1120 three weeks ago? Either you’re committing a federal crime by leaking confidential tax records or you’re completely making this up. Which one is it? 😂
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 8 hours ago
Show me where I leaked their confidential tax records
Straight-Ad6926 | 8 hours ago
Explain how you personally saw a private corporate tax return filed with the IRS three weeks ago 🤨
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 8 hours ago
I work at the accounting firm that does Tesla’s tax returns
kingkeelay | 9 hours ago
Now how much government subsidies did they net?
moshennik | 6 hours ago
that's factually not true at all
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000162828026003952/tsla-20251231.htm
Tesla did pay some US federal income taxes in 2025.. $28million.
It's a pretty low % because of all carry-over losses, research tax credits, green energy tax credits, etc.
CloudStrife25 | 6 hours ago
It’s a pretty weird system when a top 10 company by market cap had been carrying over losses still for 6 years or so.
moshennik | 6 hours ago
i mean they were losing money for a LOOONG time..
lolgamefun | 54 minutes ago
If you don’t unstable capital gain is hard to grasp this concept.
Let just take simple concept. You purchased your house for $250k. After 5% 20 year mortgage you have paid it off for paying close to $350k. Your house is now valued $500k after 20 years.
You decided to sell it for $500k should pay income tax on that $500k you get from selling it. Should you pay income tax on your profit only of $250k. Which would put you in top tier income tax. Or should you do concept of capital gain. When you pay capital tax on profits only since you used income taxed money to earn to do purchase and this profit should exclude from income taxes money.
I just explained how companies tax work extremely simplified and bit inaccurate to get concept across
towell420 | 9 hours ago
What Federal Taxes did they pay?
Genuinely interested.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 9 hours ago
I’m referring to corporate income tax
4toots | 8 hours ago
Answer their question.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 8 hours ago
I just did
keithfantastic | 11 hours ago
The think tank that billionaires own are saying they're not the problem. That is some take I guess. I wonder how many will believe it? Probably enough to make it pretty effective.
Cum_on_doorknob | 11 hours ago
How dare companies carry losses forward!
How dare they utilize the R&D and energy credits that we voted for specifically to help spur high tech manufacturing in America!
This is a travesty!
VarusAlmighty | 11 hours ago
Do people realize that they also can carry losses forward? I think you can carry gambling losses if I'm not mistaken.
Cum_on_doorknob | 11 hours ago
Probably not, people are dumb.
Puzzled-Bet4837 | 3 hours ago
Gambling losses can’t be carried forward and also can only ever be used to offset gambling winnings for tax purposes.
Key-Organization3158 | 12 hours ago
Anytime they post something like this for one year, you should ignore it. Compound it the fact that businesses are taxed on net profit after expense. So in most cases, it's just businesses that have made significant investments.
On5thDayLook4Tebow | 11 hours ago
Investments like Dish buying the field beside their Colorado location and "planting seeds" e.g. to qualify for Ag credits
Cappyc00l | 11 hours ago
No, it’s the businesses that invest by buying back stocks.
aliph | 8 hours ago
False. That is not a taxable expense.
Present_Status602 | 11 hours ago
Why should an average person have to pay thousands of dollars in taxes every year—money that could go toward rent or food—while corporations pay next to nothing compared to how much they earn, or sometimes pay nothing at all? And what do they even do with all that money? Just use it to measure their dicks against each other, because they have more money than they could ever spend in ten lifetimes?.
When an ordinary citizen needs government assistance, they're treated like a parasite, even after spending years contributing at least 10% of their income directly to the government through taxes. Meanwhile, corporations receive billions in government contracts and subsidies, only to turn around and refuse to pay taxes.
InspectorQuiet9463 | 11 hours ago
So I'm a big fan of raising corporate tax rates, but this is kind of a silly way to argue the point. We're talking about public companies here. What they do with all that money is either reinvest it for growth, pay dividends, or do share buy backs. All of which are done with the goal of making the company more valuable for the owners. In this case the owners are the public.
Your 401ks and S&P 500 index funds and pensions and HSA and every other investment vehicle that drives the wealth of the average person is tied up in those companies.
Those earnings are often smaller than you think when aggregated out to the owners. Now, Tesla is an egregious example of this because it's an idiotic stock but I'm going to use it since it's the one cited in the article. Tesla earned 0.48 per share last year, and a share currently costs $399. So as a percentage of the value of the company, they basically earned nothing. So we look it as this huge behemoth of a company because of market cap, but the actual taxable money is TINY in comparison.
ohhhbooyy | 8 hours ago
I like how one of the arguments on high taxes is to avoid hoarding and promote reinvestment. They do that and people are shocked
Test-NetConnection | 11 hours ago
Share buybacks should be banned. Either distribute dividends or reinvest the funds. Share buybacks are a way to manipulate market prices and evade taxation on capital gains.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 11 hours ago
Eh, the impact on share price is usually nebulous. They’re more flexible in terms of taxes, but the selling shareholders still owe capital gains on the sale (and the corporation itself owes an excise tax)
Test-NetConnection | 10 hours ago
The point is that shareholder wealth increases without them having to realize gains. This is the problem.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 10 hours ago
That assumes the buyback increases the share price, which isn’t really true
Test-NetConnection | 10 hours ago
It is absolutely true, which is why they do share buybacks instead of dividends. It rewards shareholders without triggering a taxable event for the company or it's investors, which is bullshit.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 10 hours ago
Buybacks are used because they’re more flexible, they’re needed to prevent dilution from stock option plans, they’re needed for recapitalizations, and they’re needed to prevent takeovers
There’s nothing inherent to a buyback that increases share price
Test-NetConnection | 10 hours ago
Share buybacks absolutely increase share price. A companies value is based on its future earnings and growth in addition to its current book value. By reducing the number of outstanding shares each share is entitled to more of that future earnings and growth, so the share price rises. Share buybacks wouldn't be the preferred method for rewarding shareholders if they didn't increase share price.
Obvious_Chapter2082 | 10 hours ago
>each share is entitled to more of that future earnings and growth
Treasury stock is contra equity. Total equity (and total assets) of the company decline proportionally from a buyback, meaning that value per remaining share is unchanged
Buybacks can signal that a company is undervalued, but this price action isn’t contingent on the buyback itself
DrawPitiful6103 | 9 hours ago
But if they didn't do the buyback, they would have the cash, which would pay interest and/or could be used to invest in future growth. It is a bit of a mixed bag.
InspectorQuiet9463 | 10 hours ago
All you're doing with that policy is screwing the middle class. The billionaires don't care, they are avoiding capital gains with loans and can find enough deprecation in assets to offset taxes on dividends.
Forcing dividends to be taxed does however fuck the middle class out of a lot of compounding.
Test-NetConnection | 8 hours ago
Dividends are taxed, wtf are you talking about?
InspectorQuiet9463 | 10 hours ago
I mean, it avoids dividends, but I don't see anything wrong with share buybacks. The decision between dividend and share buy back isn't usually made based on taxes. It's made based on valuation of the company. If the board believes that the company is currently undervalued, then buy backs are the right choice. If the board believes the company is overvalued then dividends are the right choice.
I'm not sure why you guys have latched onto share buybacks as a bad thing.
Test-NetConnection | 8 hours ago
Share buybacks are a way to avoid businesses having to pay taxes on their earnings while simultaneously rewarding shareholders. None of this is hypothetical - it's why the number of profitable businesses paying dividends has been steadily declining for decades.
User-NetOfInter | 11 hours ago
If the majority owners were paying it wouldn’t be a problem.
Since neither them nor the company is…big fucking problem.
OoglieBooglie93 | 7 hours ago
Money doesn't just sit in corporate vaults forever. It gets passed through. Taxing the corporation raises the cost of doing business and lowers their ability to research things, pay people more, or lower prices (whether they do so or not is a different question, but it does get in the way of doing so). Taxing the gains and/or dividends bypasses that problem entirely.
There's a good reason many economists view corporate taxes as inefficient compared to other taxes.
LSBeasyas123 | 11 hours ago
Why indeed.
photon1701d | 11 hours ago
I do some work for Tesla. When I ship from Canada, they don't want to pay the tariff. At time of kick off, there were no tariffs. They pay no tax and I had to fight to get them to pay the tariff
renob_ta | 4 hours ago
Thinking about all the money Elon put into the elections, because he loves democracy, but not enough to support it financially. That job is for the taxpayers…
AcanthisittaNo6653 | 11 hours ago
Voting a straight blue ticket will flood the zone with Dems. It's the only way to shut down this out of control GOP chain reaction. This content was removed by moderators twice because it is too short, which is why I am posting it again with gratuitous words.
cyberdude419 | 8 hours ago
The rich play by different rules in society, and now you’re saying the richest companies play by different rules too!? I am shocked! Shocked!! Well not that shocked
LastOneSergeant | 11 hours ago
What is the end game of these corporations?
What will happen when they debt continues to spiral and the government can no longer afford basic services and infrastructure upkeep?
LetLongjumping | 5 hours ago
The “Corporate Tax Breaks” are rules enacted by legislators to drive investment/economic interests. Reducing your income by previous year losses make sense, so does accelerated depreciation when the government wants to stimulate certain sectors. That is not shenanigans, its policy making prioritized by the legislators.