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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (210419)	12/4/2012 12:32:49 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543488

You should be more in favor of a consumption tax." No, I shouldn't. As you say, regressive. The rich ain't like you or me; they don't consume with everything they have; they put their money in the Caymens and make more money. "Our country has the highest - one of the highest - corporate taxes in the world." Also, the greatest number of corporate loopholes.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (210419)	12/4/2012 12:34:54 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543488

<highest - corporate taxes in the world> Only if you ignore the ACTUAL taxes paid. We also have a tax code that allows multinationals to avoid taxation through cost shifting, moving losses and gains to places where those are particularly favored by the web of complex international taxation. I got a sense of this when I worked abroad. GE has one of the largest wholly-owned "tax firms" in the world - for themselves and pays nothing in taxes. A company can do a lot of gymnastics to avoid payment. Our effective tax rate is more like 18%. The ten most profitable paid 9%. This is more of the regressive taxation endemic in our code of Tax the Poor (in this case corporations). Most "corporations" are small businesses and are poor. And yes, THEIR taxes are high. But this is like Romney's 47% - while they paid no income taxes, they pay more as a percentage of total wealth directly or indirectly in local taxes than anyone. This takes the form of property taxes if they rent, which help set how low rents can be and sales taxes that they can't avoid. How people who aren't rich back these policies and support continued corporate welfare is beyond me. Are really to believe that these companies will restore jobs to America by lowering their tax rates? I'm an investor and am actually working against my self-interest with my politics. Why? Because it is the right thing to do...