If Corporations Are People, Tax Them Like People

As if by magic, corporations were rendered human by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United and 2014 Hobby Lobby decisions. They may now exercise free speech rights through unlimited political spending and enjoy freedom of religion by denying employee health care coverage for birth control pills, diaphragms, and IUDs. As Mitt Romney famously chided a heckler at the 2011 Iowa State Fair, “Corporations are people, my friend.”

But not even today’s new, improved Romney would ever suggest that corporations are people when they pay their taxes. Suggest to a conservative that these notional human beings should pay the same income tax as actual human beings, and he or she will slam into reverse and tell you, “Corporations aren’t people at all. They’re really just an inanimate pile of stock certificates that gets taxed twice, first as corporate income and then as individual shareholders’ capital gains.” This double-taxation argument is disingenuous because the people who make it usually want to eliminate taxes on both the inanimate part (corporations) and the people part (capital gains); in reality, they don’t want capital to get taxed at all.

The Roberts court’s doctrine of corporate personhood is wrong. Corporations are not, in fact, people. If you prick them, they do not bleed, and if the high court were to resume barring them from pouring money into super PACs or denying contraception coverage, nobody’s rights would be infringed. It would be fun to impose sauce-for-the-goose consistency on conservatives by taxing corporations the same as we do people, but that doesn’t make much practical sense because it would put the United States out of sync with corporate tax rates in other countries. But we can certainly tax corporations more than the modest 28 percent that President Biden proposes. That’s an increase over President Donald Trump’s 21 percent, but it’s well short of the 35 percent rate that was in place before Trump slashed it in 2017. If we restored that 35 percent rate it would still be two percentage points below the top marginal income tax rate for Homo sapiens, and nearly five percentage points below the 39.6 percent top marginal income tax rate on actual (wealthy) human beings that Biden has proposed.

Comments

Biden says K-12 education isn't working — calls for free pre-K to "grade 14"

President Joe Biden on Wednesday praised the nation's K-12 education system for fueling America's economic growth for almost a century. But, he stressed, that system may no longer be sufficient as the foundation for future prosperity. Mr. Biden's American Families Plan is taking aim at an issue that has bedeviled economists as well as millions of families struggling to stay afloat financially: A high school diploma is no longer enough to secure a middle-class life. Under the White House proposal, the nation's K-12 system would be expanded on both ends — from free pre-kindergarten education through a "grade 14," funding two years of schooling before kindergarten and two years of post-high school education through free community college. There's plenty of economic research that links rising high school graduation rates throughout the 20th century to faster U.S. economic growth. For example, broadening education help women enter the workforce and enabled men ...

Wray: FBI deemed Jan. 6 attack domestic terrorism

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that officials have classified the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by former President Trump Donald TrumpProsecutors focus Trump Organization probe on company's financial officer: report WHO official says it's 'premature' to think pandemic will be over by end of year Romney released from hospital after fall over the weekend MORE's supporters as domestic terrorism. "That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism," Wray told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Wray said the FBI has received more than 270,000 tips from Americans that have helped the bureau identify the numerous people who allegedly participated in the attack. ADVERTISEMENT "Citizens from around the country have sent us more than 270,000 digital media tips. Some have even taken the painful step of turning in their friends or their family members,” ...

Matt Gaetz's ex-girlfriend to cooperate with federal authorities in sex trafficking investigation

Washington (CNN) Federal authorities investigating alleged sex trafficking by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz have secured the cooperation of the congressman's ex-girlfriend, according to people familiar with the matter. The woman, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is seen as a critical witness, as she has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, a period of time that has emerged as a key window of scrutiny for investigators. She can also help investigators understand the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving alleged payments for sex, the sources said. News of the woman's willingness to talk, which has not been previously reported, comes just days after the Justice Department formally entered into a plea agreement with Joel Greenberg, a one-time close friend of Gaetz whose entanglement with young women first drew the congressman onto investigators' radar. CNN reported last week that investigators were pressing for the...

Politics Now - USA

Search This Blog