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this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Republicans love to harken back to “the golden age” of america. Ever wonder what paid for it? A big portion was .. corporate tax!
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/historical-corporate-tax-rates-brackets/
Corporate tax is currently at the lowest point since 1940
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corporate-tax-rate
See this big drop in corporate tax? You thank ol’ trumpy for that
Along with personal income tax - Note this is the top bracket of tax
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IITTRHB
Want your golden age back? Tax these fucking billionaire grifters.
...? Your numbers literally state that PERSONAL marginal income taxes were 90%. Corporate taxes were, yes, 100% higher. So were personal tax rates.
I stated both. I listed both corporate and personal tax. What are you referring to?
edit - do you mean the personal bracket?
Are you argiuing that corpate tax rates should double to its peak rates? Would that also mean personal rates should double back to its peak? Graphs paint a very incomplete and poor picture that are easily misunderstood.
In the 1950’s, the top marginal tax rate was 90%, but people were allowed to avoid income tax by funneling income through corporate tax shelters, leaving a top effective tax rate that wasn’t much higher than it is today. Not only that, but the tax burden has also shifted dramatically since the 1950’s. In Eisenhower’s day, those earning more than $100,000 per year shouldered around 20% of the tax burden. Today, the equivalent economic class shoulders over 80% of the tax burden. Lowering the tax rates and eliminating loopholes in the 1960’s and 1980’s actually resulted in the rich paying a much higher share of total taxes.
The high rate created incentives for corporations to find ways to minimize their tax burden, such as increasing debt financing, retaining earnings, and pursuing tax loopholes. This led to distortions in corporate decision-making and the allocation of capital. Additionally, the high rate may have discouraged some new business formation and investment.
Whether a 90% corporate tax rate, BTW, which never existed, would work effectively today is debatable. The economy and global business environment have changed considerably since Eisenhower's era. A rate that high could potentially lead to more severe distortions, capital flight, and reduced competitiveness for U.S. companies in the modern globalized economy. Most tax policy experts believe a more moderate corporate rate, combined with a broader tax base and fewer loopholes, would be more effective at raising revenue while minimizing economic distortions.
The data shows that, between 1950 and 1959, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid an average of 42.0 percent of their income in federal, state, and local taxes. Since then, the average effective tax rate of the top 1 percent has declined slightly overall. In 2014, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid an average tax rate of 36.4 percent.
All things considered, this is not a very large change. To put it another way, the average effective tax rate on the 1 percent highest-income households is about 5.6 percentage points lower today than it was in the 1950s. That’s a noticeable change, but not a radical shift.
I thought I had a problem with taking a point or two and stretching them across a handful of paragraphs. I no longer think I have a problem and indeed have learned a few things to limber up and aim for greater mental gymnastic heights.
You're not just a fly in history's wall, to hear you retell it, you can read hearts and minds better'n than most deities too. A graph tells a shaky story but your certainty of the intent of every actor involved is inviolate?
Please don't write back at me, for the first time in my life, I comprehend the fear of my acquaintanceships and the long rambling.
The numbers, what do they mean?
Reminded of wtfhappenedin1971.com
Another thing that raising the corporate tax rate does is make it more profitable to re-invest your income into the company. Since they're only taxed on profits they'll pay zero taxes if they make zero profit. How do you do that? Expanding your business, spending money on R&D, and paying your employees more.
Edit: Haha, just kidding, they'll blow it on stock buybacks.
Ideally, yes - but until share buybacks are outlawed - companies will just ‘reinvest’ by buying up shares (increasing their price, and thereby existing shareholder wealth), and issuing them as bonuses to their C-suite in lieu of payment.. by-and-large avoiding a lot of the income tax that they would otherwise be due to be paid.
Our current late-stage capitalist corporate system is built upon layers and layers of tax-avoidance and self-enrichment at the cost of society as a whole.
One of the driving economic forces associated with taxation is human nature. You simply cannot legislate around it. Enter the Laffer Curve. Google it. Basically, if the government taxes at zero percent, it gets no revenue. That’s obvious. If the tax rate is 100%, you get the same result. People either won’t work or (more likely) they’ll work for cash under the table. Tax evasion becomes a full-time indoor sport. As government increases tax rates from 0% to 10%, it gets money! It gets even more if it goes from 10% to 20%. But soon that revenue curve that was steadily increasing starts to bend downward toward 0% again as tax rates increase. Liberals think that if you get $X with a tax rate of 33%, then you’ll get three times as much if tax rates triple to 100%. Nope! This isn’t just a theory. It’s a recorded historical event. We’ve seen certain tax rates be reduced and yet revenue increased! Magic? Nope. The tax rate was simply on the right side of the Laffer Curve. Makes sense! This principle also demonstrates that there is a maximum amount of revenue any government can extract from the population. Politicians promising more spending than this maximum revenue level are pandering, or perhaps are economicly uneducated. Perhaps they lack a understanding of human nature. They do understand that many voters are also economically uninformed and will vote for politicians who promise free stuff and a “tax the rich” solution to supposedly pay for it all. See you in the Bahamas!
Then put them all in the prisons and enslave them, as is legally allowed per the Constitution. They'll work with sufficient coercion. Have the CIA seize their overseas assets and repatriate it all, or if it's in a hostile country, have the CIA exfiltrate or destroy as necessary. Humans will work when enough physical and psychological pain is applied to coerce them. That, too, is human nature. If they attempt to flee, have the CIA find them, put them in unmarked vehicles, and extradite them back to US soil to be put back to work.
this isn't science, it is story telling