Effective tax rate in a single year isn’t too meaningful when they might be carrying over losses from previous years.
The government incentivizes transactions, when you don't conduct enough transactions you pay the government instead.
The people decided that taxes were too hard to comprehend, which isnt true for all of us, and vilify anyone who does comprehend. The collective understanding and reading comprehension is so low that they cant even effectively change the law, getting their representatives to just tax people that earn the same way they do more. Congratulations you taxed the most effective wage workers more you did it!
Its just another perspective on reality that also happens to be more accurate and effective.
I think there are greater obstacles for the collective of ordinary people being able to effectively change the law than reading comprehension, and one of those things is the nearly limitless capacity of large corporations to lobby government. The more they lobby, the less they pay, the more they earn, the more they lobby, the less they pay, the more they earn, the more they lobby, the less they pay, the more they earn.
You could add into that cycle "...the less money is available to fund the government, the less money is available for education, the dumber the people get, the less capable they become at managing their own government, etc...". Never minding of course that schools are largely funded by property taxes (stupid IMO), it still affects the overall availability of public funding.
Corporations should pay more because the tax code should be written to require it, not out of dumbness or virtuousness. The cycle of wealth inequality must be broken, and it's not a simple thing to actually implement a solution.
The things you said also happen
Governments also need a new revenue source.
100 years of passive income taxation while they too borrow against future revenue growth and we are to act like it’s their only option?
None of the ideology matters if it can’t budget and where we are now, no taxation will fix its budget unless it resorts to full on expropriation of property
The government collects trillions of dollars a year in taxes as it is. A significant percentage increase to the level of taxation against top earners would make a huge difference, and it is difficult to fathom what operation the government could run to remotely approach that level of increased revenue generation. What do you have in mind?
Something is going to have to get nationalized, big bad word oh noes
You see nationalization of industry as a pathway to revenue growth? I guess it makes sense, but somehow I always think about industries like healthcare being nationalized as a means of providing service, which is likely to cost the government more money
What industry would be profitable and appropriate for nationalization?
They can have positive operating profits, but tax losses. For example, Congress recently (3-4 years ago?) changed the tax code to allow companies to expense, instead of amortize, capital equipment.
I'm fairly confident FB would be making R&D investments regardless of the reward from the tax code. But for change in behavior due to the tax code, the tax credit is a windfall.
Additionally, that money is being taxed in the end via income tax at a comparable rate.