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Comment by m101 | Hacker News Reader

Corporate taxes are the most blindingly stupid idea ever.

People forget that the only way to level the playing field between Amazon and local shops is to cut taxes to 0 rather than layering on increasingly complex tax rules. Amazon thrives in the presence of corporate taxes.

Corporate taxes also create huge incentive to offshore jobs to tax havens.

Not to mention no corporate tax rates would mean no need for all sorts of expenses on legal and accountants for tax optimisation.

In the UK I think we acknowledge they are a bad idea by having a plan to step them down over time to some low level (and potentially even 0 eventually). Covid derailed that plan.

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The only reason we have a "corporate tax" is because it sounds nice to voters who have no clue what's actually going on. And the average journalist is just as clueless but easily twice as malicious. If you "cut taxes on corporations" you are a bad guy. If you raise them, you are Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. This is literally the level of analysis that democracies operate at. Meanwhile, tax attorneys are getting rich off of helping megacorps evade taxes that the average business has to pay.

For the benefit of other readers: the corporate tax is pointless because in the long run, all corporate profits go to capital gains. So you can just raise the capital gains tax and get rid of the corporate tax. This is why the personal income tax is higher than the capital gains tax, because corporate profit has already been taxed while corporate expenses have not. Just equalize the capital gains tax and income tax and get rid of the corporate tax and you basically have the same revenue and way less bullshit.

> the corporate tax is pointless because in the long run, all corporate profits go to capital gains.

No, they do not. Rather than belabor the point, which you repeat over and over, just do a little more cursory research.

https://www.accounting-degree.org/accounting-tricks/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/11/30/the-next-... https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/substantial-income...

If you have the assets, you can do it too. Trump takes advantage of it, for all the good it does him.

Individual tax evasion exists either way.

Repeat over and over?

Enough individuals set the trend. The trend is not for a corporation to pay all the taxes it can.

This is a nonstarter for precisely the reasons you state.

With the stroke of a pen, you would eliminate a huge industry (tax attorneys, tax consultants, etc)

You can bet they will not go down without a fierce fight

This makes total sense. Except it cannot happen.

Same as term limits. Incredible idea. Never going to happen.

There exist reasonable arguments against term limits for members of legislative bodies, which arguments hinge on term limits greatly increasing the power of lobbyists, by effectively lowering the average skill and expertise of lawmakers.

How much skill and expertise do you need, though?

In most fields of activity after 2-3-5 years you should you should be a reasonable journeyman and after 10 you should have a decent mastery of your field.

To me a term limit of 15-20 years should be more than enough.

Try changing jobs as a software dev after 10 years. Every 'good' company will put you through 3-4 coding challenges, treating you like your fresh out of college.

Yeah, but we're talking about public positions here (public office). High visibility into both the good and the bad that you do.

Hardly comparable with software development work which is generally completely out of sight and therefore hard to quantify or verify. And I say this as someone who's been through the whole interview dance a bunch of times.

Hey, IG Semmelweiss, your tax improvements seem very reasonable.

We shall proceed to ignore you and continue with our obviously bad ideas, to the detriment of everyone.

Maybe in 20-30 years another person, let's call that person Pasteur, will come back with much the same ideas and everyone will listen to them.

When you see a mechanism that is left intact despite the appearance of failure, always ask whether it is performing its intended function.

> In the UK I think we acknowledge they are a bad idea by having a plan to step them down over time to some low level (and potentially even 0 eventually). Covid derailed that plan.

I think, pre-COVID, they're aiming for 12.5% to compete with the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland was already granted permission to lower corporate tax rates to 12.5% [1]. The UK is looking at reversing cuts in the wake of COVID [2].

[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/129e7687-20d7-449f-bde1-3455015de...

[2] - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corporation-t...

I identify as a corporation.

Does this apply only to corporations above a certain size? Otherwise, if I can provide my service as a self-employed consultant, then why would I be employed by another company and pay income tax x%, when I could just offer the same services under my own company and pay 0% on the same income?

I don't really feel discriminating on size is a good idea. Complicated and potentially game-able.

If it were up to me I'd bring income, cap gains, and dividend tax rates in line with eachother (or just call them all income), and be done with it.

Edit: i might be wrong but I think bringing those three taxes in line is another one of these Cummings-era UK policy ideas

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