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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

That's the website of a conservative think-tank.

Not only that, but it offers no support at all for its claims of broad support for the idea. It is an ideological propaganda outfit offering unsupported claims that an element of its ideology is broadly popular outside of that ideology.

Why don't you argue the point and offer an alternative opinion or rebuttal instead of profiling the messenger?

The messenger is relevant, at times, and is at least worth mentioning. I'm skeptical of "everyone agrees with me!" coming from any think tank, left or right.

https://taxfoundation.org/case-not-eliminating-corporate-inc..., for example, argues that relying on taxing shareholders instead of the corporation ignores foreign shareholders whose income isn't subject to US taxation. (For similar disclosure, they're generally considered right-leaning.)

> for example, argues that relying on taxing shareholders instead of the corporation ignores foreign shareholders whose income isn't subject to US taxation.

And that is a good point to discuss/argue, regardless of the messenger. You could do the same with the previous resource as well; pull out points that you like/dislike and we discuss around that as opposed to shooting down any discussion because you don't like the messenger.

>argues that relying on taxing shareholders instead of the corporation ignores foreign shareholders whose income isn't subject to US taxation.

They aren't? What about withholding tax?

That's on income, not capital gains.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/nonusresidenttax...

> Nonresident aliens are subject to no U.S. capital gains tax, but capital gains taxes will likely be paid in your country of origin.

> Nonresident aliens are subject to a dividend tax rate of 30% on dividends paid out by U.S. companies.

Workers at conservative think-tanks breathe oxygen. Ergo, breathing oxygen is wrong.

Take a quick spin through their "encyclopedia" and see.

Labor unions? Bad! Climate change? Probably good, actually!

Their article on oxygen would be "oxygen is good, always" or "oxygen is bad, always". They don't leave much room for nuance in their encyclopedia, and unsourced assertions of a policies popularity in their writings can probably be treated with a grain of salt.

The thing is the assertion that corporate taxes are bad is incredibly mundane. Not in a pro-pro-big business kind of way but in a pro-everyone kind of way. The problem with corporate taxes is that they are easily dodged via the most mundane write-offs, exchanges and planned for deduction. Corporate taxes are offset by a company by simple hiring a tax lawyer. Individual taxes are far harder to dodge and basically require the individual to abandon his/her country in order to do it, or to cheat by putting them in a dark bank account overseas. This is not a partisan issue. If you want a corporation to pay its taxes, put its taxes on the people who make money off that corporation.

> This is not a partisan issue.

The best way to demonstrate that would be to link to a more neutral source, or sources across the partisan spectrum.

"Here's an op-ed by a conservative think tank about why taxes are bad" is gonna get people expressing very reasonable skepticism.

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