Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

Do you think it makes sense to compare personal and corporate taxes? Corporations are generally far better equipped to spend money avoiding taxes, so it probably makes more sense to try to keep loopholes to a minimum and evaluate whether the effective rates are appropriate for the parties they apply to.

The article you link discusses the very wealthy having taxation dominated by the lower taxes on investment income. I think such taxes could be higher without having significant impact on investment (lots of rhetoric suggests that even tiny changes would cause investment to collapse, that's silly), but there is plenty of room to discuss whether government spending is a better use of the wealth than private investment (and such taxes do more or less have the effect of directly moving private investment dollars to government spending).

View on HN

Do you think it makes sense to compare personal and corporate taxes?

Yes. Corporations themselves want to apply the Constitution to the corporation as if they're a "person", therefore, it makes sense to compare the corporate tax rate to the personal tax rate.

No it doesn't. Corporate tax legislation is not the same as personal tax legislation, therefore a comparison is irrelevant. Even if corporations would be treated as people, as long as the legislation is different it does not make sense to compare the two.

You may argue that tax rates are too high or low for both or that there are too many loopholes but that is a different discussion. I don't think anyone actually wants to see the same tax legislation for businesses and for people - it makes no sense what so ever.

This is the status quo but doesn't address parent's argument. If corporations want the same rights as natural persons in one area of the law, it would be cherry picking to want to keep a privileged position in another, e.g. tax law. A good argument against parent would need to attack the premise that cherry picking privileges is bad.

Your argument is a fair point, cherry picking privileges is quite ridiculous. That said, it makes absolutely zero sense to compare corporation taxes and personal taxes. The dynamics are just totally different. I can see nothing good in equating personal and corporation taxes.

My personal opinion is that both personal and corporate tax legislation is more or less flawed and that the(effective) tax rates probably need to be adjust but that doesn't mean that I want them to have the same legislation.

Obviously I am not an economist, so I know zero about corporate finance, but do we really need to complicate the tax issue as our present tax laws have become? (I once handled accounts payable for a local government entity - I quickly transferred to an IT position so that's all I know beyond balancing my own budget) Why won't a more simple approach be workable?

I favor a tax based on percentage of gain. If a Mega-Corp makes $30Bn a year, and I only make $30K, we each pay accordingly, at the same percentage rate.

Of course there would be a great debate about exactly what that percentage should be, but it should be equitable and not too onerous.

Why not hold corporate entities to the same standard as individuals?

Isn't the USA supposed to be about equality? (Remember, freedom & equal rights for all?)

Corporate personhood is the easiest way to allow corporations to enter into contracts and engage in civil litigation. I'd be interested in what opponents of corporate personhood propose as ways around those problems, which I think are goods. Having to renegotiate all contracts with a business if the owner dies doesn't seem very efficient.

With regard to tax law, accounting is generally different between corporations and individuals. Specifically, individuals use cash accounting while businesses frequently use accrual accounting. Furthermore, businesses can deduct far more in expenses than an individual. One can argue about that, but I think it makes sense when you realize that corporations are ultimately owned by individuals, but individuals cannot be owned by other individuals or corporations. Individuals are ultimately the "base case" of ownership, so I think the different tax treatment of revenue/profit/income makes sense.

> Corporate personhood is the easiest way to allow corporations to enter into contracts and engage in civil litigation.

Most opponents of corporate "personhood" aren't really opposed to juridical personhood of corporations and other non-natural persons, they are opposed to the effect given to corporate personhood in certain domains; corporate personhood has never been fully equivalent to natural personhood in the law, and there are quite different ways in which corporations could be treated as juridical persons without directly holding the particular rights that have recently caused a lot of people to get offended about "corporate personhood".

You're right. It doesnt make sense.

But the problem is: we've already crossed that bridge. Corporations are treated like people in enough regards, that it only makes sense to make these comparisons now.

But yes.. its retarded. It doesnt make sense. But it's how things are now. And until something changes with corporate personhood, they should be held to the same standards as people. This way people will wake up to how stupid it is.

Just to be clear, I'm not in favor of Corporate Personhood, by any stretch of the imagination. But if corporations want to apply the Constitution as if they're people, I think it's fair for me to apply the corporate tax code to my person.

What's wrong with corporate personhood? Without it, the ACLU, a corporation, doesn't have free speech rights without the consent of Congress.

It's a kludge that does more harm than good. Every other western country has ACLU-like organizations with comparable or better standing, and without the personhood nonsense.

I don't understand what you mean by "kludge". Either people who form legal entities retain their individual rights regardless of what laws are passed or they don't. That's all "corporate personhood" is. It doesn't mean their corporation gets a vote or can collect food stamps.

And I'll put U.S. free speech absolutism over most of Western Europe any day.

> Either people who form legal entities retain their individual rights regardless of what laws are passed or they don't.

That's not what corporate personhood is. Before corporate personhood became the law of the land, people retained all their individual rights despite forming legal entities. Neither does losing those rights happen in any other western country that does not recognize corporate personhood, btw.

> It doesn't mean their corporation gets a vote or can collect food stamps.

Oh, it does mean a corporation can lobby, which is very close to voting (and statistically, way more powerful than voting).

And it means a corporation can be found guilty of criminal negligence or even criminal behaviour, and yet not a single natural person is guilty. If you look at e.g. Germany, Sweden, or Norway - if there's criminal behaviour, the person responsible for it gets indicted EVEN if they did it as an officer of a corporation.

It's a kludge because, because for the small benefit it gives (allowing a legal entity to own property, which was solved in simpler ways all around the world), it lets the natural persons in control of a corporation evade criminal liability, and allows them to legally bribe, sorry, lobby with a force that they cannot without controlling said corporation -- at least not legally.

> And I'll put U.S. free speech absolutism over most of Western Europe any day.

Care to explain what you are talking about here, compared to (e.g.) Germany, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland? If you say "most", I guess at least ONE of these countries fall in your "Western Europe" group?

Did you, or do you, have experience living in western europe and/or the US, that you base that on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country

Count the "hate speech" laws and provisions against insulting the government or religion.

That's sort of like estimating the tax rates from the length of the tax code (71000 pages in the us just for the federal tax code, less than 10000 in almost every other country on earth, most around 5000).

The number and content of laws is irrelevant. The way they are practiced is. E.g., if you read the 4th amendment you'd think the us government would need reasonable suspicion and a warrant before border search, wire tapping, stop and frisk, etc.

Corporations have legal personhood, so yes; it makes sense to compare them.

I would argue against this using absurdity. I don't want corporations to have the vote, so I don't particularly want to reach for legal personhood when justifying policy.

You are correct...Corporate Personhood IS absurd. But until the people stand up to this bullshit, I think it's fair to use it in any capacity to highlight it's absurdness.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com