8/18/2006

Friday Fun: Capitalist Trivia

From 1950-2000 Corporations averaged 17 percent of the total tax contribution to the government.

Now, it is about 7 percent. I'll give everyone until Monday to come up with the number one reason why this is down...with the biggest example in the last decade.

No asking OTBL members! That's cheating.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Common sense is why corporate taxes are down. As Cato pointed out, corporations do not really pay taxes, they just pass that cost on in the price of their products.

Anonymous said...

What gets passed down to prices depends on elasticity. Just because corporate taxes go up doesn't mean prices go up.

So individuals in Wisconsin should pay more taxes to pay for roads that haul parts in from foreign countries to build build Harley-Davidson motorcycles that get sold all over the world.

Is the corporation's only job to make a profit?

Anonymous said...

I would say it's corporate welfare. Corporatations and their executives have the financial means to great influence the political machinery. Pumping contributions in individual campaigns and PACs pays off big time.

Anonymous said...

Good point josh
Corporate commercial and industrial taxes are down. In Wisconsin the greater burden has been shifted to residential property owners. Just look at the tax revenue for Hudson as an example. If you trak valuations versus tax revenues back 15 years (and I have), you would be shocked given the growth (industrailly and commercially) in Hudson. All this free market talk is just hot air. Corporations have been receiving handouts and tax breaks for years. That means real property owners (residential) are left with the burden to pick up the cost of corporate welfare.
If I am not a customer of a given corporation, yet I am a property owner, it seems that I am held hostage by political and corporate partisanship.