The Scary Message of Republic Windows & Doors

Mark of NY: The primary reason that corporate tax revenues have fallen is that small, subchapter S Corporations have risen in place of large corporations. They pay taxes on the 1040 and not as a corporation. Those Soros-funded front groups you cite know that.

Besides, businesses don't pay taxes. They only collect them from customers in the price of their goods and services and pass them on to government.

As for payroll taxes - what's the big deal? Isn't that funding everyone's retirement? Or are you suggesting that we slash payroll taxes and social security benefits? We can agree on that.

"How much better off would this country be if that revenue was actually collected?"

Yeah, and imagine how much better off we'd be if the government had taken everything. Nirvana.

Dean of MN 3:25PM December 09, 2008

Government NEEDS to reach into the private sector to stabilize the economy - but by actually TAXING corporations fairly int he first place.

Info from both Citizens for Tax Justice and AmericanProgress.org:

"The General Accounting Office (GAO) reports that more than 60 percent of U.S. corporations failed to pay any federal taxes from 1996 through 2000 when corporate profits were soaring and that corporate tax receipts had fallen to just 7.4 percent of overall federal tax revenue in 2003 – the lowest since 1983 and the second-lowest rate since 1934. The GAO report also found that 94 percent of corporations reported tax liability of less than 5 percent of their total income during the same time period.

Corporate tax receipts dropped from an average of 4.8 percent of GDP during the 1950s to 1.3 percent of GDP in FY2003. Treasury Department figures show that actual corporate income tax revenues fell 36 percent from FY2000 to FY2003. And while the statutory corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, the effective corporate tax rate - the actual share of corporate taxes paid on corporate profits - has averaged just 26 percent since 1993, according to the Congressional Research Service.

While the more recent corporate tax shortfalls may reflect a weaker economy at the beginning of 21st century, much of it can be attributed to both the Bush administration's corporate tax cuts enacted in 2002 and 2003 and the loopholes in the tax code that have allowed corporations to shelter income offshore. The 2002 and 2003, tax bills cost $177 billion in corporate tax breaks in fiscal years 2002 through 2005, $44 billion in 2002, $53 billion in 2003, $64 billion in 2004 and $16 billion in 2005 (all figures estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation). Estimates of the cost of corporate tax loopholes have been projected at upwards of $50 billion a year, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.

As corporate tax receipts decreased, payroll taxes, the most regressive of all taxes, increased dramatically. Specifically, payroll taxes increased from 1.6 percent of GDP in FY1950 to 6.8 percent of GDP in FY2002, surpassing both corporate income taxes and excise taxes in their contribution to total federal receipts. This rise in payroll taxes represented a 30 percent increase in the contribution of payroll taxes to overall federal revenues.

At the same time, individual income taxes also increased in the past half century as both a percentage of GDP and in their relative contribution to total federal tax receipts. Individual income taxes rose from 5.8 percent of GDP in FY1950 to 8.3 percent of GDP in FY2002. The regressivity of the Bush tax cuts has made this increase much more of a burden on middle and low-income taxpayers."

How much better off would this country be if that revenue was actually collected?

Mark of NY 2:47PM December 09, 2008

I own a window factory in Flint Mi. If I could get to the right people, I could buy up Republic windows and operate it at a profit in the chicago market. No one at Bank of America will answer any questions of where do I go to see the right person.

anyone know who to talk to

Tom Panek of MI 2:37PM December 09, 2008

This sort of intervention in the free market is also very Hooveresque, in that Hoover threatened government action against firms that didn't maintain then-current wage levels, as opposed to letting them float with market demand for labor. That's how you get 20+% unemployment, among other reasons.

<blank> of <blank>: Bill Gross uses the word necessarily to mean, "as a consequence", as in "those trends have necessarily come to an end as a consequence of the government fist being substituted for the invisible hand". He's bemoaning the loss of animal spirits, not celebrating the passing away of deregulation and lower taxes.

Dean of MN 2:05PM December 09, 2008