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Re:Biggest companies pay the least tax, shows new research by listenallyall on Sunday April 05, 2020 @06:02PM (#22789114)
>> shifts the burden

This argument falls apart when you recognize how and why companies become eligible for tax deductions. The top 3, according to the CBO, are exclusions stemming from providing health insurance, pension contributions, and capital gains & dividends. By doing so, companies actually accept a huge burden that would otherwise be left to taxpayers, like paying healthcare costs and providing an income for eligible retirees & spouses.

Cap gains & dividends -- while they certainly enrich corporate management and wealthy owners -- are the primary means through which massive public pension funds (like CalPERS) provide the benefits promised to public employees. And if you want to take it further, probably the biggest incentive to get people to work in the public sector at all, is the promise of a generous pension post-retirement. (and even further -- all that money is taxed at the individual level, albeit at a different rate, but certainly not tax-free)

One might even make the argument that a company that refused to provide any retirement benefits, refused to offer health insurance, and which refused to return any capital to investors, is the one that is immoral.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52493

Re:Biggest companies pay the least tax, shows new research by rubber_duck on Monday April 06, 2020 @06:20AM (#22792318)
Tax incentives are created to stimulate one behaviour, so using them is good - but abusing those tax incentives - avoiding the behaviour they were supposed to stimulate but avoiding taxes is the immoral part. I'm seeing a decent amount of this with the recent crisis tax reliefs
Re:Biggest companies pay the least tax, shows new research by listenallyall on Monday April 06, 2020 @03:02PM (#22796735)
>> using them (tax incentives) is good

that's a 180 from your initial comment

>> Avoiding the behaviour they were supposed to stimulate but avoiding taxes

I very clearly stated that I was talking about legal means. If a company claims a tax deduction for an action it did not actually perform, that would be illegal.

>> recent crisis tax reliefs

I can't speak to non-US policy, but in the US, the recent stimulus is not a tax relief bill, and thus inapplicable (though I will agree there is likely to be a lot of fraud).