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A comment on Apple Reports Third Quarter Results. Parent comment

Re:Apple Reports Third Quarter Results by jlebar on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @06:34PM (#8071964)
There is a broad consensus among liberal and conservative economists that a corporate tax rate above zero is a dumb idea.

It is irksome that some large corporations pay basically zero and others don't, but the ideal solution isn't to make 'em all pay.

See e.g. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-poli...

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Re:Apple Reports Third Quarter Results by tptacek on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @07:38PM (#8072189)
Careful. Liberal economists support reducing or eliminating the corporate income tax if you offset it with drastically higher personal income tax on wealthy people along with an elimination of the capital gains tax rate, and you prevent corporations from becoming vehicles for making pre-tax political contributions.

In other words: liberal economists don't support eliminating the corporate income tax in the real world.

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Re:Apple Reports Third Quarter Results by jlebar on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @08:04PM (#8072256)
> Liberal economists support reducing or eliminating the corporate income tax if you offset it with drastically higher personal income tax on wealthy people along with an elimination of the capital gains tax rate, and you prevent corporations from becoming vehicles for making pre-tax political contributions.

Yes, absolutely. But as liberals, let's be indignant about the impossibility of what you describe, rather than the impossibility of getting Apple to pay the same tax rate as an individual.

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Re:Apple Reports Third Quarter Results by gone35 on Wednesday July 23, 2014 @11:36AM (#8074914)
There is a broad consensus among liberal and conservative economists that a corporate tax rate above zero is a dumb idea.

Not quite. To add to tptacek's earlier comment: Planet Money's feature was strongly criticized afterwards for mischaracterizing the panelists's opinions, and overselling them as full-fledged policy positions [1,2]. Besides, the members were not representative enough to reliably infer a "broad consensus" from their agreements alone.

[1] http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-disagreeme...

[2] http://www.samefacts.com/2012/08/drug-policy/planet-money-an...

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