How do u “put money into a corporation”? Isn’t that buying shares or buying bonds?
The income that shareholders and bondholders derive and the realized capital appreciation of the shares is taxable. If the shares or bonds generate no income nor net present value appreciation by the time the shares or bonds are liquidated at death, then I see no advantage to the person for parking their money in that investment.
They could just as well hide the money under their mattress.
It’s far, far easier to audit and to collect tax from corporations, especially big ones, than it is to audit and to collect from millions of individuals. That’s why insofar as possible the system tends to make businesses the collection agent for a whole lot of individual taxes (wage withholding, sales taxes, etc.). Most real-world proposals to end double taxation retain a tax on corporate profits and give shareholders a corresponding credit against taxes they would otherwise pay on distributed profits or sales of their stock. Or, you can follow the current scheme that applies to partnerships, most LLCs, and S corporations, and have the individual shareholders taxed on their share of corporate profits whether or not those profits have been distributed, but then you don’t tax the distribution of previously taxed profits. In either case, you don’t have double taxation, but you are not leaving corporate profits untaxed.
Just because something is easier to execute doesn’t make it right.
And while we’re discussing income taxes of individuals, where’s the fairness of taxing dual income couples more than single earner couples?
public sector employees turning their $80k into $160k is nothing compared to turning $20 million (or billion) into $40 million.
I would not say those two groups are benefiting anywhere close to equally, but that’s the way it goes.
of course… the people with the most in the market get the most gain when the market goes up. That’s how it works.
That’s why I say Harvard, Yale, Princeton (and friends) should be paying taxes on their endowment.
Of course… the people with the most in the market get the most loss when the market goes down. That’s how it works.
Do you really want to defend that statement in this context? I would argue that, when it comes to taxes, collecting the accurate amount of a single tax determined by the legitimate political process efficiently – that is, with the least cost of collection and enforcement – does “make it right.” There are strong policy arguments against double-taxing corporate profits (and, to be sure, strong policy arguments the other way, too), but I don’t know of any strong policy arguments against collecting a single level tax in the most efficient matter possible