[jcampbell1]

The concept of “tax burden” or more precisely “tax incidence” is a rather complex topic. For instance, no consumer pays gas taxes since the gas station pays them all, but most people are smart enough to realize the consumer bears a lot of the burden of fuel taxes even though none pays it directly. There is the question of who faces the burden of corporate taxes? Executives? Stock holders? Employees? Consumers? This question has been studied extensively, and with so many multinational companies, in the long term employees are the most burdened by the tax because corporations make investments in lower tax areas. The cost of an investment in a location are wages+taxes. If taxes are high, then wages must be lower for the investment to make sense. This only becomes true in the long term, but it is a good argument for lower corporate taxes and higher capital gains taxes.