[tlss]

Businesses get preferential tax treatment because we want to encourage risk-taking. Yes, focusing on a handful of hyper-successful businesses make it seem like things are "not fair", but that's neglecting the much higher likelihood of businesses failing vs. a payroll employee getting fired. In most cases, even if an employee is fired, there are still labour law protections, social security, severance packages, and the employee has right to sue. When businesses fail, they fail.

If you want to get preferential tax treatment, go start a business! Go take risks, hire people, make money, pay other businesses, this is how capitalism works! If you can make it, by all means enjoy your tax deductions.

What can make this system dysfunctional is when you have corruption and cronyism that unfairly disadvantages some businesses vs. others. For example special access to loans, bailouts, or special tax deductions for meeting esoteric criteria. But this would a corruption problem IMO, rather than an inherent unfairness in the tax scheme.

[UncleMeat]

Can individuals not take risks? Why is risk taking more valuable than producing value for other people?