Naaah. If you're doing it for profit, and running a big duplicator farm or selling things online, it can make sense for it to be a criminal offense. But the laws are not crafted that well.
Says your own novel legal theory, which has as much basis as trying to tell the cop that's pulled me over that I'm a sovereign citizen.
> They should repay the damaged counterpart if they can prove they had a sales contract in place.
We give monopolies on copying to encourage production of high quality yet easily-copyable work. If someone can just immediately start selling the good without any of the production costs, that's no bueno for society. It's the free-rider problem.
Uuh. Free software would be to differ. Commoditization of intellectual property enable people to do useful productive work as a hobby. And everyone gets encouraged to work with the strongest stream collaboratively.
Free software is one option that is enabled by current copyright. In many cases, there's sufficient incentive ("fame" or marketing, lowered shared maintenance burdens, etc) to make it happen. I have a ton of diff that I've gotten into free software and have had maintainer roles and lead projects.
But I don't exactly think you're going to make a blockbuster movie or AAA game as free software. Some things cost money in a way that any other incentives aren't going to pay it back.
I'm the last person to defend corporations. That said, US corporations definitely don't avoid "paying taxes." The corporate income tax rate imposed by the federal government is 21%. Employees pay income and social security taxes on top of those earnings after. From the moment a company earns income until it lands in the hands of employees the government can take as much as HALF of it. This includes everyone on salary. Execs would be wise to issue themselves stock so they "ONLY" have to pay 15% or 20% (LTCG) as their "income tax." Companies can reduce their tax burden by engaging in behaviors which the federal government has deemed worthy or risky and incentivizes those behaviors with preferential tax treatment. For instance the R&D tax credit. It means that organizations that invest in qualified research and development activities to incentivize innovation and growth (as defined in Internal Revenue Code section 41) may be eligible for a general business tax credit.
No, wages, salaries, payroll taxes and contractor expenses, along with most other expenses, are subtracted from gross profit to make net profit, which may undergo further reduction in various charges (depreciation, etc) before being subject to tax, and then various tax credits may be applied that reduce the corporate liability further.
Double taxation occurs when a corporation is subject to corporate tax and then pays a dividend, which is after tax, but counts as income to the investor. There are arguments to be made that this is fair or unfair.
> Double taxation occurs when a corporation is subject to corporate tax and then pays a dividend, which is after tax, but counts as income to the investor. There are arguments to be made that this is fair or unfair.
Even calling it double-taxation seems like BS. Generally, we tax at the point of exchange: income, sales, etc. Money moves around endlessly. It's taxed when the consumer pays the corporation (often twice! sales and income), when the corporation pays the shareholder, when the shareholder dies and gives it to their kids, when the kids buy a house, when the homebuilder pays their contractors, etc. etc. etc.
I don't disagree, but S-corporation profits are only taxed once, regardless of distribution, and C-corporation profits are taxed on the corporate tax bill even if distributed in a dividend to shareholders. It's a little peculiar.
It's the concept of a corporation as a fictional person that is source of the peculiarity. If it's a fictional person, with its own assets, income, and expenses, then it pays taxes. It serves real humans by providing a place they can safely pool their investment.
S corps are more extensions of a real human than separate fictional entities.
Still. The corporate tax rate is way lower than personal tax. In my country some workers pay over 50% tax on their income, while corporation they work for pay 10% or less if they have good accountants.
> That said, US corporations definitely don't avoid "paying taxes."
Multinational corporations definitely do. They'll register themselves in a country with a cheaper corporate tax burden then argue that their income / sales is generated from that country rather than their actual country of origin. Thus reducing the amount of tax they have to pay in the US (or UK, etc).