[Eye_of_Mordor]

I think you are angry with corporations 'getting away with it', but you can view them as an enabler of tax:

- taxes from their employees

- taxes from their dividends

What if there were no corporation tax - how would revenues be affected?

[dalke]

I can view them as lots of ways. For that matter, I've owned two companies myself, one where the business income was part of my income and one where they were separate.

But I'm not answering your question as you've not answered the ones I posed to you. As it stands, it appears that you don't know much about corporations nor corporate taxation. It seems rather a waste of my time to continue this exchange if I don't think you're making a reasonable effort at it, or tire of weak attacks on my character.

[Eye_of_Mordor]

OK, in response to your questions:

Q: Since your logic is "X provides jobs so X shouldn't be taxed" then I shouldn't have to be taxed if I have any household staff, no? A: Nope, that wasn't my logic.

Q: Do you think that corporations should exist without paying any fees to the state? If so, why should they get liability protection for free? A: Government is for the people, so they pay the tax. Liability protection for shareholders would be covered by dividend tax.

[dalke]

Your phrase was "Is there any point in taxing companies at all - they provide jobs for tax payers."

How is that not "X provides jobs therefore X should not be taxed?" Note too my followup: How many employees and how many FTEs does one need before this special exemption kicks in, and why that level?)

You propose an alternative, which is that liability protection is covered by dividend tax.

That's not practical. Google has never paid a dividend, and Berkshire Hathaway has only paid a dividend once since Warren Buffett took over. There are many other companies which don't, or which only rarely, pay dividends.

Why should their shareholders get liability protection when they've never (or almost never) paid said tax?

I see you omitted capital gains tax from your list of two possible tax sources. That of course only applies to companies which make a profit, so shareholders who don't make a profit from their investment (or who never realize their gains over their life) are still getting liability protection for free.

You seem to argue that only the people should pay taxes. That's a perfectly reasonable argument. But as soon as you allow for an entity which is able to control money independent of any person - ie, a corporation - then by definition "any contribution imposed by government [...] whether under the name of toll, tribute, tallage, gabel, impost, duty, custom, excise, subsidy, aid, supply, or other name" is a tax on that entity.

There's no reason for the government to allow a special entity without getting at least something in return. You don't like income tax on corporations. But you haven't explained why you don't like corporate registration fees or the Maryland law which imposes fees based on the number of issued and outstanding shares. For that matter, if a company isn't taxable because it isn't a person, then who pays property tax, payroll tax, customs duties, sales tax, etc?

That is, why is income somehow special from all of the other taxes that a corporation pays?