@McGentrix,
So, you don't understand why people incorporate? People who own factories incorporate, take a job with the corporation, one of the perquisites of which is bonuses in the form of stock. They earn a wage, yes, but the bulk of their income comes from capital gains. Don't try to play rhetorical games with me, you're not good enough at it. I said that wealthy people who own such operations
or invest in them. Once again, the owners get capital gains income, too, and it's much more lucrative. Incorporation spreads the risk around, which means that the former owner can take capitals gains, a salary, bonuses, perquisites like company cars, fuel cards, credit cards, paid travel--and they aren't on the hook if the whole operations goes south. You must not be in business.
In the 1950, the nominal tax rate in the lowest bracket was 17.4%. The nominal tax rate in the highest bracket was 91%. The cut offs were under $4000 and over $400,000, respectively. For the last eleven years, the nominal tax rate in the lowest bracket was 10%, and the cutoff rose from under $12,000 to under $17,000. That latter number is just slightly a dollar more than the Federal minimum wage, and less than the state-mandated minimum wage in many states. Getting the miniumum wage in the state of Washington, for example, would bump you up to the next tax bracket. For ten years, the nominal tax rate in the highest bracket has been 35%. That's less than 40% of the tax rate in 1950. The cut off in that bracket in that ten years has risen from $311,000+ to $379,00+. It's really hard for me to feel sorry for these jokers when their tax rate has been going down for more than 60 years (with the exception 1991 and 1992). In case you need someone to do the math for you, tax rates in the highest bracket have dropped by almost 60% since 1950. They have dropped by considerably less than 50% in the lowest bracket. Sound fair to you? (Tax rates courtesy of
the National Taxpayers Union)
"All of that stuff" means a great deal to me, but you want to play games about it. Corporations can deduct their transport fuel costs. They deduct wages paid. They deduct vehicle maintenance. You don't get to deduct those things. The Highway Trust Fund got $28.2 billion dollars in fuel taxes in 2006. That wasn't enough, and the Fund continues to face insolvency--keep in mind that that does not include the costs which the states pay to maintain highways, including the interstate highway system.
Quote:From 2008 to 2010, Congress authorized the transfer of $35 billion from the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury to keep the trust fund solvent.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected in January 2012 that the fund's Highway Account will become insolvent during 2013, and the Mass Transit Account insolvent in 2014. CBO said that although vehicles will travel more miles in the future (therefore consuming more taxable fuel), rising fuel efficiency standards and congressional refusal to increase the fuel tax or tie it to the rate of inflation means that the fund receives less money. CBO's insolvency projection assumed that Congress will not increase transportation spending beyond inflation-adjusted 2012 levels.
In 2013, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supported raising the federal gasoline tax to keep the fund solvent.
(
Source at Wikipedia)
Apparently you think that because wealthy people pay wages, they should get to take the system for a ride. Wage earners pay the lion's share of the revenues with which the Federal government, state governments and local governments maintain infrastructure, and provide public safety services. You ignored that such corporations get reduced insurance rates because of public safety services where they operate. That's just the same as you ignoring that wealthy business owners are investors in their and other corporations, too, and derive a good deal of their income from capital gains--taxed at 15%, less than half of the nominal tax rate in the highest bracket.
At not time have i said or implied that corporations are evil. Try approaching such a subject with reason rather than emotion. I just want both corporations and wealthy individuals to pay for the services which benefit them more than anyone else. Individual tax rates in the highest bracket have declined in every year but one since 1950. They are now a small fraction of the tax rate in 1950. Don't for a moment believe that the cost of governments, Federal state and local, have declined similarly in that 60 years.
You don't need to tell me what i want to see in the way of taxes, because you don't know. Go set up your straw men somewhere else. Talk about flat tax rates if hilarious--you can kiss highways, police, fire departments and the armed forces of the United States goodbye if that kind of idiocy is ever enacted, because all those governments will go broke in short order.
