On 12 Apr 2005 05:06:18 -0700, Yibbels wrote: > In particular between 2001 and 2003, Microsoft not only didn't pay > the legislated corporate tax rate of 35%, but in fact got a tax refund > of $4.6 billion. You will not hear any mention of this in the US media > of course: it's imperative that US taxpayers not learn they're getting > fleeced.
Unfortunately, economic development is one of those fields where you often have to give to take. You give corporations tax breaks, and they hire more employees. The employees then pay more tax, and the economy improves in the entire process. If you didn't give the companies tax breaks, they'd typically not expand, or even lay people off, which means there's less money changing hands and the companies themselves see lower revenue and thus would pay less tax anyways. It's a complex equation that simply saying "boo hiss, they aren't paying taxes so we're getting fleeced" doesn't even begin to understand. I'm not saying that whatever we're doing now is the correct plan of action either, but I doubt taking away corporate tax breaks will help anything. _______________________________________________ Gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
