The idea that companies are "overtaxed" is difficult to sustain when leading companies are systematically avoiding tax.
When companies are going to great lengths, involving no little cost and a lot of hard work, to avoid taxation that is of course prima facie evidence that they are indeed being "overtaxed". If they were not being overtaxed they would of course just pay up and not bother, wouldn\’t they?
Okay so Vince is confused but so are you. Give a company two options:
1) Pay x
2) Pay y to avoid paying x
Then if y is less than x a company will go ahead and pay y instead. This is irrelevant of if x is a fair amount to pay or not.
Okay so this ignores the moral/legal aspects, but stating that a company reducing its outgoing costs with respect to tax is evidence of any sort that the company is overtaxed draws a link that just isn’t there (unless you take the stand that the fair tax on any company is 0 and everything above that is overtaxation).
Anything above 0% for any tax is obviously unfair. If people really wanted the services provided by taxation they would pay for them voluntarily. Forcing them to do so proves the unfairness.
Stephen,
I’m a minarchist and even I’d disagree with your statement.
But there’s a certain truth behind your statement in that the tax you pay, and what it’s used for are NOT aligned (hypothecated) and thus you generally don’t get what you pay for.
Taxes should be used for externalities. I like Geonomics as it treats property (the entitlement to exclude others) as such an externality and charges them based on the value of the property they exclude (i.e they are being billed for the value that the state protects).
Stephen,
Well let’s test your logic:
‘Anything above £0 for a large screen TV is obviously unfair. If thieves really wanted large screen TVs they would pay for them voluntarily. Forcing them to do so proves the unfairness’