Businesses do not pay any taxes

The case as presented initially is already lost, as Pro has already conceded that corporations DO pay taxes. Not only are you mistaken, you are not the first debater I have had on this site who seems to be deliberately trying to sway voters your way by putting words in my mouth that I have not even said. Pro's case is that, since costs are directly transferred to consumers, taxing corporations is bad. Not once have you heard me say that taxing businesses is bad. I said they don't pay taxes and that their consumers do. I never said one word about it being good or bad. I am explaining who pays them, not whether they should or not. While he is correct that, what a company makes legally is their business to spend, at the same time, it is not the responsibility of everyone else to subsidize their profligacy. No one is subsidizing business taxes. That is the big liberal lie you have been told by sites like thinkprogress and the current president who has often mentioned oil companies receiving subsidies. Oil companies pay (ok, their customers) astronomical amounts of taxes. Only people who do not understand the jargon spoken by politicians seem to get the fact that they do not receive subsidies which are handouts. They get legal tax breaks which amounts to them paying x billions in taxes instead of slightly more than a billion. By you believing that Joe and Betty Sixpack are somehow subsidizing them and the government is literally sending big companies a check out of Joe and Betty's income, you are being absolutely 100% lied to. See: http://www.nypost.com... An individual company's profits are not the rest of society's job to maintain. I mean no disrespect but I can definitely see where you spend your time on the internet for economic news. Society does not pay a business's tax bills except when they buy their products. "Why not just ask any business owner what would happen if their costs of doing business increased and they wanted to try to keep their profits and their employees salaries the same?"This is Pro's real point, which seems to be that corporations have more of a right to profits than individuals do. He asserts this without warrant. I never said one word about "more." They have a right to profits if they earn them. That why they are in business. Pro asserts that the person setting prices should pay themselves whatever they want, and the rest of the citizens should subsidize that pay by allowing the company to not pay taxes. Now, you are just flat out lying because I have said none of this. It's unfortunate that most businesses do not want to actually contribute to the society from which they derive their very existence. They contribute every time they trade their products for their customer's money. They give jobs to society. Many contribute millions to charities. What other obligation do they have? Pro position entails advocating for no taxes whatsoever, and entails that businesses be treated better than individuals, who ARE taxed, and must take that into account when they take jobs. Again, you are flat out lying because anyone reading this debate knows I never have said a word that businesses should be treated better than individuals. "You do acknowledge that you are not benefitting when someone else's taxes are raised don't you?"No. If more taxes go into the system, this means that either: I pay less taxes, or more things which taxes pay for are paid for, making things ostensibly better overall. No, you don't pay less taxes. Your paycheck may say differently but you just have them spread around differently but you have no idea how much taxes you pay. Most taxes you pay are hidden taxes incorporated into the cost of the products you buy. The government cannot afford to give you a raise when they raise Walmarts taxes. They waste it on government programs. They spend about 1.42 for every dollar they take in. Don't think for a minute that when they get more money, they do something fiscally smart with it and make things "better overall." "Oil companies raise prices of their products all the time for all the reasons I stated in the first round."And also because they can. Supply and demand. Finally, we agree on something. "As for their profits..."None of this has any bearing on the resolution, nor is the number directly sourced; even Pro agrees he doesn't actually know. We do know what oil company profits are. That is public information. I was only talking about the amount they make on a gallon of gas. They do more than sell gas. Pro's source completely ignores that these oil companies are sometimes ones who are selling the crude oil that makes up 76 percent of the total cost. That fluctuates "according to supply and demand", making no note as to the cost there. It's incredibly misleading to simply ignore that. I don't even see how that affects any part of this debate? I guess I missed it. "I guess you would like for the oil companies to apologize ...I hope you never start a business ... and have to absorb criticism for doing your job so well."Pro's case is that oil companies should continue to pay less taxes, despite profiting trillions of dollars. YET ANOTHER LIE. I never said any such thing. His other is that they deserve to have all their money...an argument that he doesn't apply to the individual, in a case of obvious special pleading. I can see you are still not finished with your lying. You are just piling on one after the other now. Pro then complains about how the government spends money, which has no bearing on his argument. I was simply making that point because you were acting as if companies do not have a right to their money. If they don't, should you give it to our wonderful, honest, fiscal government? This debate has ceased being fun because you have ventured far off from the actual topic and begin putting words in my mouth that are flat out deceptive lies. You have quoted things I never said at all and tried to put your spin on it which is basically "people good, corporations bad." You should start a business sometime and see what it is like. Just pray to God you are not too successful or people like the websites you frequent are going go come down on you on a regular basis. You will never pay your employees "enough." Your CEO will make "too much" and you will surely pay "too little" in taxes getting all of our tax breaks and "subsidies." Lastly, you will spend your money on unnecessary things not taking into account your "social responsibility."