Businesses do not pay any taxes

"In a way, you are correct in that it is a bit of wordplay. Do businesses write checks to the IRS every quarter? Of course they do. They write giant ones in some cases. However, there is a large faction of this country (USA) that believes the rich businesses get all of these "tax breaks," and "subsidies" and do not pay their "fair share." I am frankly sick of hearing it. "Whether Pro is sick of hearing it or not, the fact remains that, as Pro notes, businesses do pay taxes. Thus the resolution stands negated already. But let's see what else he's got to say. "Businesses are entities. They are not people. They do not pay taxes out of their pockets at all."Pro then goes on to show how a business must take in X amount of money in order to pay Y expenses. This is, of course, identical to what people do. Perhaps Pro's conception of "out of pocket" is flawed; perhaps he sees everyone as having a trust fund from which they draw. This is some good-natured ribbing from me to Pro, of course, but my more serious response point to him would be that individuals do the same darn thing. Money doesn't magically "appear" in a person's pocket. They, too, must take in X amount of money in order to pay Y expenses. By the logic he employs, no one pays taxes, everyone just collects them. It's a semantics game that no reasonable person would believe. "All of these things and more together determine what a business's costs are. They have to pay these things out of their profits. In other words, these things are part of the cost of doing business. If any of these things go up, their cost of business goes up and eventually, the cost of their products, depending on the level and amount of competition there is for their products. Any business would tell you this. If the costs are too high and the cost of the product gets too high and customers do not buy, we all know what happens. The business goes under. Happens every day." As does bankruptcy of individuals, if costs of living go up and they can't find a wage to meet their costs. In this sense, individuals are, to repeat, no different than businesses.The point is that customers pay all of a business's bills. Without a customer buying their product, there is no money to pay for overhead, labor and taxes. When you hear someone say that Walmart or Exxon or whatever need to pay more money in taxes, you know you are hearing someone speak out of sheer ignorance on this subject and I don't care if they have 10 master's degrees in economics. Why do I say that? Because when the ignorant speaker says the rich businesses need to pay more taxes (no amount is ever enough for this mindset), what they are really saying is:"I want XYZ corporation to raise their prices and so we consumers can pay higher prices at the cash register and so they can in turn pay the government more money in taxes." Pro makes a sweeping generalization here. As with most sweeping generalizations, it lacks validity. There are corporations who paid ZERO taxes.[1] Corporations are entities which spend money on more things than simply the necessities. That Pro argues that raising taxes would necessarily raise prices is absurd. It could just as easily cut into the millions of dollars CEOs get paid per year. Especially considering the US has such a wild difference between CEO and average worker pay, as compared to other countries. [2]There is, of course, a point at which companies must raise prices in order to pay their bills. But that point is not any amount whatseover. Such a mindset presumes that every company spends money only on absolute necessities, when that's simply and obviously not true. It also assumes that all pay is exactly where it "should" be, which is also not true. If a company wants to stay competitive, it will not raise prices unless it has to. While companies COULD raise their prices to make up for every dollar in taxes, they're unlikely to. And further, even granting the assumption that Pro makes, he's still asking for the customers of Company A to subsidize the profits of Company B, even if they don't use Company B's product!"No one realizes they are saying that but they surely are. Presidents, Congressmen and talk show guests plus all sorts of well-known people keep echoing this idea that we need to raise taxes for the rich and that is code for raising taxes on me and you and yet so few actually see it."Unfortunately, Pro ignores the many flaws in his case under the false impression that all corporate taxes raise the cost of living on individuals by raising prices. He's failed to show an actual warrant for that position, while I've demonstrated that such is not necessarily the case. "When a business has its taxes increased, it has its cost of business increased. When its cost of business increases, they have to raise the cost of their products to hopefully survive. The business does not pay taxes. The end consumers pay ALL TAXES in every business. Voting for someone wants to raise taxes on anyone eventually finds it way as a tax increase on every consumer.It's these kind of sweeping generalizations that, ultimately, hurt discourse. The presumption that less profits NECESSARILY increases prices is absurd on its face, in a world where Corporate <em>profits</em> are so high, and those profits go only to the top. It's not as though lowering taxes necessarily leads to <em>decreased</em> prices.Corporations are profit making machines. They will <em>always</em> make as much profit as they possibly can, which is limited only by their competition and their consumers' willingness to consume. Lowering taxes will not lower prices, and raising taxes will only raise prices in <em>certain</em> circumstances, and is highly dependent on the extent to which we're talking about raising them. A company will not raise prices <em>solely</em> to make up for lost profits unless they can get away with it...in which case they'd do it to raise profits whether they lost the profits or not, because that's their very nature. I mean, honestly, does Pro really think that the Oil Companies would be utterly forced to raise prices if they didn't make a (combined between the top 5) $1 TRILLION dollars in profits between 2001 and 2011? Considering about half the money they spent was on things which solely enriched "their board, senior managers, and largest share holders"? [3]I thank Pro for this debate. I hope that he can make a more solid case for his resolution, or even for this side point (since he's apparently conceded the actual resolution), in his next round, and turn it over to him. [1] http://www.marketwatch.com...[2] http://creativeconflictwisdom.wordpress.com...[3] http://thinkprogress.org...