Corporate Tax Should be Abolished

1. I would argue that limited liability does not have as many economic benefits as usually claimed, and that it is a terrible idea, and should be done away with, but that's a debate for another day. The fact that corporations can deal with lawsuits is not relevant because individual citizens have that same right. However, my opponent is correct that investors (shareholders) can protect themselves from personal bankruptcy and I understand his arguing that they should pay for this protection. My response to this is that no one should be able to dump their debt on society, and also that allowing people to pay their way out of legal responsibility is a questionable moral area that smacks of bribery. 2. "Individual people are unable to utilize such infrastructure to the overwhelming extent as corporations. " This is not true. Again, corporations are made up of individual people. If one thousand people are able to do something as a corporation then they can do the same thing when they do not legally register as a corporation. A small business that owns a dump truck places a much smaller burden on roads and bridges than a corporation with 500 dump trucks, but 500 small businesses each with one dump truck is identical to the corporation. 3. "[corporations] ultimately account for the necessity for additional public infrastructure when construction new shopping centers, manufacturing plants, offices etc. " I am unaware of any shopping centers, manufacturing plants, or offices that are built for corporations by the government. If this actually occurs then it is a horrendous overreach of government and should be ended immediately. 4. "Well, this [my claim that public services could receive the same amount of funding at less harm to the economy] is ultimately false. You mentioned previously that as a means of replacing the corporation tax, income taxation on the wealthy should be increased, with supposedly 'less harm to the economy'. But there are a number of issues with this. Firstly, members of the upper class and the upper-middle class are the biggest spenders in the United States. " MY OPPONENT OVERLOOKS THE FACT THAT THE UPPER AND UPPER MIDDLE CLASS ARE ALREADY PAYING THIS AMOUNT OF TAX THROUGH THE CORPORATE TAX. They receive lower dividends because the profits of corporations are heavily taxed by government. Eliminating the corporate tax and replacing it with a higher top MARGINAL income tax rate would cause the upper and upper middle class to receive higher dividends from their investments (including mutual funds) and they would then have to pay higher taxes on these earnings. The net effect could easily be a small positive gain for the upper and upper middle class. Eliminating the corporate tax is appealing not because it necessarily changes the amount of money that people pay in tax, but that it simplifies the tax code. A simpler tax code decreases the amount of time spent on filing taxes. Simpler tax codes are also more difficult to evade. 5. "What makes the corporate tax more important and thus more preferable to an increase in the income tax is ultimately the need to make such large and powerful groups of collective citizens accountable to the government and for their actions, and ensuring they have collective societal accountability due to the privileges legally granted to them. " My opponent argued earlier in this round that the point of having corporations was that they would NOT be accountable for their actions, and that this "carries many economic benefits. " If these powerful groups of people are to be held accountable for their actions, then the government should stop granting them limited liability. If limited liability is done away with, my opponent's argument is no longer valid. "By abolishing the corporation tax, what you will find is that tax evasion would be come (sic) increasingly easier. Wealthy individuals would increasingly reclassify their earnings as 'corporate income', and thus escaping income taxation. " Fortunately, this would not be a problem. Wealthy individuals could classify their income as corporate income all they liked, but under current tax laws as soon as they took that money out to purchase something for themselves, it would be counted as income and subject to income tax. Under current law, they would face felony charges if they were to spend the corporation"s money on themselves. Thus, tax evasion would not be easier. In fact, it would probably be more difficult because simplifying the tax code would close countless loopholes. "With finances being funneled from investors in California to the people of North Dakota, through such means of taxation, it is an effective means of spreading the wealth geographically. Without the corporate tax, there would be increase in disparity between the states. " There are vastly more people in California than North Dakota. We would hope that there would be an enormous wealth disparity between the states. "and many states would find themselves being exploited for their natural resources, but the wealth returning to people of other states. " The term "exploited"" is too vague and undefined for me to fully understand what my opponent fears would happen. States that wanted a share of the profit from its natural resources could implement a tax on natural resources. Thank you.