Does lowering the federal corporate income tax rate create jobs?

Corporate tax rates are too high and are causing business uncertainty. Taxes on the 1 percent are at all time highs. They pay about half of their income. I believe in the american people, not the american government. Government doesnt not create jobs because taxing takes money from investors that otherwise would have been invested.

Cut the Corporate Tax Rate to 0%

This is my first debate, so please be gentle with me...:) Initially, you may say, "Wait, you mean 'lower' rates, right?". No, it's my argument that corporations view periods with historically low tax rates as opportune times to take their profits, as opposed to reinvesting them. One of the main goals of a CEO is to pay as little corporate tax as possible. Therefore, when corporate tax rates are historically high, the CEO is much more motivated (encouraged) to reinvest in their company, rather than pay all of that "high" income tax on any profits.

Higher corporate tax rates encourage business investment.

Your main argument encompasses the negatives of a lower Corporate Tax paired with the ability to create loopholes in taxation and end up paying very little either way. In this debate, I never stated that we should keep these loopholes. This is strictly based upon the assertion that corporate tax is entirely too high, and that we should lower it. Evidently, lowering corporate tax, making a much simpler tax code, and then creating a conjunction in which no company under any circumstances can skip taxation, would create a much better system. In the end, a nation that focuses on free trade would slash the corporate tax rate completely, and keep it at a stable 0. If government also cuts their own spending, this would be easily affordable for the United States. On a competitive level, however, we do have the highest corporate tax rate among other industrialized nations. Whether many of our own companies pay this amount is up for another debate, but the stable fact is that we have the highest corporate tax. We definitely should focus on closing up loopholes, but paired with a lower tax rate, as these loopholes are the only reasons why the remaining corporations have stayed in our nation. There are many benefits to a lowered corporate tax rate: 1. Cutting the corporate tax rate will promote higher long-term economic growth. 2. Cutting the corporate tax rate will improve U.S. competitiveness. 3. Cutting the corporate tax rate will lead to higher wages and living standards. 4. Cutting the corporate tax rate will boost entrepreneurship, investment, and productivity. 5. Cutting the corporate rate lowers the tax burden on low-income taxpayers and seniors. 6. Cutting the corporate rate will lower the overall dividend tax rate and taxes on capital. 7. Cutting the corporate tax rate can attract foreign direct investment (FDI). 8. Cutting the corporate rate would lead to lower corporate debt and reduce the incentives for income shifting. 9. Cutting the corporate tax rate can reduce compliance costs. 10. Cutting the federal corporate rate can help the states compete globally.[1] You have also stated that corporations benefit from publicly funded organizations, such as roads, education systems, police officers, etc. Evidently, this is true. The argument here is that corporations could do the same in other nations, but people could not. In order to have safety, the government must devote funds to public organizations, which pairs with corporate likeability. Making an argument centered around the complete obliteration of the corporate tax without the complete deletion of tax loopholes will ultimately fail. For one to make an argument such as this, that person will ultimately need to understand the reason as to why there are lobbyists and tax loopholes. Our high tax rates ultimately effect corporations, and cause them to ship both jobs and capital overseas, into nations such as China or India that have much lower tax rates and much easier loopholes. Instead of basing our ideas on the general morality of corporations, which does not exist, we would create a comprehensive tax system that eliminates deception and incentivizes corporate investment. Being a Libertarian, I oppose all taxation plans, but I see most as realistically needed for the government to properly function. In the case of business, there should be little to no taxes, including both income and corporate tax. Business is based upon profit, and the desire for more profit, which people associate with the term greed. A government created legislation that undermines this desire for profit will be met by a dissociation of that profit base and relocation to a less restrictive nation, such as China and India. The three largest expenses of a corporation are wages, taxes, and supplies. As supplies and wages are necessary for the continuation of the company as well as employees desire to work in said company, removing those would be unrealistic. On the other hand, a relocation of taxes, whether based upon net revenue or net profit, would drastically impact interest of corporations as well as ability to function on a larger scale. You have previously stated that many corporations do not require a higher level education, which is wrong. According to the following source [2] (Link will be stated below), our job sector’s need for education has increased dramatically throughout the next 40 years. In accordance with this information, your argument creates the illogical fallacies that state funded education is required for these corporations to function. This may be true if you take in account the entire world, as there will be nowhere else for the corporations to go, but in the matters of the United States, which is our debate’s primary focus, state funded education will benefit the people more than the corporation. While you may believe that tax cuts will benefit the corporation more than the people, it is still clearly evident that lower taxes always equates to more incentive. We would effectively eliminate all need for tax lobbyists and special interest if we created a comprehensive tax system, or got rid of corporate tax all together. A small fraction of our government spending is created by corporate tax, which only alienates corporations and creates a disparity between economic centers in their need for unlegislated competition. In accordance with your previous statement, most of these retail jobs are held by the least educated in our society, and whether they are uneducated due to the governments failures or due to their own laziness and lack of willpower is up for discussion. Sources: [1] http://taxfoundation.org... [2]https://cew.georgetown.edu...

Corporate Tax Should be Lowered

Really? You can't read the rules of the debate? (sigh)Well, here's my case.Laffer CurveDuring the late 1970s, economist Arthur Laffer gave his name to the Laffer curve. The concept has existed before. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon came up with the the hypothesis of scientific taxation that lower rates generates higher revenues for the federal government. When the rate is higher, economic expansion and production is discouraged. In this case we are talking about the wealth of businesses who will grow less with a higher rate because they have to move more capital to taxation. When the tax rate is small, more capital is used on the business itself. The business grows and there is more corporate profits. More profits means more revenue for the corporation and that means more revenue for the federal government through a lower tax rate. Companies Move OverseasPfizer, the largest drug maker in the US, recently announced that it is moving its legal address to the UK because of the lower corporate tax rate. It is likely other businesses will the follow. The UK corporate tax rate is set to approach 20% by 2015. The current US corporate tax rate is 35% and that is a 15% difference for their profits. The US needs to lower its corporate tax rate in order to keep more businesses and gain more for the United States. As simple 10% cut from 35% to 25% puts on level with other nations. This will increase the competition of the American economy. At the same time, eliminating loopholes allows us to get more revenue from them.Sources1. Laffer, Arthur. "The Laffer Curve: Past, Present, and Future." The Heritage Foundation.2. Giobanetti, Tom. "As Capital Flees, England is Texas, and the U.S. is California." RealClearMarkets.

The US should reform its Corporate Tax

Here's a better idea: Corporate tax rate: 0%, that way buisnesses will have more money to invest in creating more jobs. Instead tax those who receive checks from that corporation, derived from those profits.

Corporate tax plan ideas for job growth.

I'm talking state, local, and federal taxes. They're rates are higher than they've been in ages. They are the job creators and you cannot prove that their rates are low. You mentioned earlier that they bribe politicians. This is another reason to abolish the corporate tax rate! Without the corporate tax rate, they can't lobby for special breaks. Problem solved, democracy back.

Cut the Corporate Tax Rate to 0%

"America’s producers can compete successfully in the international arena – as long as they have a level playing field. Today’s tax code is tilted against them, with one of the highest corporate tax rates of all developed countries. That not only hurts American investors, managers, and the U.S. balance of trade; it also sends American jobs overseas. We support a major reduction in the corporate tax rate so that American companies stay competitive with their foreign counterparts and American jobs can remain in this country."

Higher taxes discourage hard work.

My opponent has repeated his argument with an example completely ignoring the flaw I pointed out. So I will point out the flaw once more.Scenario #1: Tax Rate: 35%, Pre tax profit 1,000,000Scenario #2: Tax Rate: 50%, Pre tax profit 1,000,000The scenarios are wrong!In scenario #2, the pre-tax profit will be much lower. The reasons for this I have explained in the first round. As my opponent has not contested them, they stand.As my opponents arguments are based on unrealistic scenarios and assumptions, they are invalid. My opponent has quoted from a book (and a report based on the book) authored by Jim Stanford[1], who works for 'Canadian Auto Workers union, Canada’s largest private sector trade union'. Let me suggest that there is a conflict of interest.Let me present a work of Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna[2] who are economists at Harvard University [3][4]. Based on a study from period of 1970 to 2007 for several OECD countries, they conclude:'Fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are more likely to increase growth than those based upon spending increases.'I look forward to closing remarks from my opponent.[1] http://www.economicsforeveryone.ca...[2]http://www.economics.harvard.edu...[3] http://www.economics.harvard.edu...[4] http://www.economics.harvard.edu...

"This is actually a problem for the economy, it's not a good factor that can lead to better economic growth like you say it does."Lowering taxation period leads to higher GDP ceteris paribus"Globalization itself isn't a problem at all, but if jobs or capital were to be shipped overseas then it would be devastating for OUR economy while only one economy benefits."You are ignoring the law of comparative advantage. Your statement is blatantly incorrect. http://en.wikipedia.org..."Corporations do this (ship jobs overseas) to avoid corporate taxes"This is incorrect. Corporations shift profits overseas to avoid taxes. They shift manufacturing jobs overseas because the lower cost of living allows the goods to be manufactured at cheaper wages than by unionized wages. "if taxes were lowered the government would actually be making more profit"No. We are not that high on the Laffer Curve as evidenced by the historic corporate tax lows.http://en.wikipedia.org...

Corporate taxes should be lowered

Thanks to tcow2970 for initiating the debate.Opening statement will be short, as the nature of the debate demands that pro must uphold the proposition that Taxes were indeed *excessively high* prior to tax reform. Government SpendingOver several decades, overall spending as a percent of GDP has followed a positive trend, as noted by reference [1]. That being said, to supplement such increased levels in spending, we either (a) raise taxes, or (b) accept higher levels of national debt. Option b) is undesirable because long-term debt does play into the devaluation of US treasury bonds, which would eventually reduce the ability to defecit-spend your way out of a recession. Thus, we are left with option a). Suggestions could be made to decrease spending, but such discussion is outside of the scope of this debate.Effectiveness of Reducing Corporate TaxesAs I am not intending to prove that lowering the tax is effective, but rather that the taxes prior to the tax cut are not excessive, I am not required to advocate for any specific position. Instead, I intend to question the impact a reduced tax rate will have on the general economy. Commonly it is said that lower taxes often produce a 'trickle-down effect' - that is, essentially when corporate taxes are lowered, they are better able to finance the cost of a larger number of workers at higher salaries. However, such logic has never actually been verified in practice. It is also important to note that corporate income taxes aren't fixed at the 35% number often thrown around by Republicans. The corporate income taxes rates also follow brackets. [2].References[1] https://blogs-images.forbes.com...[2] https://www.thebalance.com...

American Corporate Tax Rates Were Too High Before Tax Reform

High cost of labor sends jobs overseas. Employers don't pay income taxes. Sales taxes are in fact regressive (1) whether or not you exempt products like food. Low spending does result in low GDP. That's just basic economics. GDP= NX+consumer spending+g+i. You can't just say correlation=/=causation and wave that away. Low spending=low gdp. That is a fact. What calculations do you have to prove that that particular tax rate yields the same revenue as our current system? None.

the federal income tax should be abolished

Your entire debate is based around a moral premise. It is factually undebatable that a lower corporate tax would equate to more jobs being created. Both theoretically and realistically, more money in the hands of the corporation would equate to more incentive for growth. The biggest argument that you lack to argue against is growth. Growth is the ultimate factor when looking at a corporation as well as any business entity, including a nation itself. All is subjected to growth or to stagnation. If you close these loopholes, then all corporations have to pay 35% tax rate, which is preposterous. Democratic Socialist nations have a lower tax rate than that. On the other hand, if loopholes are closed, but you evidently lower tax rate with it, then growth will occur. Unless we can compete with the laws of other nations, that many companies invest in, such as China or India, or even Switzerland, (low taxes in Switzerland) then we can attract more. This nation has safety as well as protection, and risk for investment is not high. In the end, we have 2 trillion in liquid assets overseas that we could bring back by lowering this tax rate. The point of government is not to take profits from people. I am also looking at this from a political sense, since I do believe that taxes lack constitutionality, and that the government's job is not to be authoritative and levy high taxes upon people, as it does not require this money, since it should not spend much in any sense.

Corporate Tax Should be Lowered

So I took a decent amount of time to try and create a plan to incentivise companies to hire more people. I call it golden key economics. Please tell me if this would work, or if not, how could it be improved? National corporate tax rate: 30% Tax rate decreased by 1% for every 50k people employed. 1% taxes taken returned for every 50k people employed. 20% minimum tax floor. (Most companies hire less than 500k people anyway.) Small business recognised by sba 50% of taxes taken returned. This is to not treat small business unfairly by taxing them 30% instead, by returning 50% of the taxed income, it's effectively 15% taxes for the small business. This is essentially a form of trickle down economics but to get the tax cuts you must first help the middle class by hiring more. This should drastically cut unemployment and not drop the taxes too low as to not have a federal budget.

Although tax rebates, increased unemployment benefits and other short-term payments may feel good and appear superficially attractive, they do very little to actually boost the economy and improve Americans' well-being. Rather, cutting tax rates, not mailing tax rebates, is what stimulates prosperity. This is a critical distinction. The primary reason why tax rebates don't work is that they merely redistribute existing wealth, as opposed to creating new economic growth or encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship. They do nothing to encourage risk-taking, investment or enlargement of the wealth pie, but instead re-slice the existing pie in a zero-sum manner.

Tax Rate Cuts, Not Tax Rebates, Stimulate the Economy

Rules: I will write an essay and my opponent will rebut on Round One, along with his or her acceptance. By Round Three, there will be no new points, only conclusions. Good luck to both sides! Cutting taxes would increase the purchasing power of the people. This means businesses will profit more from consumers and with more money, we can experience increased overall wages, increased earnings for everyone, and this will be beneficial to the country's overall prosperity. This will also lead to increased employment. Businesses, with tax cuts, will be able to spend their tax cuts on expanding. And what do you need when you expand? You need people, which means more people get hired, in other words, more jobs. This will obviously decrease poverty levels, homelessness, and America's overall prosperity. The government can also benefit from this with increased revenue. With tax cuts, I mentioned that more people will have jobs, which means more people will be paying their taxes. This will be a winning game to both the people, their economy, and to the government. In conclusion, tax cuts will increase jobs, encourage or increase economic growth, increase government revenue and benefit us all in the long run.

Cutting Taxes Would Stimulate The Economy

Deroy Murdock. "Halt reckless spending and extend Bush tax cuts." Dessert News. July 26, 2010: "Americans in the top bracket run companies, start new businesses, launch innovative products and hire other Americans to perform these positive functions. While Democrats routinely denounce "the rich" as if they were un-American, the sad truth is that very few poor people create jobs."

Over-taxing wealthy impairs trickle-down effect and job-creation

"The American People are not under taxed, the government in Washington is overfed." It is because Ronald Reagan pinpointed the issues with the overtaxing in America I believe that the corporate tax rates (before the tax cuts) were too high. To hopefully convince everyone viewing this debate I provide some points. First, we had some of the highest tax rates in the world NPR News in 2017 found the claim that the United States had the highest corporate tax rates in the world to be "generally true". There are even some instances in which corporations pay upwards of 50-60% of their profits. If that doesn't scream borderline socialism / government abuse, I don't know what will. Second, the super high tax rates cause international outsourcing The Balance in 2013 found that United States companies have 14 million employees overseas in jobs that could be employing Americans. Why? Because of my first point that corporate taxes are the highest in the world. Congressional Democrats from the ways and means committees reported that at least 47 major corporations have moved overseas in the past decade alone. Those are millions if not billions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of jobs. How do we bring them back? Lowering the corporate tax rate. Finally, outsourcing jobs causes unemployment which leads to more crime This is a pretty self explanatory point, but the example I will be using is the rust belt. The place that used to be the manufacturing hub of America but is now a crime ridden ghost-town. Places like Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh all used to be flourishing economies in America that were known for being vibrant and industrial revolution havens. Now, due to the outsourcing of jobs, their unemployment has skyrocketed and their crime rates have skyrocketed. Thanks for reading! Format for debate 1. Opening Cases 2. Responses to opening cases 3. Final addresses

The myth of tax cuts (removing the capital gains tax would be a huge tax cut to the wealthy) for the wealthy is good for the economy because they are the "job creators" has been thoroughly debunked by the last 3 years since we sailed over the supposed fiscal cliff in January 2013. As a quick refresher, the fiscal cliff was the term used to describe the expiration of the Bush tax cuts that Obama had extended upon taking office, which included restoring the capital gains rate back to 20% (from 15%) for those earning over $400k, and increasing the peak marginal rate on the highest income earners from 35% to 39.6%. Conservatives warned that this looming fiscal cliff would handcuff our nations "job creators" and force us back into a double-dip recession. While the chart linked below (released with the jobs report last week) admittedly demonstrates only one large data point from the curret business cycle, and so I would acknowledge it doesn't prove that increasing the capital gains rate ALWAYS has no impact on job creation. But it does at least confirm that converse is also not true. Based on the continued strength in the job market post-fiscal cliff, we can at least be confident that raising the capital gains tax is not always a bad thing. In the case of the last 3 years, it has appeared to be pretty non-consequential. https://www.whitehouse.gov...;

Capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income.

Unfortunately, pro did not post. Therefore, I have nothing to rebut.

Cut the Corporate Tax Rate to 0%

when you tax something, you discourage it. you discourage productivity, savings and innovation and ship jobs overseas. we pay taxes on everything we do and the government has an exclusive privilege to our property. we want to encourage production, so we should not tax it. rather, we should tax consumption through a 23% national sales tax. we'd have more jobs and more opportunities with this. businesses right now are already suffering because of obamacare and excessive regulations.

What you state is easily dismissible. Instead of arguing the economic benefits, you argue political drawbacks. As of 2013, the United States has lead the world in Corporate Tax percentage, which is set at 39%. Our tax rate has not changed in a matter of 2 years, with regard to corporate tax. [1] On a ratio with our GDP, Corporate Taxes amount to 2% of our 18 trillion GDP, which amounts to $360 billion. While we pronounce ourselves to be the most Capitalist nation, we impose heavy taxation on both our businesses and general income. Incorporation in Canada, which is famous for it's high taxes and government spending in relation to population, is easier and cheaper than incorporation in the United States. Our corporate tax is not only a burden but it is also a deterrent to future companies. I myself am working for a company made by American citizens but incorporated in Canada, due to their lower tax rate and fees. The main debate on Capitalism is that we get to keep our profits, if accumulated legally. The profits of companies are accumulated legally, and they deserve to keep those profits, regardless of moral implication. The main argument that many opponents of a lowered Corporate Tax create is that we cannot afford to lower it, which we most certainly can. Instead of professing about an increase in tax or a stability, we should decrease spending on par with a decrease in taxes. An overall incentive to incorporate in the United States will not only create an excess of jobs, but it will bring in an incredible amount of money. It is much more beneficial to tax 15% to 100 people, rather than taxing 39% to 50 people, as eventually, that number will decrease. Our current ideology is that instead of lowering taxes and fees, we will raise them as to create further burdens on the corporations that remain. Rand Paul, a ideologically Libertarian Republican presidential candidate stated that we have an excess of $2 trillion overseas, that we could bring into the United States if we lowered the Corporate Tax. "My objection, then, is that it is not even clear that the public has any interest in incentivizing investment into the private sector." The public has no say as to whom may or may not invest into the private sector. It is not up to the collective decision of a public entity to dictate how and who invests into which specific private market. Most companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google, have public stocks, which enable all willing parties to hold stocks in that specific company. The private sector rarely benefits from public education. Most private sector jobs require a higher level education, which is in most cases provided by a private university or college. You seem to believe that taxes are collected and then distributed randomly. Each tax pays of each part of the government or public platform. This debate does not center over the complete abolishment of Corporate Tax, but instead centers around lowering this specific tax. Due to safety in investing in the United States, paired with a significantly lower Corporate Tax, we could bring in a great amount of companies as well as private sector jobs, and eventually make even more money in taxes than before. Sources: [1]http://taxfoundation.org...

Corporate Tax Should be Lowered

My opponents argument simply doesn't make sense. He argues that income taxes discourage the earning of income. Would you really think to yourself There's no point to working because I'm only getting paid 40k annually, instead of 45k anually!No!Pro proposes a very high sales tax. This is completely asanine. For starters, the sales tax is the only form of regressive tax. Furthermore, high sales tax does discourage spending. Low spending=low GDP=shite economy. Also, taxes pay for roads and such.

Jeff Madrick. "How big government helps the economy take off." Boston Globe. September 7, 2008: "Reagan swept into office on the promise of tax cuts and reducing government, and what followed were the boom years of the 1980s. To conservatives of the time, it seemed strong proof that the arguments of Friedman and his followers were correct. [...] But there is also a strong case that they were wrong. In 1992, President Bill Clinton succeeded in passing legislation to raise the income tax rate on higher income Americans. Harvard's Feldstein, who had served as Reagan's chief economic adviser, claimed that the tax increase would reduce the incentives to work and therefore the incomes of the wealthy. It turned out to do nothing of the kind: the top tier of Americans, in fact, made more money." [see argument page for extended quote].

Higher taxes don't actually weaken growth

C1) We should reduce the corporate tax rate Having a competitive tax system is increasingly important in a globalized economy. Globalization means firms wishing to invest capital in a region can be easily encouraged—or deterred—if taxes increase or decrease. High corporate taxes discourage investment and reduce economic growth. America has the highest statutory corporate tax rate in the developed world at 39.1%.[1] This is 14.3% higher than the OECD average of 24.8%. The harmful effects of high corporate taxes are visible in our economic system. Johansson et al. has a paper published by the OECD investigating the impacts of different types of taxes and economic growth. The paper found that corporate taxes, followed by income taxes, are the most detrimental to economic growth. The study found that a 1% shift of tax revenues from income and corporate taxes to consumption and property taxes would increase GDP per capita by 0.25 – 1% in the long run.[2] Johansson also found that statutory corporate tax rates of 30 to 35%, which the US now surpasses, reduces investment by 1.9%. To quote Johansson, lowering the statutory corporate tax rate would “lead to particularly large productivity gains in firms that are dynamic and profitable, i.e. those that can make the largest contribution to GDP growth.” The reason for this is because many of the firms that are productive also rely on retained earnings to pay for their expansion. Tax cuts would increase the amount of retained earnings and increase prospects for future firm expansion. Another OECD paper by Jens Arnold confirms the findings of Johansson and concluded that corporate taxes “have the most negative effect on GDP per capita.”[3] Economists Young Lee and Roger Gordon, using a dataset with 70 countries and a timespan of 27 years, have found that a ten percent cut in the corporate tax rate would increase economic growth by one to two percent.[4] The biggest problem with having the highest corporate tax rate in the world is that it reduces our international competitiveness. Incentives matter, and taxing labor and capital simply means that the incentives to make more of it decrease. If a country has a significantly lower corporate tax rate than we do, it is our companies and workers that suffer. The current corporate tax rate caused companies to shift $50 billion away from the United States to countries with lower corporate taxes.[5] Despite our high corporate tax rate rayr, we do not have much to show in the way of revenue. Economists Alex Brill and Kevin Hasset have found that the revenue maximizing corporate tax rate is 26%.[6] Any corporate tax rate above 26% would decrease revenue. This is not surprising as the average OECD corporate tax rate is 24.8%. As international businesses can relocate to a location where taxation is lower (which means more profits), having a tax rate far above the OECD average would deter potential businesses from entering the country. This means a smaller tax base. Brill’s and Hasset’s study is supported by basic cross sectional data. In the US, corporate income tax revenue makes up 2.2% of our GDP; for the OECD, that number is 3.4%.[7] Despite having the highest corporate tax rate in the world, the percent of our corporate tax rate revenue to our GDP is over one percent lower than the OECD average. This confirms the Brill and Hasset analysis that current corporate tax rates are on the far side of the Laffur Curve. Studies claiming that corporate tax cuts do not cause growth have no solid foundation. Owen Zidar, who opposes tax cuts for the rich, finds that tax cuts for the middle class cause economic growth.[8] It is well accepted that tax cuts for the middle class would increase consumption and cause growth. Luckily, corporate tax rates do cut taxes for the middle class. According to another study by Zidar, workers receive 35% of the benefit from corporate tax cuts.[9] The literature says tax cuts for the middle class cause growth, and corporate taxes benefit the middle class; it seems illogical to claim corporate tax rates would not help the economy. The Zidar estimates are a bit on the conservative side. The CBO has found that “domestic labor bears slightly more than 70 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax.”[10] Economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research have found that workers of unionized industries carry 56% of the tax burden from corporate taxes.[11] A tax cut would bring a huge benefit to middle and lower class workers. C2) Reduced income taxes cause growth Lower income taxes cause growth; yes, even for the rich. It is well accepted that tax cuts for the middle class cause growth, so I assume the majority of this debate will revolve around tax cuts for the wealthy. Taxes for the wealthy make up for the majority of our revenue, and it is only the top quintile of incomes that actually pay significantly more to the government than what they cost (e.g. they pay more taxes but use fewer social services).[12] Using tax revenues as a proxy for tax rates would work out pretty well. The following graph, using local tax revenues as a proxy for local tax rates, compares tax revenues to growth rates. Here is the data: There is a clear and strong correlation between lower tax revenue and faster GSP growth. According to the data, 40% of the variance in growth rates at a local level are determined by the tax burden.[13] This data does not include severance taxes or growth related to oil and gas. This is because merely having an abundance of resources could interfere with the results. While defending tax cuts we must look at the 1980s. I will defend Reaganomics responsibly. You think tax cuts in the 80s were the cause of the rapid growth during that decade? They weren’t. Federal Reserve policies must be credited for that. But that does not mean the Reagan tax cuts were a failure—they were a great success. The benefits from the tax cuts were long term; they increased innovation and heavily contributed to the growth in the 1990s a decade later. According to the American Enterprise Institute, “Reagan’s economic legacy is inextricably interwoven with the Information Revolution that the IBM PC helped kick off. His message of competitive markets, entrepreneurial vigor, and minimal regulation found a willing audience in an era of rapid technological change, where innovation was opening new opportunities seemingly every day. … [T]he changes Reagan championed in the tax system fostered innovation and entrepreneurialism even as they encouraged the development of venture capital and investment in human capital.”[14] His policies allowed businesses, which may not have been created due to high risks from a terrible tax code, to come to fruition. Tax cuts do not benefit us in between each business cycle; tax cuts take years for the benefits of increased investment to show up. Reagan’s tax cuts didn’t cause mega growth in the 80s, but it caused growth well past his term and beyond. The example of Reaganomics—that tax cuts take time to kick in—is confirmed by peer-reviewed literature. A study by economist Robert Reed argued that “tax policies take time to work,” and that when the effects kick in, “a negative relationship between taxes and income growth emerges.”[15] When we increase taxes, it takes time before the negative effects fully take hold—the reverse holds true. More progressive tax systems lower economic growth. A progressive tax system means the wealthy pay more than the poor; the larger the gap between the amount the rich pay and the poor, the more progressive a tax system is. When a tax system increases in progressivity, meaning the rich pay more taxes, there is less growth. A Philadelphia Federal Reserve study observed that “a decrease in tax progressivity did lead to higher growth … differences in tax code across countries could explain up to a two and half percent variation in economic growth.”[16] The negative effects of high taxes, even on the wealthy, has been confirmed by studies by the Mercatus center as well as the American Economic Association.[17-18] Reducing tax rates on the wealthy would promote more economic growth. C3) Revenue As I showed in the case of corporate taxes, we could reduce the corporate tax rate by over 10% and increase revenue.Income taxes are a different story. Depending on how a tax cut is crafted, tax cuts may or may not pay for themselves. If the marginal rate was extremely high, reducing it to a moderate level would reduce deficits. There are always Laffur curve effects, so the changes in revenue could be exaggerated by a static analysis. This is not to say that all tax cuts pay for themselves. Despite revenue losses, tax cuts would still increase GDP growth. If we reversed the 2012 4% hike in taxes, revenues would only fall by $14 billion, but GDP would grow by 0.43%.[19] In fact, revenue maximizing policies would be detrimental to our economy as a whole.[21] Instead, we should focus on reducing spending alongside tax reductions. Sweden, for example, reduced the top marginal rate by 20% in the last recession, but they also prevented going into debt by reducing welfare spending. Countries that successfully reduce their debt-to-GDP ratios find that spending cuts rather than tax increases are a better way to fix the problem without reducing economic growth.[20] Spending cuts can increase growth. According to a research paper by the Mercatus Center, “fiscal adjustments on average reduced debt-to-GDP ratio by 0.19 percentage points of GDP in a given year. GDP grew by 3.47 percentage points in total, which is 0.58 percentage points higher than the average growth of G7 countries.”[20] I am in favor of reducing spending alongside tax reductions. Reducing the corporate tax rate would increase revenue—abolishing the corporate tax rate would have little effect on our budgets.[22] http://bit.ly...;

Resolved: The USFG should adopt across-the-board tax cuts for individual and corporate tax brackets

All of the following arguments are made supposing thet the US in question is the United States of America The United States of America should absolutely not reform its corporate tax rate beacause the current tax rate provides 9% of all of the total USA gouvernment revenue. The proposed tax reform would obviously lower that, for lowering it would not alter the ammount of companies that have reside in the USA or have their assets there or very little so, for the USA coprorate taxes could not rival those of other countries and dependencies such as the British Virgin Islands or Panama beacause lowering the corporate tax to that level would cripple the economy given that the American economy is much larger than that of those places. Lowering the corporate tax to lower rates would not work for these countries would still have the advantage and very few more companies would put their seats there and at the very most this would maintain USA corporate tax revenue the same as it is now. Regarding loopholes, the law should not be corrected beacause that would require changing the whole US tax code. These reforms would take years to pass beacause said text is a very extensive one and it would cause massive political problems in the USA for this would be subject to much disagreement for the two parties and by that time companies will have found loopholes in the new texts and they would have to start over.

The US should reform its Corporate Tax

So, the economy is still in bad shape. By that, I mean that there is still less buying and selling because corporations have to pay so much to stay in business. After sales, consumption, income, property, and corporate taxes businesses would barely have enough for salary or profit (if any). The result would be a decrease in spending which can be a precursor for recession. The recession is based on the health of the economy by how much people buy or sell, and the law of demand states that even the slightest price increase can lead to significant results. Another result would be high unemployment, because different companies have to pay their workers on top of these taxes which they sometimes find hard to do. Some people might think that the people already working there would just be paid more, well it depends. Most trustworthy and intelligent managers would hire more labor instead of investing more in what they already have. Given these facts, I think that taxes should be lowered overall for businesses so that they can hire more labor, get more resources, and supply better qualities of the product. https://en.wikipedia.org... https://en.wikipedia.org... http://taxfoundation.org...

Corporate taxes should be lowered

Additionally, my opponent asserts that the rich create jobs and hire people, yet he provides no evidence for this (or his other claims). Multimillionaire Henry Bloch stated "rich people don't create jobs. Companies create jobs" But it's the rich that make those companies that hire people. For example Elon Musk is a billionaire and the founder of several companies; space x alone hires 30,000. Those companies costed a lot to start; if he had been taxed so much more he wouldn't have been able to create as many companies and thus thousands more people would be unemployed.

A Progressive Tax System Should Be Used Over a Flat Tax System

Progressive taxes help increase employment rate

Progressive tax vs. flat tax

Thank you very much for your rebuttal and taking the time to debate this subject. Let me begin by addressing your contention that my scenario's are incorrect. You stated in your rebuttal that "In scenario #2, the pre-tax profit will be much lower". And that, "the reasons for the less money include": 1. More money has to be paid to government 2. Economies with less tax regime will be more economical thus out-competing the countries with more tax. 3. Companies will be tempted to invest in economies with lower taxes, thus slowing down the whole economy To address these points: 1. EBIT = "Earnings before Interest and Taxes". This is a term well-known to CEO's and CFO's the world over. It's basically a companies "Operating Earnings". You state that 'more money has to be paid to the government' so my scenario is inaccurate. I disagree. The $1,000,000 in earnings would be the same in both scenarios because they are PRE-TAX earnings. No money has been paid to the government in either Scenario. 2. While, theoretically, this point is true. I believe it to be irrelevant to this debate. This more of point in discussing international trade agreements & tariffs. 3. Companies cannot "write-off" as expenses, investments in other companies or economies, so there isn't a "tax incentive" for them to do so. A CEO's motivation is to lower the companies tax burden while simultaneously growing their own company. In short, the scenario's I've illustrated are correct, and valid. They are indicative of the way 'Real World' CEO's view taxes and their effect on business decisions. I know this from first-hand experiences. In your rebuttal, you referenced the study, 'Fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are more likely to increase growth than those based upon spending increases'. While this study may be accurate and insightful, it doesn't address the topic of this debate. It addresses tax cuts vs. increased government spending. Hence, I find it irrelevant. However, I did find an article which illustrates my point very well in an even more extreme example. The link is below. To Summarize, higher corporate tax rates DO encourage business investment. The higher the tax rate, the more motivated a CEO is to avoid paying the taxes. The best way for them to do this is to spend the money on growing their business (invest) instead of giving a large amount to the government as taxes on their NET profit. The Mind of a CEO: Tax rates high = Cheap to reinvest in company Tax rates low = Cheap to declare profits Thank you for the opportunity to debate this subject - I look forward to many more discussions! http://www.alternet.org...

1. Yes Trump is not as professional as some other Canadents but that's what we need right now! And clearly since Donald Trump is the Republican Nomination that's what the American people want! 2. Trump has already created jobs at Trump Shuttle that had about 1,000 employees. And has also hired at least 34,000 jobs and he isn't even president yet and by listening to his interviews he truly wants to help create jobs. 3. Mr. Trump"s plan would cut taxes by $11.98 trillion over the next decade on a static basis. However, the plan would end up reducing tax revenues by $10.14 trillion over the next decade when accounting for economic growth from increases in the supply of labor and capital. https://www.donaldjtrump.com... https://www.quora.com...

TRUMP (PRO) vs KASICH (CON)

My opponent seems to blame the recession on corporate taxes. His argument has no substance at all and only includes baseless conjectures which somehow add up to why corporate taxes should be lowered. Corporations pay significantly less in taxes today than they did 50 years ago due to increased globalization and offshore subsidiaries which allow them to essentially avoid corporate taxes. http://www.cbpp.org... As my opponent is attempting to say that corporate taxes should be lowered because it would benefit the economy, yet he has offered nothing to support this resolution. I await his logically structured arguments, and compelling evidence for why corporate taxes should be lowered. I agree that lowering taxes in general is always going to increase GDP if government spending remains unchanged, however this will ratchet up the national debt via larger deficits ultimately leading to higher borrowing costs and more painful taxes later. Quantitative easing will likely end this fall. This will (and already partially has based on bernakes recent comments) ratchet up interest rates and quickly make debt payments extremely costly You can see based on yield curve history rates are already rising and will dramatically rise when the program ends. http://www.treasury.gov... Bernake has already said that debt will be a huge long term drag on the economy. http://www.youtube.com... In the short term lowering taxes on anyone/anything will benefit GDP. However I believe my opponent will agree that long term health of the economy is of far greater import.

Corporate taxes should be lowered

It seems then that we are in agreement about the untenability of altering the tax code without addressing the tax loopholes. My point is that when it comes time to actually fix a rate, we will be only grasping in the dark so long as those loopholes are closed. We are also in agreement about the amorality, or moral neutrality of corporations. As you mentioned, the main costs of a corporation are wages, supplies, or means of production however broadly construed, and taxes. Lowering the tax rate and closing loopholes will actually result in an effective tax raise for many corporations. So why would they return their operations to the U.S. if the reform measures you are seeking only address taxation? My point about the welfare measures the corporation receives on behalf of the taxpayer, e.g. in the form of slave wages, indicates that lowering the tax rate alone is not sufficient. It is here instructive to take a brief glance at the historical development of the corporation. (Hegel discusses it in an interesting way in The Philosophy of Right, but that is maybe too far afield.) It is a historical fiction to think that corporations emerged in a free market and then only later came under the burden of government regulation and taxation. From the inception, the interests of the corporation were facilitated by government policies. There are countless examples of this, but the most pronounced is perhaps the railroad barons at the end of the nineteenth century. So it is too simple a dichotomy to present the government on one side and the corporation on the other. This is why, for instance, Roosevelt warned against the military-industrial complex, and it is still vividly relevant today in the Middle East. In light of this, your alleged benefits to a lowered corporate tax rate can be seen as wishful thinking of fallacious supply-side economic theory. Yes, a lower tax rate might raise wages, might boost incentive, attract foreign investment, eradicate poverty, end war, save the polar ice caps from melting, help us colonize the moon, make us beautiful, rid us of all evil, and so forth. I'm not trying to be sarcastic--it's just that these are the perennial and familiar promises of the proponents of free-market economy that have not materialized, even as the system has increasingly favored corporations since the sixties. The most clear indication that a lowered tax rate is not advisable or desirable is that the rate has in fact incrementally lowered for over the period of the past forty years. Wages have stagnated, while CEO pay has skyrocketed, completely independent of CEO performance. http://www.huffingtonpost.com... There is a lot of mystical beliefs about the invisible hands that will guide wealth into the nation and keep business in the U.S. but there are no reasonable historical tendencies to justify this thinking. There are two principal reasons for this: 1. The intimate interactions of corporate interests and governmental policy have created a situation of pronounced inequality, and have effectively redistributed wealth to the top one percent. 2. The corporation, by its very nature, tends toward either implosion or monopoly. The public was compelled to intrude upon the free activity of the corporation because that activity threatened its collective good. I appreciate your Libertarian views--even though I usually find myself in general disagreement, the Libertarian wing of the Republic party is, in my modest estimation, the only one that is self-consistent and philosophically and economically astute. But let me for a moment broaden the perspective. I don't judge negatively people who desire profits, and I agree with your implication that to associate the desire for profits with greed is not all that useful. But not all values are moral values. We can still admit that the corporation is essentially amoral and still talk about its ethos, its system of values. I mentioned above that one of these is the fundamental translation of various kinds of activity into exchange value. In the same sense, not all work is labor. The corporate system reinterprets growth, time, work, nature, and even political engagement financially. Corporate taxation is the imperfect result of this necessary translation. I only have about ten minutes left, so let me just give one easy example of what I mean here. A mining corporation--e.g. the Pebble Mine Company up in Alaska--goes into a place, digs the minerals out of the earth, then moves on when those resources have been exhausted. From the corporations point of view, the land is nothing more than the ultimate dollar amounts that will be made on the market. But land is something different than that--it gets left behind, and has been altered irrevocably. The toxic tailings ponds that every mine leaves behind last forever. (Cf. the spill in Durango right now.) No matter if the tax rate were twice what it is, there is no way to recover that land. The same goes with fracking--the toxins that are pumped into the ground will last millennia. So it is not as simple as just saying that corporations benefit from infrastructure and public safety--it is that they translate the world, both the human world of activity, work, time, and the natural world as monetary values. Taxation is therefore the only way for the corporation to legitimately participate in the system. It might seem as though I'm changing my fundamental objection--but these latest remarks are bound up with what I've been saying from the start. Either way, I'm learning a lot from this discussion and look forward to your response.

Corporate Tax Should be Lowered

With tax cuts, business owners would either expand their businesses or lower the prices. An overwhelming majority of businesses will take advantage of tax cuts for the sake of profit, either it be expanding themselves or lowering the prices. If they expand, it requires more jobs, which reduces the unemployment rate, as I stated previously. If they lower the prices, more consumers will be happy to take advantage of it and go out and buy their products or services, which increases the purchasing power in the country. As it seems that my opponent doubts the effectiveness of tax cuts, I would like to give him and the voters of this debate an example of working tax cuts. My example is going to be the state of Michigan, which before the 1990's experienced having the second highest unemployment rate in the United States and an appalling economy. In 1991, when John Engler was elected to become the Governor of Michigan, he slashed taxes in the state to a cumulative tax savings of about $20 billion. The result led to Michigan having ten years of unprecedented prosperity. It even became the top third state in job growth.[1] I'd also like to mention about the part in your statement where you mentioned that some people would be left out of the tax cuts. I'm not sure who you're referring to, but I assume you may be referring to the low income, the poor. First of all, the poor will be enjoying their tax cuts. They will feel the tax cuts on their part and they will have more money to save up, if not spend them. Sources: 1.) http://www.cato.org...

Dismissing something easily says more about the one dismissing than about what's being dismissed. It seems that you didn't even read the objection but instead had a prefabricated response ready. I'm here to learn about the arguments surrounding these important policy issues. From your response to the objection, it seems that you're here to do something else. And that's okay of course, but let's actually try to start the debate. First, there is the empirical aspect of it, which requires calculations and some guesswork about what corporations might or might not do given a change in the tax code. Second, it necessarily involves interrogating the meaning of a corporation, since we are referring them to discrete revenue and expenditure categories that are different from private citizens and non-profit organizations. You are wrong to say that I am arguing "political drawbacks" instead of economic benefits. We are debating political economy--that point at which they intersect, to put it into academic terminology. It is useful at times to distinguish economic calculations from policy, but to fail to see how they inform one another distorts the bases on which these kinds of decisions must be made. First, I will address the empirical aspect of the argument. Then I will respond specifically to each of your points. As I indicated in my objection, the question of raising or lowering the tax rate for corporations cannot really be approached without consideration of the fact that many of the richest corporations do not pay anywhere near the going rate. According to the Government Accountability Office, the average corporate tax rate is only 12.6%. http://money.cnn.com... A report from the Citizens for Tax Justice found that 30 of the biggest 280 corporations had no federal tax liability whatsoever. http://www.nytimes.com... The argument that lower tax rates will keep business in the U.S. ignores these disparities. The assertion becomes more ridiculous if we ask just what the tax rate should be. Those thirty companies that completely dodged the tax system through offshore maneuvers have no incentive to bring business back into the U.S. no matter how low the rate is. If we still entertain illusions that the global market will somehow correct this, we can refer to this study: http://www.cfr.org... and this http://www.wsj.com... Nor are corporations to blame for the fact that they dodge taxes. Which indicates the significance of my second point. It is misguided to try to blame corporations for being greedy, and the recent attempts to publish CEO pay as a way of shaming these great disparities in wealth are rather pointless, because as I said above, all considerations for a corporation are subordinated to those of the bottom line. The issue, as you said, is not whether to abolish the corporate tax altogether. The rate reflects the societal costs of protecting the public from the inherent abuses of corporate activity. Now, that is a difficult calculation to make because many of those costs are integrated into a whole web of public and private institutions. In an obvious way, this means that the corporate tax rate needs to contribute paying for the SEC, FDA, EPA and all the hosts of other agencies out there whose job is to protect the public good from the undesirable results that occur when a corporation does precisely what it's supposed to do, that is make money at all other expenses. The argument that lowering the rate will incentivize business investment ignores the complexity of these costs. That is what I was getting at in the first part of my argument, which your rejoinder ignored. Corporations rely on able-bodied Americans to buy their goods and to supply them with labor. It is this complexity that maybe gave you the mistaken notion that I thought tax revenues were distributed randomly. My understanding of it is that there are three metrics on which the rate is decided: 1) equity, which evaluates how the tax rate is distributed across individuals taxes 2) efficiency, which tries to address potential distortions in the decision-making process due to tax burdens 3) competitiveness, which is, admittedly the most vague of the three--but it has to do with maintaining rates that are comparable to those of other nations with similar GDP. It is the third that seems to be your best shot for arguing the tax rate should be lowered. Yes, it is vague, but it is a problem only because we do not tax pure profits, as explained here (p. 16-17 specifically) http://www.fas.org... You said that while "we pronounce ourselves to be the most capitalist nation, we impose heavy taxation." Well, people pronounce a lot of things all the time--but if we mean by "most capitalist nation" that we are or should be engaged in some kind of free market laissez-faire system, completely free of public oversight, then you are mistaken. The so-called free market has already demonstrated that, left to its own devices, it is patently destructive and fatal to human interests. We have known that for more than a hundred years. In any case, that is a historical point which we can take up if you'd like. Nor do the present facts justify characterizing taxation on business as heavy, when compared with other industrialized nations. According to the findings of the CRS report mentioned above, the U.S. statutory rate is the highest, but the effective rate is the same as other OECD nations. In fact, the U.S. "collects less in corporate tax revenue relative to Gross Domestic Production (GDP) (2.3% in 2011) than the average of other OECD countries (3.0% in 2011). " As for your remark that the public has no say about investment in the private sector, yes, of course. But you missed the point. The issue is not dictating investment--it's that we have good reason to question simplistic narratives about growth, narratives that come from the financial industry and corporations that consecrate growth and try to convince us that it is an undeniable good. Lastly, you said that "[t]he private sector rarely benefits from public education. Most private sector jobs require a higher level education, which is in most cases provided by a private university or college." That preposterous statement is not the sort that will become any less preposterous by looking at the numbers, no matter how you spin them. For one, it's way too sweeping. Also, there is a huge part of the private sector that requires no level of higher education--nearly all the workforce of restaurant and retail industry, including the folks that make your burger or ring you up at the Walmart, nor their managers, known as middle-management, and a whole host of other working people on whom the private sector relies for the delivery of its goods and services. But more importantly, it is a gross distortion to separate the actual functioning of the private sector from the interests of the public good. Yes, there are specific occasions when such a distinction is required--for instance in legal contexts--but if decisions are to be made about political economy, we must find a perspective that understands how they interact.

Corporate Tax Should be Lowered

I will try to keep my argument as simple as possible – so let me start with an illustration (example): Scenario #1: Corporation ABC is budgeted a "pre-tax" annual profit of $1,000,000. The tax rate is effectively 35% (which is, basically, what it is now). So, the tax is $350,000 and, "after-tax" net profits of $650,000. Scenario #2: Like Scenario #1 Corporation ABC is budgeted "pre-tax" annual profit of $1,000,000. However, the tax rate NOW is effectively 50% (which is, roughly what it was from the 1950's – 1980's). So, NOW the tax is $500,000 and, "after-tax" net profits of $500,000. My simple argument is that the CEO of ABC corporation is more motivated to invest the "pre-tax" profits of $1,000,000 in expanding the company (hiring people, research, leases, etc. ) when it will only cost $500k in net profit (50% tax rate), as opposed to the $650k it would cost in net profit with a tax rate of 35%. Think about it… would you like to get something worth a million dollars and have to pay $650k for it, or only $500k? Pretty easy answer…. huh? When taxes are high, CEO's are even MORE motivated to avoid them. The easiest, and most productive means to avoid them is through business expansion. In a study title, "Having their cake and eating it too", which was published just two weeks ago by the "Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives", the researchers claimed that: "This study examines historical data on business investment and cash flow from 1961 through 2010, and, using econometric techniques, finds no evidence in the historical data that lower taxes have directly stimulated more investment. " They go on further to find that, "As a means of stimulating growth, employment, and even private business spending, the historical evidence suggests that business tax cuts are both economically ineffective and distributionally regressive. " Another way of looking at it is ‘the higher the corporate tax rate is, the more the government is enticing CEO's to reinvest in their companies to avoid paying that tax'. As far as the rest of your argument goes, concerning international economies and comparable tax rates, I believe that those are irrelevant matters concerning my contention, and the basis for this debate. . http://www.policyalternatives.ca... . http://www.taxpolicycenter.org... . http://www.calgaryherald.com...

So you'really suggesting to raisee taxes on the people and have 0% for corporations? What if companies don't pay people more? What's their incentive to do so? What if they just keep the profits?

My argument is plain and simple. Business owners create jobs. When we raise capital gains taxes on business owners, they have less incentive to continue investing their time & effort into creating jobs, and are more likely to just sit back and retire. Therefore, if we want to maximize the incentive for business owners to continue working, innovating, and hiring, then we should not raise taxes on them, and if anything should remove the capital gains tax entirely. As a reminder, all capital investments have already been taxed once when the income was earned as personal income, and so capital gains remain a double-tax. Double taxataion that reduces incentives for growth and hiring are bad for the overall economy, and so I urge a no vote on this resolution.

The DebateIn this debate, I will argue that the American corporate tax rate should be reformed and lowered in order to benefit the economy and the government.RulesRound 1: Acceptance onlyRound 2: Present argumentsRound 3: Refute opponent's argumentsRound 4: Make final cases/refutations and conclusion

The US should reform its Corporate Tax

I will be arguing that Corporate Tax should in fact be lowered as to accommodate for growth as well as incentivize investment into our private sector. Rules are as follows: Round 1: Acceptance/Informal short summary of primary argument. Round 2: Statement of Opening Arguments. Round 3: Continuation of Argument and Rebuttal. Round 4: Final Rebuttal and Conclusion. Please, do not troll.

Corporate Tax Should be Lowered

I would like to welcome my opponent to debate.org and thank him for instigating this debate! My opponent has provided a single flawed (as I will show) argument to support the contention. Moreover he has not bothered to back his argument with any data what so ever. The contention is that the corporation has a certain amount of money left over after transaction of all business. They can either choose to book profit or reinvest. A higher tax rate will give them the incentive to reinvest. However a higher tax rate will mean there is less money available after the business is conducted! My opponent has assumed that this money will remain same whether the tax rate is increased or decreased. Less available money will mean that in general both profit as well as reinvestment will decrease! The reasons for the less money include. 1. More money has to be paid to government 2. Economies with less tax regime will be more economical thus out-competing the countries with more tax. 3. Companies will be tempted to invest in economies with lower taxes, thus slowing down the whole economy. If we compare effective tax rates [1][2] and GDP growth rate [3] for various countries, we see that in general countries with lower tax rates have performed surprisingly well. For example - Singapore is having a 11.5% tax is having a GDP growth of 14.5 % which is 3rd highest in the world! On other hand most of the highly taxed economies (US, Canada, Russia, France, Germany ) with 30% + taxes are stuck at 2 to 3% growth rate. However let me warn that GDP growth depends on many factors so exceptions are possible. However as we go through the data, the general trend is quite obvious. I look forward to the next round! [1] http://www.suite101.com... [2] http://www.cdhowe.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...

This article from the Atlantic says that in 2012 the top 1 percent will pay their highest total tax rate since 1979 (http://www.theatlantic.com...). In the 1980s, Reagan cut taxes and we had prosperity. Jack Kennedy cut taxes and we had prosperity. Obama raised taxes and the economy stagnated. The unemployment rate under Bush averaged 5.2% and deficits were much smaller, not to mention he had to pay for two wars. Obama raised taxes and shrunk revenue because the government policies kill jobs as do burdensome regulations such as ObamaCare.

Cut the Corporate Tax Rate to 0%

Fact Sheet for the American Jobs Act. White House: "1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow. Cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold. A complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages: The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50 million in payroll increases). Extending 100% expensing into 2012: This continues an effective incentive for new investment. Reforms and regulatory reductions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital."

AJA reduces taxes, allowing small businesses to grow/hire.

Most of the final round has been devoted by my opponent to address my argument that pre-tax money (EBIT) will be less in a high tax regime. By doing this he has tacitly conceded that if my objections are valid, they represent a flaw in his argument.Let us go through each of his rebuttals one by one...Contention #1: More money has to be paid to governmentMy opponent argued that the tax has to be paid after this money is calculated. So this money should be same. What he has failed to understand is that more money has to be paid by everyone, including the suppliers of the company. As a result the suppliers will increase there price leading to higher cost. Similarly employees too have to pay a larger tax. This may force the company to increase compensation. All these taxes will be reflected in the final sales price of the output. Higher sales price will decrease consumption leading to depressed economy and lower pre-tax profit. What we need to understand is that tax is not decided after everyone has made the money. The tax rates are known from start.Contention #2: Economies with less tax regime will be more economical thus out-competing the countries with more tax.My opponent has declined to consider this point arguing that this concerns international trade so it is irrelevant. I would like to state that those who believe international trade to be irrelevant are headed for extinction. Suppose a company loses out its costumers since its foreign rivals (who enjoy less tax) out compete it. Let me suggest that the company will have less EBIT because of less revenue.Contention #3: Companies will be tempted to invest in economies with lower taxes, thus slowing down the whole economyThe rebuttal was that there is no tax incentive to do so. However it is possible that the CEO may choose to forgo some tax incentive to invest in an economy which has a low tax rate and more growth as that will be more beneficial in long term.We can conclude:Low tax rate: Lots of money. Some is reinvested. Some is taken as profitHigh tax rate: No money! No reinvestment! No profit!My opponent has raised an interesting objection. I had posted a link to a research paper which he has acknowledged to be 'accurate and insightful'. However as per him the paper is all about 'tax cuts vs. increased government spending' and not about 'low tax vs high tax'. When government charges higher taxes, it typically increases its spending also. 'Increasing government spending' is usually synonymous with 'high tax regime'. Thus this paper is highly relevant.In the last round, my opponent has provided a link to a book authored by a trade union economist. In this round he has decided to refer to an article written by a fiction writer![1]In this debate the voters have to decide whether they support a theory being argued by fiction writers and trade union economists but being contradicted by studies carried out by respectable and independent researchers.They have to vote for or against a flawed theory which even defies common sense.Vote Con.I would like to thank my opponent and wish him best of luck for future debates![1] http://www.larrybeinhart.com...

You provide no sources to prove that small businesses would be hindered by bigger businesses. Probably because it is not economically probable as entrepreneurs are always rising up to the occasion and becoming successful people. If anything, the expansion of large businesses means more competition between themselves, more expansion which means more jobs, and more production which means higher profits for them which in turn leads to higher corporate tax revenue as illustrated by the Laffer curve. Big business never goes unrivaled. There is always competition in a vast and large marketplace. Subsidies are not good because that is crony capitalism. Also, remember that WE want businesses here for our own county and for our own economy. We want to eliminate deductions and put in a lower rate because businesses want higher profits, not lower ones. By creating business friendly environment in the USA we fix that problem. I have already sourced how it would be good for the government and the economy, so I have the facts out there. You still need to prove your points or else your case risks falling apart.

The US should reform its Corporate Tax

Round 1: Pro posts rules and structure, Con posts opening argument Round 2: Pro posts opening argument, Con posts rebuttal Round 3: Pro and Con engage in rebuttals Round 4: Pro and Con engage in rebuttals Round 5: Pro finishes final rebuttal, while Con will not post a round out of fairness This gives each debater the same amount of argument time.

Cut the Corporate Tax Rate to 0%

There is an important distinction to make between the tax rate for publicly traded companies and the actual percentage amount they pay. The disparity is due to tax loopholes such as off-shore banking and a host of other maneuvers performed by corporate lawyers. Even if these loopholes were closed through legislation, I disagree that the corporate tax rate should be lowered. There are two fundamental lines of reasoning behind my objection. The first is based on empirical observations, the second with philosophical issues about growth. Both of course are interrelated. Like private citizens, the private sector benefits from public goods such as public education, publicly owned and operated infastructure, general law and order maintained by police, and various federal agencies, especially in maritime contexts. The integrity and efficiency of these public goods would suffer if corporate tax rates were lowered, and this in turn would cause business costs to rise. If corporations tried to shoulder these costs themselves, for instance through privatized security, their ability to remain solvent would diminish. In general, the costs of doing business would increase, and those costs would be passed onto the consumer. Corporations also benefit from social welfare funds in ways that are not always obvious. Many retailers and restaurant corporations do not pay their workers a living wage. As a result those workers are forced to seek assistance from the government through such aid programs as food stamps. The taxpayer is effectively subsidizing the costs of maintaining a workforce for many corporations. Some of the societal benefits stand in direct conflict with the interests of the corporation. For instance, federally funded advocates of environmental defense and consumers rights must maintain freedom from the machinations of the corporation in order to do their job. The second aspect of my objection is theoretical, that is it has to do with the determinations of concepts. (I don't want to sound condescending, it's just that in mainstream discourse there is usually some confusion about the distinction between the practical and theoretical spheres.) Corporations are not free agents; that is, they cannot, by definition, self-legislate. I mean this in the descriptive, not normative, sense. The concept of a corporation demands that it profit; it must answer to shareholders, and all other considerations--whether ethical, aesthetic or even legal--are subordinate to this demand. That means that the costs of growth are always ultimately translated into dollar amounts. Likewise, the benefits of growth, strictly speaking, can only be reflected in dollar amounts. Of course, they can be translated once again into societal benefits of all sorts, but that is a matter of interpretation that lies beyond the calculus of corporations. This is partly why, for instance, from a legal point of view, a corporation's liability is limited to its investment. My objection, then, is that it is not even clear that the public has any interest in incentivizing investment into the private sector. I only say this because it seems to me useful to also bring into question some of the grounds on which the claim is being made. Thank you, and I look forward to your response.

Corporate Tax Should be Lowered

I want to especially single out Obama's plan to raise the corporate tax from, which by the way, he hasnt said by how much....go figure. Right now the corporate tax rate in the United States is 35%, the second largest in the world (Japan is #1). Obama wants to raise this corporate tax rate. Do you know why we have unemployment? ITS BECAUSE COMPANIES GO TO MEXICO, CANADA, EUROPE, AND ASIA TO DO BUSINESS. Why would a corporation stay in the United States and get taxed to death when they can go to, for instance, Ireland whose corporate tax rate is 11%. Of course we're going to have more unemployment when corporations keep leaving the United States. But why wouldnt they? It makes so much sense. Obama's plan to raise the corporate tax is only going to create an even bigger problem. This isnt even about politics anymore. This is about common sense. How can you libs not see this? I forgot, you're a bunch if ideologues.

Obama's tax plan is idiotic.

Finally! Thank you for accepting! In this debate I will show how increasing the wealthy's tax rates will hurt the U.S economy. First argument: Taxing the super rich ($250,000+) reduces job creation and company expansion. It is the wealthy, who primarily create jobs and provide capital for business expansion. There are exceptions of course, but generally speaking, the wealthy account for the majority. Obama classifies the "super rich" as having a $250,000+ salary. These are the people who are trying to expand their business. By increasing their tax rates, we reduce the necessary cash flow needed for expansion. Second argument: There is no way we can tax those in excess of "super rich" without discouraging all other Americans from investing. There are two types of income, earned and unearned. The warren buffets of the country (who far exceed Obama's "super rich" classification) do not have much earned income. They have unearned income, which is systematically withdrawn to receive special taxation, called capital gains. The only way to tax those who far exceed "super rich" is to increase capital gains rates, which discourages the rest of America from investing.

Taxing the rich will benefit our economy

Thank you for the definition. You can be more specific about what plan for a negative income tax you support in your argument, so I will use this round to argue against the tax in general.Contention #1: A negative income tax decreases incentive to work.Experiments in Seatle and Denver tested the effectiveness of a negative income tax. The Stanford Research Institute analyzed the results and found a 9-18% reduction in productivity, and that 50-60% of those recieving the tax used it to replace wages they would have otherwise earned themselves. [1]The same study also found that the tax decreased family stability because families no longer relied on wage-earners.Contention #2: A negative income tax would be expensive to implement.Even proponents of the tax estimate a cost of $38 billion a year, and that is underestimated:"And if once the main principle of either proposal were accepted, the minimum subsidy or guarantee demanded would be bound constantly to increase. Anyone who doubts this need merely consult the history of unemployment insurance and Social Security benefits since those plans were initiated in the 1930s."Implementing this system would be very expensive, possibly reaching trillions of dollars.ConclusionA negative income tax would be ineffective because it decreases incentive to work and causes family instability, and it would also be costly.I will not have access to my computer this weekend, so I would appreciate it if you could take your time to respond.[1] http://www.econlib.org...[2] https://mises.org...

The United States should adopt a negative income tax.

My argument is not based on any moral grounds. We have both agreed that, from the point of view of the law, the corporation is fundamentally an amoral entity. My objection is based on the following observations: The first is historical. The corporate tax rate has in fact been lowered over the past forty years. During that time, wages have stagnated and wealth has been redistributed from the middle class to a small handful of wealthy individuals. The causes for this redistribution are several, but it is clear that governmental policy favoring the rich has played a major role. For instance, deregulation of the financial sector and international trade agreements (NAFTA and TPP) figure most heavily into these changes. My objection is, secondly, based on my skepticism regarding the mystical faith in free markets to keep their operations in the U.S. Taxation, as we both have agreed, is only one part of the calculus that determines how a corporation will run itself. To simply lower the rate without closing tax loopholes would constitute a rise in the real amounts corporations pay to the federal government. What reason do we have that they would bring their business back to the U.S. if such a raise in the rate is imminent? That said, there are a number of more informed ways of going about fixing the corporate tax rate. One is to base it on the disparity between CEO pay and the average worker's wage. (A bill like this is being considered in the California state legislature.) That of course won't fix many of the problems, but it is a step in the right direction. The broader point is that the taxes a corporation pays is the only way for the public to maintain its interests against those of the corporation. Occasionally, those two interests coincide, but history teaches us that often they do not. You may believe that you are looking at this issue from a strictly political point of view, but observe the sorts of categories you are deploying when you say that if the government did not spend so much money, it would not have to levy taxes on people. The government represents the public good independent of the drive for profits that sits at the heart of the corporation. Both government and corporations are comprised of people--but from a legal point of view, they are essentially different. The corporation is bound to profit for its survival, against the interests of the collective. As we both agree, that has nothing to do with any moral judgment. The government, on the other hand, depends on other activities for its legitimacy. On a whole, it spends as much as it needs to spend to maintain the interests of the diverse population it represents.

Corporate Tax Should be Lowered

A 2010 Congressional Budge Report Found: "Increasing the after-tax income of businesses typically does not create much incentive for [small businesses ] to hire more workers in order to produce more, because production depends principally on their ability to sell their products." In other words, if you're worried about the fragile state of the economy and you want to do something to make sure recovery is not set back, there are any number of more effective ways to spend that money. Continuing to help states pay their Medicaid bills would be one.[6]

Small businesses depend on product demand, not tax breaks for wealthy

Only certain types of businesses can TAKE advantage of this tax. That being said, Not all businesses can take advantage of this beneficial 20% rate. C corporations, for example, are not able to leverage capital gains , unlike an S corporation or LLC, the income does not flow through to the shareholders or members on an individual level. Instead, the capital gains tax is taxed on the business level at the ordinary (higher) corporate tax rate. Before you sell an asset which you anticipate earning a profit on, it is always worth speaking with your accountant or financial advisor to understand your options and the implications that the sale will have on both your business and your personal income tax rates.

The United States should abolish the capital gains tax.

The government should cut taxes for everyone including the wealthy so people will have more money, people will spend more, businesses will make more money and pay more tax dollars. A large percentage of businesses pay income tax at the individual tax rate not the corporate tax rate. If income taxes get cut then the businesses that pay the individual income tax rate will have more money and hire more employees. Corporate taxes should also get cut to 25 percent so that businesses will hire more employees. If businesses make more money and pay more tax dollars then the government revenue will increase. If businesses hire more employees then there will be more taxpayers which will also increase the government revenue. The wealthy should get a large tax cut because a lot of them own businesses. If they get a tax cut then they will spend more money, make more investments and hire more employees.

The government should cut taxes for everyone including the wealthy

Because recession is such a general term, let me narrow to the part I'm trying to show you. You make an important point that taxes are lowered if they relocate overseas, especially to China or Japan. This is actually a problem for the economy, it's not a good factor that can lead to better economic growth like you say it does. Globalization itself isn't a problem at all, but if jobs or capital were to be shipped overseas then it would be devastating for OUR economy while only one economy benefits. Corporations do this to avoid corporate taxes, and take their business somewhere that doesn't normally have corporate taxes like we do. And if corporations have had lower taxes than they have 40-50 years ago (which is somewhat true), then why are they shipping jobs overseas? Because they're not low enough. And why is this such a big deal? Because the more money made, the higher the tax rate is and corporations make a lot of money. The IRS reports that since 1988, the tax rate per income began to fluctuate and people with lower incomes started to be taxed at a higher percentage than those making more (to this day). They got tired of this, and since then began to relocate to countries with cheap labor and low or no taxes. Since the late 1980s, this caused a whole range of economic problems which can be obvious when seen. It's no coincidence that the countries that we owe trade deficits with are the ones that corporations decided to relocate to. As for my sources, did you not see the entire article filled with 10 benefits of lower corporate taxes? And what "program" are you talking about? And yes I do agree with the long-term health of the economy, which means that we have the same goals. We have different theories on how to meet them however, and if taxes were lowered the government would actually be making more profit because more people would make demands. It's simple math. If the tax rate was 8% for a candy bar, only 1 person would want to buy it. But if the rate was 4% then 3 people would want to buy it, so the government would be making 4% more if the taxes were lower. . http://www.google.com... . http://www.americanprogress.org...

Corporate taxes should be lowered

An increase in jobs is a fundamental part of getting out of a recession. Consumer spending needs to be increased in order to see tangible growth in the economy and consumer spending can not be increased as long as consumers remain unemployed. The most efficient way to create jobs is to decrease corporate taxes that create incentives to create new jobs. For example, the state of Michigan enacted policy that substantially decreased corporate taxes on companies that created new jobs in high-growth sectors such as green and bio technology.[[www.michigan.gov/documents/gov/Econ_job_223200_7.pdf]] The purpose of business is to profit and through corporate tax cuts, business will have the ability to profit easier while creating jobs. Employed consumers spend the necessary money to stimulate and grow the economy. This is proven in the example of Ireland, which adopted a 12.5% corporate tax in 1988 while having the second-lowest per capita income in Europe and now has the second-highest income in Europe.[[http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/04/tax-cut-stimulus-opinions-contributors_0204_peter_ferrara.html]] Recently, the French government posted figures of 0.3% growth in GDP for the second quarter of 2009, an indicator it is coming out of the recession. Across the euro zone, only Germany matched this growth. This was unexpected by experts and while it does not mean the recession is over for France, it is encouraging. One of the key forces behind this was an increase in consumption. Consumption increased by 0.3% this quarter. This increase was the aim of the government when reducing VAT as part of its strategy to combat the recession. For companies such as restaurants and cafes, VAT was slashed from 19% to 5.5%, which industry bodies predicted successfully would lead to an increase in consumption. [[http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4446507,00.html]] [[http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jXJawG8lN9DDRVZ8N5-VSsc4_-Dw]] Government spending can also create jobs but the question is are these jobs suitable for getting out of a recession? The answer is a resounding no. Let's examine one of the largest attempts by government to create jobs, Roosevelt's Public Works Administration which allocated $3.3 billion dollars for public jobs to stimulate employment[[http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/pwa.htm]]. The jobs created by it usually lasted only months allowing only short term employment and the unemployment rate remained above 9%[[http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110011064 ]]. Many of the jobs consisted of building public structures and murals such as a mountain theater that were not done to grow the economy further but to grow political capital. After the expenditures stopped, so did the jobs. Only private industry can provide the long term stability and job creation through new and improved investments which are vital economic necessities to get out of a recession. By providing corporate tax cuts to incentive this, governments will not fall in a pit of spending that only provides sparks and stifling the private industry that could make blazing positive changes in the economy.

Job Creation/Stability

People don't always spend more when taxes are cut. If there worried about the economy in the future they tend to save not spend more. Also just because business save more money doesn't always mean they will spend it to increase jobs. History epically recent shows that business use these benefits to benefit shareholders directly. Why in the mid 20th century, when corporate taxes and personal taxes where at its highest booming economics. Here's a philosophical question for you to.. That even if what you said was true don't you think that some people, some where would be left out? What your describing is trickle down economics, which doesn't work.

There is no evidence that tax cuts create jobs. There is an extensive academic literature on this subject, and it all lends itself to the same conclusion: tax cuts are not conducive to growth, but is to income inequality and middle class stagnation. First, let’s discuss the reality of the current state of taxation in the United States. Andrew Fieldhouse of the Economy Policy Institute, in examining post WWII tax rates, noted this observation (1): Since the end of World War II, U.S. top individual income tax rates have declined markedly, as have effective tax rates on corporate income, capital income, and inheritances. Consequently, the federal tax code has become much less progressive (Piketty and Saez 2007). The top statutory marginal tax rate has fallen from just over 90 percent in the 1950s, to 70 percent in the 1970s, to 50 percent in the mid-1980s, to 35 percent for most of the past decade (TPC 2013a). The taxable income cutoff above which the top rate is applied for married joint filers has also fallen precipitously, from roughly $3 million in the early 1950s (adjusted to 2012 dollars), to roughly $1 million in the early 1970s, to just $388,350 for 2012 (TPC 2013b). The overall decline in progressivity is most striking within the top income percentile: The effective tax rate for the top hundredth of a percentile (i.e., 99.99–100 percent of filers by income) has fallen by more than half, from 71.4 percent in 1960 to 34.7 percent in 2004, versus a decline for the 99.5–99.9 percentiles from 41.4 percent in 1960 to 33.0 percent in 2004 (Piketty and Saez 2007). To elucidate this piece, here are his conclusions: 1. Tax rates, which ranged from 70 to 91% in the first three decades of the post-WWII era, have fallen substantially. 2. Effective rates on corporate income, capital gains, and estate taxes have fallen as well. 3. The tax code, with time, has become increasingly less progressive. We also have data telling us that the tax systems in most states are regressive – that is, a disproportionate portion of the burden is falling on lower-income people – as many states move away from progressive income taxes in favor of sales taxes (2). At the same time, corporations are getting giant breaks. Not only are they low by historic standards, as Thomas Hungerford points out (3); the nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice conduced an extensive study (4) of 288 Fortune 500 companies over a 5 year period, and came to the following conclusions: 1. 111 companies, including GE, Exxon, and Boeing paid negative tax rates. 2. One third paid no federal income tax less than 10 percent over the period. 3. The average tax rate was only 19.4%. 4. 55 of the 288 companies enjoyed several years of new taxes, with a total of 203 years of no taxes. So, now we have examined the evidence as to the current state of taxation. Let’s review: 1. Many states have regressive tax burdens. 2. The very affluent have seen their tax rates at near historic lows – in spite of significant growth in the post-WWII era with significantly higher tax rates – and are enjoying significant breaks on the backs of the U.S. taxpayer, who have been forced to shoulder the burden. 3. Corporations are receiving unheard of breaks. So, we know that the essence of trickle-down economics is already in play: taxes are already low. What are the results, however, of these breaks? Let’s go back to Andrew Fieldhouse, whose study concluded this: Analyses of top tax rate changes since World War II show that higher rates have no statistically significant impact on factors driving economic growth—private saving, investment levels, labor participation rates, and labor productivity—nor on overall economic growth rates. Interesting. But what about the Laffer Curve, conservatives may ask? Is there not a point beyond which the government simply cannot raise taxes lest it loses revenue? Of course there is. But what is that rate, and are we anywhere near it? Fieldhouse addresses this, as well: Recent research implies a revenue-maximizing top effective federal income tax rate of roughly 68.7 percent. This is nearly twice the top 35 percent effective marginal ordinary income tax rate that prevailed at the end of 2012, and 27.5 percentage points higher than the 41.2 percent rate in 2013.This would mean a top statutory income tax rate of 66.1 percent, 26.5 percentage points above the prevailing 39.6 percent top statutory rate…. Historically, decreases in top marginal tax rates have widened inequality of both pre- and post-tax income. Emmanuel Saez and Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond also weighed in as to what the effective tax rate ought to be, and concluded that the optimal tax rate on high-income Americans would be 70% (5). We also have data from a 65-year study from the Congressional Research Service (6). Here is their conclusion: Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. The share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. For more on income inequality, let’s go to Robert Reich (6): During periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion — as between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the present day — growth slowed, median wages stagnated and we suffered giant downturns. It’s no mere coincidence that over the last century the top earners’ share of the nation’s total income peaked in 1928 and 2007 — the two years just preceding the biggest downturns. And, for a bit more, let’s go to Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz, who cites World Bank economist Branko Milanovic (7): From 1988 to 2008, Mr. Milanovic found, people in the world’s top 1 percent saw their incomes increase by 60 percent, while those in the bottom 5 percent had no change in their income. And while median incomes have greatly improved in recent decades, there are still enormous imbalances: 8 percent of humanity takes home 50 percent of global income; the top 1 percent alone takes home 15 percent. Income gains have been greatest among the global elite — financial and corporate executives in rich countries — and the great “emerging middle classes” of China, India, Indonesia and Brazil. But how bad is income inequality? Let’s ask Stiglitz: Last year [2012] the top 1 percent of Americans took home 22 percent of the nation’s income; the top 0.1 percent, 11 percent. Ninety-five percent of all income gains since 2009 have gone to the top 1 percent. Recently released census figures show that median income in America hasn’t budged in almost a quarter-century. The typical American man makes less than he did 45 years ago (after adjusting for inflation); men who graduated from high school but don’t have four-year college degrees make almost 40 percent less than they did four decades ago. So, there is certainly a moral argument at play: the middle-class has stagnated since the 1980s – the rise of Ronald Reagan, and the inception of the supply-side economics experiment we’ve been experiencing for about 34 years now. But what are the economic effects of income inequality? Should we be worried that income inequality is constraining the economy? Yes, says Stiglitz again. He makes the following four arguments: 1. Income inequality will lead to underconsumption, as the rich spend relatively smaller portions of their income than poor people due to the diminishing marginal returns of income. 2. Income inequality leads to a waste of human talent, as the non-affluent cannot access high-quality education as readily as rich people. 3. Income inequality gives way to financial crises. 4. Income inequality lowers tax receipts. And we also know that income inequality in the United States, coupled with social mobility, is significantly lower than it is in Europe. We know that countries in Europe – Finland, Germany, Norway, et al. – and even the U.S. in the three decades post-WWII had higher tax rates, more government investment, less income inequality, and more growth as a result. European countries also beat the U.S. on health, life expectancy, happiness, economic mobility, etc. Conclusion: The evidence is overwhelming, and there isn’t much time to waste. Supply-side economics is a fantasy. Sources: 1. http://www.epi.org... 2. http://www.itep.org... 3. http://www.epi.org... 4. http://www.ctj.org... 5. http://pubs.aeaweb.org... 6. http://robertreich.org... 7. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...

Taxes on the Rich should be Increased

Raising taxes for individuals with income over $250,000 will have a hugely detrimental outcome. This is because a huge number of small businesses are legally taxed as individuals. Raising taxes may be manageable for wealthy individuals, but small firms will be crushed by such huge tax increases proposed by Obama. The effects of this will be hard felt across the country, since small firms employ half of all private sector employees in the USA. [1] These small companies will see their investing and spending power vastly reduced and will lead to thousands of redundancies that will ensure the American economy remains stagnant! Low taxes are the key to economic growth, not high taxes and government spending. [1] US Small Business Administration, FAQs, http://web.sba.gov/faqs/faqIndexAll.cfm?areaid=24 , accessed 8/10/2012

A progressive tax policy and a cut in military spending are what America needs.

With a national unemployment rate of 8.1% as of September 2012 [1], the United States economy has not recovered from the global financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that followed it. Governor Mitt Romney’s plan to cut taxes would lessen the burden on American citizens, and spur businesses and entrepreneurs to create more jobs. Governor Romney advocates a Reagan-esque devotion to laissez-faire economics, arguing that with substantial tax cuts and limited regulation on private businesses, the economy will naturally grow. Mr Romney states on his website that he would reduce government spending from its current level, around $33,000 per household, to around $25,000, while maintaining individual tax rates but decreasing rates for private corporations. [2] Regarding government programs, Governor Romney opposes President Obama’s spending, vowing to repeal Mr Obama’s healthcare act, saving the country around $95 billion, according to his website. He also has advocated cutting spending on social programs by 5 % (without touching national security spending) and pulling funding from the National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Legal Services Corporation. Furthermore, he plans to save up to $100 million by reducing foreign aid. The budget deficit will be reduced despite the proposed tax-cuts. This is because tax cuts will have a positive effect on growth, while the spending cuts and clamp down on loopholes and inefficiencies will also help cut the deficit. Overall, Mitt Romney’s economic policies boil down to taxing less and spending less, allowing the free market to work uninhibited. As with Obama, Romney’s position on this issue reflects his broader beliefs about the problems facing America. His plan to eliminate Title X Family Planning funding, for example, draws quite publicly from his opposition to abortion rights. While, also like Obama, his main concern is lowering the national deficit and paying back the national debt, the ways he would go about it are very different from those of his opponent, and realistically would benefit very different types of Americans. [1] Google Public Data, http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:US&fdim_y=seasonality:S&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+unemployment , accessed 8/10/2012 [2] Mitt Romney Website, http://www.mittromney.com/issues/spending , accessed 8/10/2012

Tax cuts and spending cuts are necessary for growth.

The tax cuts proposed by President Bush and passed by a Republican Congress ensured that real, after-tax income was up 15% by 2006. The Dow Jones hit record Highs during his time in office. These tax cuts were responsible for the creation of 6.6 million jobs, primarily in the private sector – real jobs producing real goods and providing real services not tax-payer funded sinecures to mask the reality of the economic situation.[i] [i] The White House, “Fact Sheet: Job Creation Continues – More than 6.6 Million Jobs Created Since August 2003”, 6 October 2006, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061006-1.html

Republicans are the best at stimulating economic growth

I accept

Corporate taxes should be lowered

Robert Creamer. "Why Congress Must End Bush Tax Breaks for the Rich." Huffington Post. July 28th, 2010: "The Republicans charge that eliminating these tax breaks on the rich -- and returning them to Clinton-era levels -- would be a 'job-killing tax hike in the midst of a recession.' Let's recall that while the Clinton-era tax rates applied to the rich in the 1990's, the economy created more than 22.5 million jobs in less than eight years -- the most jobs ever created under a single administration. Moreover, the Federal deficit had turned into a surplus for as long as the eye could see. The number of private sector jobs created during the Bush years: zero."

High taxes on rich has coincided with great economic growth

i didn't say taxes would make people not work. i said they would go overseas and they have. that's where manufacturing jobs have gone. a sales tax is not regressive because there is a prebate that ensures that poor people are untaxed and many goods, like food, are exempted. spending does not mean bad economy. that is correlation not causation. to produce something it must be made. the tax is revenue-neutral so we can still pay for roads

the federal income tax should be abolished

I don't have time to do this right now. I've been swamped at work. My arguments were going to be, in short -- 1. Lowering taxes on the rich increases income inequality. Income inequality is a serious problem. 2. Economic inequality has a huge set of social harms associated with it. Under almost any value criterion except "GDP growth," I win the debate on this point alone (e.g. if you use a happiness index or something like that to measure policies). 3. It's not clear that the "economic growth" from lowering taxes outweighs the "economic harm" from inequality. There's tons of evidence showing inequality actually slows growth, and possibly slows it even more than lowering taxes increases it. Given the uncertainty there, I'd say it's a clear vote for Con in this debate. Unfortunately, I don't have time to make the arguments. I'm gonna leave it up to 16k whether he wants to tie the debate and do this another time, or whether he wants to accept a win. Up to him. I'm okay with either one -- not in this for the win stats.

Erkki Koskelaa. "Tax progression is good for employment in popular models of trade union behaviour". Elsevier Science B.V. 1996 - Using three popular models of trade union behaviour — the monopoly union, the ‘right-to-manage’ and the efficient bargain model — as the framework for analysis, this paper provides the unambiguously negative answer that under plausible assumptions an increased tax progression lowers wages and is good for employment in all three popular models of trade union behaviour. This means that the effects of taxation appear to be very sensitive to the structure of labour markets."

Progressive taxes help increase employment rate

A 2% tax on EVERY purchase, retail, stock, currency market, commodities, etc., in the United States would raise enough more than enough money to fund the federal government, pay down the debt, give Everyone a rebate on the tax up to the poverty line if not more, maintain anti-poverty programs, and eliminate the income tax, while keeping the tax burden heavily on Those with higher levels of wealth and increasing economic growth. US GDP is ~$17 trillion a year according to the U.S. Commerce Department. US stock sales are ~$21 trillion a year according to the World Bank. Currency purchases in the US are ~$205 trillion a year according to the Foreign Exchange Committee. With a 2% tax, approximately $4.5 trillion in taxes can be raised, all existing income/payroll taxes could be repealed. The economic benefits of removing the burdens of the income tax from Consumers and replacing it with a simple 2% sales tax could reasonably be expect to be significant.The new tax would also be progressive in nature. Anyone with an income up to the poverty line would pay 0 tax and Anyone with income below the poverty line would have a negative tax rate, as well as being eligible for the payments made under the current earned income tax credit. As One's income increases, the amount of money available beyond the poverty to spend/invest/trade increases, raising the amount to tax.

Taxing all sales can result in economic benefits

As income levels rise, marginal propensity to consume tend to drop. Thus it is often argued that economic demand can be stimulated by reducing the tax burden on lower incomes while raising the burden on higher incomes.

Progressive tax rates stimulate higher consumer activity.

I would like to mention my opponent has dropped his argument that there should be a 13% national tax rate, it has been forgotten for several rounds (Cameron Round One). This is especially amazing since the 13% tax rate was one of the core essentials of his primary argument. In counter to Pro R5, he claims that I 'neglect' why these loopholes exist. This is getting ridiculous, it is obvious why the loopholes exist and I am not trying to say they shouldn't have loopholes. The point of my argument was to acknowledge that an elimination of a corporate tax would have no effects on prices due to most corporations already evading taxes through loopholes. Instead of trying to attack me there, Pro should of stated that all the ma n pa businesses would benefit from the elimination of the corporate tax. And yes, shareholders must pay taxes for if they play the game right, they can reap in hundreds of times more of what they payed in taxes, this has nothing to do with the corporate tax, what Pro is inferring is a completely different tax. In Pros second argument R5, he uses the law of demand to justify how a rise of consumerism would commence. Again most major corporations already pay no taxes, there will be no fall in prices. Not only that, but prices aren't just determined if a corporation is being taxed lower, other factors such as, demand and supply take hold. And lets say we do implement a NST a decrease in taxes for the consumer would be nice for them, but this would cancel out with a increase of taxes elsewhere like products and services. Instigators 3rd argument is irrelevant, so I shall not take this into consideration. Responding to Cameron A4 R5, he concludes that he was not informed that I was talking about the wealth inequality that would sneak in with implementation of the NST. This is funny. Not only did I talk about how I was referring to wealth inequality in Rezamee R3, but I also state how income inequality is correct as well. Let me explain how these both can be witnessed in the plight of the NST. If you have a home worth 350k you can be considered a wealthy individual for owning that home, wealth inequality is when one class gets better and better life quality while another class is either stagnant or decreasing in quality of life. With a national sales tax the rich would create more CAPITOL, capitol is considered by the federal government to be a type of income, rendering my statement of income inequality true. By allowing the wealthy to create more capitol you can see real estate prices rise as well as auto-motives, which would hurt the middle and poor classes. How would these prices rise? Corporate in mentioned markets would see a rise of wealthy individuals, in race to make more cash, we could see many corporations biding for profit in raising prices in said markets (housing n cars). I highly doubt the source you got for Tennessee having a surplus is legitimate, either that or, you manipulated the source/search for your benefit. Due to Tennessee being known to take more money from the federal government than them giving back in TAXES. In summary, the National Sales Tax will only bring unbalance. . unbalance in our market, imbalance in our classes, and imbalance in our government. Not only this, but if implemented, we could see a rise of a aristocratic government which could prove fatal to democracy as we know it.

Replacing the Current Tax Code With A National Sales Tax Will Reboot the American Economy

I accept my rivals challenge My challenge as I understand it is to defend the tax cuts of those who invest in industry. Investor in industry in America use money to build up many type of businesses. Many of these businesses are small up and coming "shops" that exist only do to the investment of others. These investor contribute to forming many new businesses which in turn hire other people as employees. These people then use the money they earn to spend on items they need and want this helps the economy. I argue against my rival in the idea that tax cuts on both parties are needed to create jobs in the private sector. It would not be better to give tax breaks to one or the other as they are both needed for an economy to work. Maybe even more so on investors part.

better to give Tax breaks to job/business creators paid by tax increases on capital gains generally

the burden of proof is shared. i say the federal income tax serves no purpose and should be abolished.

We affirm. Resolved, the United States should abolish the Capital Gains Tax. Framework: Economic benefits outweigh all others Our sole argument is small businesses Forbes Magazine in 2017 reports that small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, as they make up 99% of all firms and over half of the employment. Abolishing the capital gains tax would help small businesses in two ways. First, it encourages Venture Capitalism Specifically, Kai Ryssdal17 of Emory University explains that venture capitalists specialize in small business investment as they"re willing to take risks by investing in young firms. As a result, Ryssdal finds that over 20% of US Small Businesses are funded by venture capitalists. Conversely, for high growth start-ups, Mohendra Gupta of Stanford University explains that venture capitalists are important because they ensure long-term investments and better opportunities for future funding. Unfortunately, Ernst Young in 2015 of the Alliance for Savings and Investment reports that the capital gains tax discourages venture capitalism funding due to the high costs for a small reward. Ultimately, abolishing the capital gains tax is key to increasing venture capitalism as Paul Gompers14 of Harvard University explains that a 1 percent decrease in the capital gains tax increases venture capitalism by 3.8 percent. Second is through reducing investment abroad Diana Roth15 of the Manhattan Institute explains that high capital gains tax rates encourage the flow of investment outside of the US and into foreign markets. Accordingly, Todd Mason14 of the American Enterprise Institute finds that the United States has a capital gains tax rate over 10% higher than the OECD average. In fact, James Jackson17 of the Congressional Research Service concludes that investment abroad increased 4.5 times more under the high taxes of Obama compared to the low taxes of Bush. Fortunately, Eric Toder12 of the Brookings Institute finds that by abolishing the capital gains tax, the United States would become a more desirable location for small businesses because it would give them a fair competitive stance in the market against the current big businesses. Supporting small businesses is important because it creates jobs. Phil Krepen95 of the Institute for Policy Innovation finds that historically, small business growth has surged during times of low capital gains taxation. Increasing the growth of small businesses is imperative for job growth as David Robinson17 of Duke University explains that previously missed attempts at funding small businesses could provide for 85,000 new jobs annually. Accordingly, Michael Mazerov16 of the Center for Budget for Policy and Priorities reports that small business jobs are critical as they"re historically more sustainable and longer lasting. Karen Campbell of the Heritage foundation thus finds that repealing the capital gains tax will send a strong signal that the US is open for business. For all these reasons I am incredibly proud to affirm.

The United States should abolish the Capital Gains Tax.

Kudos to my opponent for providing a well thought out debate! Just to clarify to the voters, my opponents "Introduction" which states what he is arguing is suitable and will be the topic of judgment. First Argument: Taxing the rich ($250,000+) reduces job creation and company expansion.The problem with the U.S economy is that our government has their hand in the free market which is causing a kink in the natural course of capitalism. Our high unemployment rates and lack of investments are caused by uncertainty. When you have an inconsistent government trying to pass laws that directly affect the profitability of the private sector, investors become fearful and sell their stock. This eventually causes a bear market, and the combination of a bear market and an unstable government further depreciates the market and ultimately causes a recession. Companies rely on investors for productivity and profitability. When investors remove themselves from the market, it causes the companies debt/income ratio to increase. In order stay profitable, they remove expenses, most commonly in the form of employment. My point in the paragraph above, is that capitalism is a top to bottom method for economic and social well being. Capitalism only involves the private sector, so they are not included nor should they be included in our economy's success or failure. Therefore, it starts at the top after supply is created to fulfill demand. Those are the people who create jobs and have the power to stimulate our economy.Increasing the tax rates for those who receive $250,000+ will do absolutely nothing to enhance our economic situation. It is proposed that by increasing their tax rates, it will provide the government with 1.1 trillion in additional income. With the additional money, as my opponent stated, Obama is planning on building and fixing infrastructure, as well as provide money for public employees and allowing for middle class tax cuts. The problem with this, is that the demand created by the increased taxes have no long term affects in economic stimulation. Building infrastructure creates a temporary demand. It will provide temporary work to an outsourced, private sector company solely for the purpose of providing temporary jobs. However, because we have limited funds and limited infrastructure, it will inevitably end. People don't invest in something with limited value, so nothing but government spending and temporary work will become of it. With regards to public employees, the demand has always been there. They would simply alleviate some of the hiring freezes that were put in to place after layoffs. Regardless, public sector jobs don't provide for investment opportunities, so the market will continue on its current track. As my opponent stated, the low and middle class spend more than the upper class. This is true, however, the middle class only account for 10.6% of U.S taxes. The government can't afford to lower them to the degree where the increased saving and spending would even scratch the surface of improving our economy. As everything stated above suggests, taxing the rich provides our government with money, but does absolutely nothing to stimulate our economy. At best, it provides temporary work for infrastructure and places public workers back in to jobs they shouldn't have lost in the first place. Now let's talk about the individual. Small business owners make up about half of U.S employees. There are a little under 6 million small businesses who employ roughly 160 million people. The average U.S salary is about $27,000. Roughly 1 million of those small businesses make $500,000 to $1 million. For simplicities sake, we'll use $500,000 as an average small business owners income. 39% of 500,000 is nearly 200,000. Let's say we reduce the tax rate to 30%. Now we're at $150,000. By reducing the tax rate we are saving a small business owner $50,000, which is potentially two salaries and two less unemployed. If we did that for every small business owner we would have 12 million new jobs created. Let's say the business was at full staff and couldn't hire anyone else. The average person who makes that kind of money already has an established emergency fund. An emergency fund is typically 3 to 6 months of savings for emergency events that arise. All additional money either gets spent or is invested. $50,000 x 6 million business owners is 300 billion dollars that is put back in to our economy. Even if they save, a savings account is technically an extremely liquid loan to the bank, who takes the money you just deposted, and invests it. So regardless of whether the additional money is in a savings account, or a brokerage account, it is still circulating the market.Bottom line, taxing the rich will not stimulate our economy. It will provide $1.1 trillion to be spent on temporary jobs and jobs that should have never been lost in the first place. It will not be put back in to the market nor will it provide an environment to entice people to invest in the market. Keeping taxes the same or even reducing them, however, will allow capitalism to run its natural course. It will provide for billions of dollars to be put back in to the market that everyone of us depend on. New investors allow companies to expand in every aspect of their business. Stimulated businesses create jobs. Jobs reduce unemployment and allow for investing. Investing drives interest rates up, and our government reaps the benefits from all angles. More taxes are paid because there are more employees. They make more money off of corporate taxes because of expansion. And, it allows the federal reserve to charge higher interests because more money is flowing through the market.Sources:http://www.csmonitor.com...http://www.census.gov...http://www.sba.gov...

Hello, superkamal26, Nope my argument still stands. My point was never a pure calling for higher taxes but to show that an optimum point exists that it may be higher than the current level. It appears that you reused your stating premise, thus allow me to deconstruct it and rebut point by point. 3.0 “higher taxes … people will spend less money and save more” 3. 1 Assuming that we are talking about income tax, higher taxes do not encourage people to save. Instead, people would still spend according to the elasticity of the goods. In fact the reverse is true. Having less capital to spend, people would not be able to afford to save if they wish to maintain their current standard of living. 4.0 “When businesses make a lot of money … better it is for the economy.” 4.1 It is debatable that businesses would choose to reinvest back to the economy especially if there is an on-going financial crisis. Instead, businesses might want to build a hedge fund or worst, funnel their resources overseas. 4.2 You also assess that businesses create jobs. This might be true in the States. However, in some countries, the government is the main employer of jobs. This means in the short term, these workers would suffer a decrease in wages, this would lead to less consumer spending and, in the long term, lesser revenue for businesses.

Tax cuts for everyone

Pro 1. Reduced reward means less productivityThe assumptions of the individual utility model are ridicliously unrealistic and demonstrably untrue. People actually do care about the education system, for instance, even if they do not directly benefit from it. If other people do well, we do well too - and we know it. This is why the individual utility model needs to be supplemented with the collective utility model. But if what he says is true, surely countries with lower tax revenues (as a % of GDP) should have lower outputs per working hour, as well as lower competitiveness. In fact, the opposite relationship is true, as has been confirmed by numerous studies [1]. He mentions the free rider problem. The first problem is that many government services aren't technically public goods. Electricity, water, wastewater and so on are not non-excludible. The second problem is that even truely public goods, such as free-to-air television or roads, are not harmed by free riders. There is no (significant) marginal cost associated with a free rider and therefore there is no problem. Increasing the number of roads has never been shown in any study to increase unemployment - indeed, it creates employment as people build the road, and entrepreneurs use their road to expand their operations. My claim of debt funding the growth bubble in the United States is not unsupported, as I gave a source. If you believe CIA figures, the US is well behind France in terms of debt as a percentage of GDP - if you believe the IMF, the conclusion is the opposite [2]. The same is generally true of all Europe when compared to the United States. The difference is that the CIA is sponsored by the American government, who have an interest in fostering positive outlooks for their economy, as this encourages spending which leads to growth. The IMF is sponsored by nobody, and has numerous checks and balances to ensure this [3]. Therefore the IMF figures are more reliable. Now we turn to some academia. First, the Reinhart and Rogoff study, which is not influential but infamous. It made no allowance for an impact over time, was based on a tiny dataset (during which time tax rates were also high), did not prove or even provide evidence for causality, and worked on gross debt rather than public debt [4]. Second, Raj Chetty's top-down study. What this proved is that with fewer tax brackets (which produce "kinks"), people look more actively for jobs that puts them closer to the top end of a tax bracket, incurring switching costs and affecting the elasticity of labour supply. It does not have anything to do with increasing taxes if you read it properly, unless those fewer tax brackets put a worker in a higher tax bracket. This would therefore be an argument for making taxes more progressive, not less. Third, I couldn't open the link to your third study. It appears to be broken. Please provide a working link. My opponent claims that the studies look at how the economies performs when taxes are high or low, and therefore account for how the spending happens. This is a non sequiter. Spending on a potentially productive sector may not have a performance impact now, but it may ensure long-term prosperity (by which time taxes may have decreased and the whole thing is ascribed to lower taxes). Spending on producing more hamburgers now may boost performance, but it may ensure long-term costs (such as healthcare expenses - by which time taxes may have increased and the costs are ascribed to higher taxes). None of my opponent's studies take this into account. Pro 2. Incentive for tax evasionLooks like my opponent has dropped this point. Pro 3. EmigrationMy opponent now claims that taxes are very important. Can I assume this means he will be packing his bags for the Bahamas or Afghanistan? Seriously voters, how relevant is the tax rate when making your decision to move somewhere? Wouldn't you rather look to the crime rate, the quality of the healthcare and education systems, the level of pollution, whether you have a job there, and so on? Wouldn't firms rather look to the market size, cost of infrastructure, local cultural factors, local household income, and so on? It's about the profitability, as I say. Taxes are only a small consideration when assessing the profit potential of a market. Con 1. Govt makes better decisionsApparently the government does not respond to people's demands. Corporations certainly don't because profit can come without concensus (which is the measure of the demand of the people as a whole). Government cannot form without consensus, therefore they need to respond to what people want - or else people will vote in somebody who does give them what they want. In this way government does meet public demands. Con 2. EquityAverage income is a poor measure of standard of living and absolutely does not account for the middle class. In a country where one person earns a million dollars and ten people earn ten cents, the average income is about $91,000. In a country where 11 people have the some money divided equally between them, the average income is the same. However, in the former scenario there is a much higher standard of living than in the latter. Median income is also bad because it ignores everyone but the middle man - in a country of 5 people, it doesn't matter how poor persons 1 and 2 are so long as person 3 is reasonably well-off. Social injustice and poverty resulting from this inequality increases the crime rate, litters the streets with homeless and reduces standard of living. Getting them off the street and away from crime increases it. Con 3. Govt more efficientGovernments do have competition - other people who want political power capitalise on present government's mistakes. Politicians and corporations alike fall from grace. Con 4. Govt investments more likely to bolster external sources of standard of livingMy opponent tells you this is predicated on Con 1. This is false, but it doesn't matter because I won that point. Good luck for the final round! Sources1 - . http://cupe.ca...2 - . http://en.wikipedia.org...3 - . http://www.imf.org...4 - . http://www.epi.org...

High Tax Rates Hurt the Economy

Opposition believes that job creation is essential in developing a country’s economy. When more people are employed, the economy is more likely to boost the economy. Through government support, more of the population will be able to be entrepreneurs to create new businesses. Job creation is the redeeming quality of companies. The role of companies in the economy is to decrease the rate of unemployment and to see money being circulated in the economy, since people will have stable employment. Govts in general are obligated to regulate the economy as it is focused toward the people and to be free of any corruption or unethical practices. The role of taxes as well as government is to generate sufficient revenue to finance public sector activities toward the citizens, and employees. A government should prioritize its concerns about corps to better their citizens. Taxes also fulfill the need and desire for increased public services, and the capacity to levy taxes effectively. “No one likes taxes. People do not like to pay them. Govts do not like to impose them…While necessary, taxes impose real costs on society. Good tax policy seeks to minimize those costs.” Especially in situation with less regulation and tax cuts are going to be actuated, more corps seek chances to exploit their workers, manipulate their investments, and go against human rights. The investment and financial resources, which would be in the hands of big corps, does not fall to the hands of workers or citizens. Regulations and taxations are a means for governments to scrutinize companies and make sure that they have standards on employment and practices. Govts are not only involved in economics but also mandated to reflect many other social factors too including concerns about fairness and feasibility in dealing with their people. While individual corps is interested soley on profits, govt should examine the big picture and try to impact the economy holistically. 1-http://goo.gl/sohdy

Governments and Corporations should focus their economies towards individuals.

The American Jobs Act helps small businesses and is also set to significantly increase the number of jobs available to people. Small enterprise is particularly important in the creation of jobs because these businesses tend to be start-up businesses. Many start-ups are entrepreneurial in character, and succeed or fail on their ability to identify and exploit new markets. Increasing investment in new and emergency markets spurs the creation of additional jobs within those markets. Thanks to the cuts in payroll tax contained in the Jobs Act, many small businesses will stand to benefit by gaining some of the money paid to the government back. The President’s plan will also eliminate payroll taxes entirely if firms add new workers or increase the wages of their current workers. As such, there will be significant incentives for small businesses to hire more workers.1 Cuts to payroll taxes, combined with the other changes planned by the bill, are estimated to create 100,000 jobs a month for the next year, accompanied by a projected 1.25% increase in GDP. Moody’s Analytics is even more optimistic about the likely benefits to the American economy should the act pass, predicting growth rates at 2% and claiming that 1.9 million jobs will be created as a result.5

The American Jobs Act Helps Small Business and Creates Jobs

I would like to note that the title displays "Replacing the Current Tax Code With A National Sales Tax Will Reboot the American Economy". In your third paragraph (round 2) you tried to clear up my "stray" off topic, it isn't off topic, your question clearly states that the tax code will affect the economy; therefore, my claims on how the tax code will affect budget, and prices are justifiable due to chain events. Throwing that aside, I wish you luck again! Definitions Economy: An economy or economic system consists of the production, distribution or trade, and consumption of limited goods and services by different agents in a given geographical location. The economic agents can be individuals, businesses, organizations, or governments. (hence distribution and consumption) National Sales Tax: The idea is to tear up the federal income tax system, scrap it for good, and replace it with a national sales tax. Here's how it would work, and why every citizen ought to give it serious thought. The individual and corporate income tax, the capital gains tax, and the estate and gift taxes would all be eliminated. (Hence government revenue would be hindered due to elimination of certain taxes) C1: You state that the government can't affect income inequality, this is completely absurd. It's quite simple, with the current tax code, rich people create less capitol than with the NST (National Sales Tax), while a person on the bottom of the chain could save around 400 dollars if an 13% NST took place. It's quite obvious to see the income inequality, rich people would save thousands upon thousands while your average minimum wage worker would save 400 dollars. In summary, the gap would be even larger and tax revenues would shrink. C2: (counter to Cameron P3, R2) I hope you know that a National Sales Tax has never been used among any nation-state on the planet and it's for good reason. One the income inequality would be immense with any rate, if it's too low the rich are heavily favored and can save upwards of 50,000 dollars, too high and minimum wage workers are living under the poverty line, a reasonable person wouldn't want either. Two, the government would be in a budget crisis, in turn, they might take more loans.. not good and your idea of reducing government( Cameron, Third Paragraph Round 2) spending even further is effectively ludicrous, our government needs the money it gets and cutting the budget would just make our state on the planet worse (less military spending, less space exploration, less federal workers). Just to remind you, this does correlate to the tax code, a NST would be detrimental to government stature and will cause the unemployment of federal workers which can be linked to families/students. C3: (counter to Cameron P2, R2) Unless you do not fully understand what a NST is I provided a definition of it higher up on my argument. You state "The title of the debate begins with "Replacing the Current Tax Code"", meaning that there won"t be another federal tax levied besides the national sales tax. There would be no other taxes that the federal government could raise. The single tax would create a simple, stable tax policy that would enable consumers to boost the economy through increased sales activity." This is completely untrue a National Sales Tax will bring changes to other taxing methods. For one, if the federal government wants to make up the lost tax revenue they would, due to it being the most logical, raise the taxes on consumer goods, this is a widely accepted fact about the NST theory. Another thing you mentioned "Use the following example: A person who spends $100,000 per year will pay $13,000 in total sales tax while a person who spends $20,000 per year will pay $2600 in total sales tax. They are paying the same percentage of taxes but the rich person is paying $10,400 more in taxes than the poor person is." This is undoubtedly true; however, it only proves that the income of wealthy folks would be significantly higher due to them originally (with the income tax) paying 50 k plus! Thus proving my point that the income gap between rich and poor would be even higher. Some points I would like to add, a 13% tax is preposterous and no member of congress would ever vote to pass a bill containing such a rate, the 23% tax rate has seen light in a bill and would more likely pass in congress. Also you fail to realize that a National Sales Tax wont apply to all transactions making it more of a burden than an omnipotent solution. For example, a NST will only be applied to business to household purchases, there wont be taxes on business to business purchases. I would like to mention that a sales tax will create capitol for the average consumer, but this comes with a cost. One companies can dodge out of this, two it will create vast income inequality with the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, three the government is too big for it to take any budget hits now; especially with the rise of China and other powers we need our government to do the best it can.

Since there are over 100 taxes, I will pick 7 that we will debate. The 7 are: The Income Tax. The National Retail Sales Tax. The Payroll Tax. Property Taxes. Excise Taxes (on things like Cigarettes, Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms, etc...). Corporate Taxes. Gasoline and Carbon Taxes. Now for the opening debates: Tax 1 (The Income Tax): I will split this into two parts. First Point: Raising the Income Tax right now will kill the economy. This is simple economics. Right now, the more consumer money spent, the less we will be in an economic slump. Consumer buying increases aggregate demand, which in turn increases supply, thus raising GDP. Raising the income tax would take money away from consumers that they would otherwise spend. "Since the economy is already growing so slowly, why in the world would we want to implement a 3.8 trillion dollar tax hike by letting the Bush tax cuts expire? That would be like planting a steel-toe boot to the skull of the economy when itï¿½ï¿½ï¿½‚ï¿½ï¿½„ï¿½s already on the ground, bleeding.": http://rightwingnews.com.... Second Point: The Income Tax is too Progressive. The disprarity between the rich's tax rate and the poor's tax rate is astounding. The top 1% pay a 45% income tax, while the bottom 47% pay no income taxes. Not to mention, raising taxes on the rich would prevent money that would have previously gone into creating new businesses or investing in new ones, thus creating jobs, would be gone. "The rich in America obviously have lots of money, but there are simply not enough of them to fund the presidentï¿½‚ï¿½ï¿½s preferred level of spending.""They find that tax increases tend to reduce economic growth, stating that ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½‚ï¿½ï¿½"tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output,ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½‚ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ as ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½‚ï¿½ï¿½"an exogenous tax increase of one percent of GDP lowers real GDP by almost three percent.ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½‚ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½: http://american.com.... "Importantly, any meaningful increases in taxes from personal income would have to come from lower and middle income families, as 90% of all personal taxable income is generated below the taxable income level of $35,000.: http://www.devvy.com.... Decrease taxes, help the economy. Tax 2 (The National Retail Sales Tax): Again, I will split this up into two points. First Point: Raising the National Retail Sales Tax right now will kill economic growth. This has a more profound effect during a recession than raising the income tax does. This charges people extra to help the economy! How silly is that? If we raise the sales tax, the Government would be in essence encouraging people not to buy, and therefore, not to help the economy! "This tax increase would take over one billion dollars out of the hands of North Carolina working families and put it back into government coffers.""They seem to forget that the sales tax affects everyone, and has a greater impact on working people and senior citizens on fixed incomes. Everyone loses more money if we raise the sales tax, including those who are unemployed.": http://www.beaufortobserver.net.... Second Point: The sales tax is exteremely unnecessary expect in extreme inflation periods. The sales tax is unneccesary even in a normal economy because you are still penalizing the consumer for shopping. Why would you do that? That is what keeps the economy afloat. Decrease taxes, help the economy. Tax 3 (The Payroll Tax): I will split this into two points. First Point: The Payroll Tax is extremely unneccesary. Most of the revenue drawn from the payroll tax goes back to them in later years through social security, but in small amounts. Social Security should be to the choice of the worker. If the worker does not want social security in later life, than the Federal Government should not forceibly take his money to fund a project that he or she does not even want. It is not the Government's Obligation, Job, or Duty to make people save. That is the individual's decision, and they have the right to choose for themselves. Second Point: A cut of the payroll tax is good for small businesses. "You have to spend money to take advantage of that tax credit, but if a small business is thinking about expanding, it provides more certainty for them to schedule an expansion or upgrade.": http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com.... Small business has taken the brunt of the recession's fury, and an increase in the payroll taxes would make the financial and economic situation even worse. In fact, cutting them would help the economy in many ways. Tax 4 (Property Taxes): I will not go in to much detail on these taxes, but they are even more unnecessary than the top three. Why would you tax someone on the amount of land they own or the inheritance they receive? Especially the inheritance taxes. I mean the poor receive inheriatances too. It' is not just the rich. "It (property taxes) doesn't work so well when it is used to redistribute wealth on a grand scale. ": http://www.tax.com.... "The tax (the estate and inheritance taxes) also is very expensive to comply with. A 1992 National Tax Journal study found the compliance cost was $1 for every $1 raised. Combining these costs with the reduction in output it causes, it is clear the estate tax is a burden on the U.S. economy.""The estate tax makes it difficult to make economic decisions and results in unintended consequences, the burden of which falls primarily on the lower and middle classes. Rather than giving in to the politics of envy, we should have a tax structure that encourages innovation and saving. That is how the poor will become wealthy.": http://www.mrc.org.... The main reason for these taxes is to tax the rich even more. Which one, I have proven will worsen the economy, and two, these taxes don't just effect the targeted rich. Tax 5 (Excise Taxes): At first, they seem like a good idea to deter alcohol, smoking, and other bad habits. But when looked at closer, the same effect is going to happen as the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s. People are going to start selling "tax-exmept" alcohol and cigarettes underground, which will just one, increase crime, and two, have no effect on the usage of alcohol and cigarettes whatsoever. Also, why is it the Government's job to discourage bad behavior? (I mena stuff that is not illegal). Why is it the Government's job to stop people from drinking or smoking? If the people are dumb enough to do those things, than they should suffer the consequences. Is kind of a tax is unconstitutional because the Government is stepping over it's bounds. Tax 6 (Corporate Taxes): These taxes have the same effect as taxing the rich. They kill the economy. If an economy is trying to recover from a recession, than a decrease in income and sales taxes coupled with a decrease in corporate taxes will not only allow consumers to buy more, but it will allow producers and distributors to sell more to keep up with the increasing demand. Taxing profit is bad enough. Taxing the entire business is terrible. Why would you tax a business that is making a loss? And taxing profit is preventing the business from re-investing the profit back into the business to increase wages, fix equipment, and produce more. "Corporations should NOT be taxed. This is beneficial to the corporation, consumer, economy, and government tax revenue.""If taxes go down, product prices go down (Think Wal-Mart). Corporate taxes are where the consumer gets reamed. Every purchase you make, you are paying corporate taxes.": http://visiontoamerica.org... benefits of no corporate taxes are simple. No taxes mean cheaper COGS, which mean cheaper goods and services for the consumer. Cheaper goods and services for the consumer mean your money goes further and you can purchase more. The more you purchase, the more products need to be made, which eventually requires corporate investments and employee hiring. Eventually, you have more business generated for corporations which eventually lowers prices to stay competitive, higher employment which means more spending in the economy, and lastly a higher tax revenue from the larger economy and increased employment.: http://godfatherpolitics.com.... Tax 7 (The Gasoline and Carbon Taxes): Raising, or even having, a Gasoline Tax makes the price of Gasoline already higher than it should be. Gasoline could be a lot lower if the tax was gone. Now of course, the goal of these taxes is like the excise taxes, so that people will use less gasoline. But one, we do not need them right now, and two, they don't work. "Raising the gas tax would heap yet another burden on New Jersey residents and employers already struggling to afford to live and do business here.": http://www.politickernj.com.... Now the Carbon Tax will fail. It will not discourage people from using Carbon. But the real big one is the taxes on business using carbon and coal in production. This will yet again hurt the economy due to lower production. And this system of Carbon taxes does not even work. "Fear of dangerous Global Warming from man-made CO2 is dissipating with more recent scientific evidence and exposure of much bias, exaggeration of dangers and neglect of benefits of warming in existing scientific consensus. Any warming from CO2 is likely to be a harmless < 1 Deg Celsius by 2100. Higher predictions are only computer model speculations, arguably due to the modeller's confessed ignorance of natural climate cycles." "Even if CO2 were dangerous and we reduced it successfully in Australia or even globally, there is no physical evidence that it would have a significantly beneficial effect on climate.": http://www.nocarbontax.com.au.../. Taxes in General: I have shown on several occasions that most taxes are either unnecessary, worthless, or harmful to the economy. They need to be cut to help the economy and to help business.

Taxes should be Significantly Cut

I argue that high tax rates do hurt the economy. I will employ both theoretical and empirical support for this assertion. Why High Taxes Hurt The Economy? Higher tax rates hurt the economy because they discourage productive behavior. If labor taxes were to be higher, then labor would be less desirable relative to leisure. This is because the higher taxes on labor would reduce the reward for labor. This would reduce the incentive for people to choose work over leisure. The same is true of capital taxation. If the government were to tax capital higher, the potential reward for successful investment would be reduced. This would then reduce the level of investment. Reduced investment leads to less capital reinvestment, less new jobs, less new equipment, and lower productivity. These higher tax rates would also reduce the potential reward from entrepuenership. This would mean that higher taxes would lead to less new businesses and less entrepeunerial ventures in the economy. Furthermore, taxes also deeply distort economic behavior. When tax rates are higher, the value of tax deductions are much higher. When the tax rate is 80%, there is more reason to try to avoid taxes through deductions than at a tax rate of 40%. This leads to many misused economic resources. Right now, our tax code has a full deduction for employer provided Health Plans. Due to this, 59% of Americans are on Employer Provided Health Plans. This has led to extreme distortions in our Health Care System, as it kept patients from buying individualized Health Care Plans. High tax rates also encourage tax dodging. Billions of dollars go to tax lawyers to help people avoid taxes. These are wasted resources that could go to more productive uses. If tax rates were lower, there would be less incentive to use resources to avoid taxes, meaning that more resources would go towards more productive ventures. Finally, high tax rates in one country, particularly high progressive tax rates, typically lead to a many companies and high skill workers emigrating to lower tax countries. This leads to job loss in high tax countries (as some corporations move to lower tax countries, brining jobs with them) and productivity loss, as some of the most productive and innovative members emigrate to lower tax countries. Empirical Evidence on High Tax Rates and Economic GrowthEmpirical Evidence generally supports the notion that higher tax rates reduce labor supply, and, therefore, economic output. Nobel Prize Winning Economist Edward Prescott looked at the difference in labor supply between the G-7 Countries and found that different tax rates are responsible for almost allof the difference in labor supply between countries: "Americans now work 50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians. ' This was not the case in the early 1970s, when the Western Europeans worked more than Americans. This article examines the role of taxes in accounting for the differences in labor supply across time and across countries; in particular, the effective marginal tax rate on labor income. The population of countries considered is the G-7 countries, which are major advanced industrial countries. The surprising finding is that this marginal tax rate accounts for the predominance of differences at points in time and the large change in relative labor supply over time. " These results go a long way in showing that high tax rates do, in fact, reduce labor supply over time. Another common result in empirical studies is that the Corporate Tax is particularly harmful to growth. This is a common result found in numerous studies from the OECD, World Bank, Joint Comittee on Taxation, Oxford, and a number of reputable independant economists. These studies typically find that high corporate tax rates reduce investment and entrepeunership. On top of this, high corporate taxes typically send corporations to lower tax nations. High tax rates also tend to correlated with lower growth rates. One empirical study on this was published in the Cato Journal, which, after controlling for numerous factors, found that high marginal tax rates have significant negative impact on growth in US states: "This article explores the impact of tax policy on economic growth in the states within the framework of an endogenous growth model. Regression analysis is used to estimate the impact of taxes on economic growth in the states from 1964 to 2004. The analysis reveals a significant negative impact of higher marginal tax rates on economic growth. The analysis underscores the importance of controlling for regressivity, convergence, and regional influences in isolating the effect of taxes on economic growth in the states. "This study is not an exception to the rule. There are numerous studies finding that taxes have a negative impact on economic growth (look at links to see numerous other studies). Conclusion Based on both these theoretical and empirical facts, I conclude that taxes have strong negative effect on the economy. Sources. http://en.wikipedia.org...(for Prescott study on Taxation and Labor Supply) . http://www.minneapolisfed.org... (for CATO study on Income Taxes and Growth) . http://www.cato.org...(for numerous other studies that show high taxes hurting growth) . http://pirate.shu.edu...

High Tax Rates Hurt the Economy

Job creation is much more than a business expanding and in need of more workers. Investor are the reason for new companies to exist. Investment banking that are to the use of sales of bonds and stock and commerical banking that give out loans to small business these are to different types of investment along with the private investor, jobs do get created. These are in the form of small business. It is a fact that the average small business owner had to get a loan (a form of investment) from a bank. This is of course do to the average savings per household is 6000 USD http://www.score.org... The number of small businesses in the United States has increased 49% since 1982. http://www.sba.gov... This shows the work of investments.

First taking a look at the Con BOPs: 1) Pro has not put forth a weighing mechanism. He cites reduction of poverty, boost to the economy, etc as positive effects, while a higher income tax as a negative. So what's the net benefit? You can't add poverty+economy-taxes, because none of them are in the same units. He needs to present and defend a utility function. 2) See Con Arguments Section 3) Pro specifies the USFG as his agent of action. He doesn't explain why this is a good choice. The Con position is that the USFG would be unlikely to implement his policy faithfully because it is inconsistent with their interests. Pro is offering politicians an opportunity to help poor black people. AT&T is offering them $45,000,000 [1]. Depending on how heavily Pro contests this point, I can dig up more complete evidence showing the ulterior motives of the vast majority of politicians. Pro himself states that there is already a law for lowest unemployment, but that "this law is completely meaningless and is never enforced.". If another law to increase employment goes completely ignored, why would his be any different? Why do we need a new one? === Pro Arguments === 1) Reduction/Elimination of Poverty Pro thinks that if everyone can get paid at least the minimum wage, it will alleviate poverty. However, the minimum wage is only nominal, so even though he's putting more money in the hands of consumers, he's decreasing companies' net revenue. There's no way companies can expand production. Its like taking water out of the deep end of the pool and putting it into the shallow. Similarly, if you taxed poor people and gave it to the rich, nothing would change. Sure, the poor would have less money to buy stuff with, but the rich could lower their prices to achieve the same volume. Their profits would be the same because instead of getting money up front, they're just getting a portion of it automatically. This is why we see no coalition of rich dudes, but rather individual industries lobbying for individual benefits. The only redistributionist policies that can benefit their recipients are asymmetric. i.e. if the money went from all the poor to just a few of the rich. The few rich would also have to lower their prices, but they are getting a proportionately more cash from the redistribution. It is other rich people who would be hurt by this policy, because they must move to lower price levels without compensation. My point is that wealth redistribution is more complicated than moving around green bits of paper. You have to look at underlying production structures. At best, this achieves a more equal distribution of a fixed basket of goods among consumers. It is unclear if this equality of poverty is preferable to the status quo. 2) Boost to the Economy The increase in consumer spending is offset by the increase in taxes. So one would expect the net economic effect to be, at best, zero. 3) Creation of Competition and Employers for Workers Since the new government jobs already pay minimum wage, and there is an infinite supply of government jobs, all minimum wage jobs in the private sector would disappear overnight. The only people working in the private sector would be those who can earn higher than minimum wage. As a result, the private sector would become crippled, and its real productivity would fall. Even if it doesn't destroy all minimum wage private sector jobs, the artificial increase in working conditions would also raise production costs for employers, increasing the price of goods and services. Higher prices for food and clothing is bad for other poor people. There's no point in paying higher wages if you're just going to get proportionately higher prices. 4) Increase In Standard of Living If Pro is right about any of 1, 2, or 3, then yeah. But lets have a look at some numbers. 9% of the US workforce is unemployed [2] and there are 154.5 mn Americans in the workforce [3]. According to the BLS' retarded excel spreadsheets [4], you gotta be rockin' around $25k/yr to be above poverty as a 4 person household. .09*154.5e6*25e3= $350bn/year. Now Pro is trying to make his case on humanitarian grounds. According to the Red Cross, it cost less than $1 to save a life through vaccinations [5]. It is unlikely that this will scale, considering that there are not 350 billion people, but there are a myriad of deadly problems that would be very cheap to fix like Vitamin deficiency [6]. Considering that 25,000 people die every day from malnourishment [7], a full employment program for Americans [8] is not anywhere close to the most humanitarian use of money. 5) So what's the catch? Higher tackses on rich people mostly. If they don't break even on Pro's tax scheme, they will have less money with which to invest. But capital development is entirely dependent upon investment and benefits the whole country by producing greater quantity and quality of goods. For example, if Exxon has to pay more in taxes, it will have less money to produce oil. This will lower the supply of oil, and increase prices for everyone. Additionally, the higher tax rate reduces the incentive to invest and take risks at all because the payoffs are now lower. So there will be less capital development, like factories and machines. It may also encourage companies to move operations offshore, further harming the US economy. === Con Arguments === 1) Public sector jobs Are unspecified by Pro. What would people be doing? States cannot engage in economic calculation, because they do not have prices. Because they can never know what enterprises are profitable, they will fail to allocate resources as efficiently as the private sector. They are essentially blind. AFAICS, this will create a new class of state dependents, with no private experience, and therefore highly diminished marketability. It may even discourage the pursuit of higher education, unpayed internships or apprentice positions, because Pro is providing a permanent easy-mode for everyone. 2) Depending on how Pro answers above, maybe more. I also don't want to turn this into a character-constrained debate. So I'll end here! I don't doubt for a second that Pro isn't well meaning, but poverty is a complex issue. My opposition to his policy isn't out of some fetish for Kapitalists or Ayn Rand. I don't like feel-good politics, I like results. I'm not saying "screw poor people", I'm saying this won't work and we need to try something else. [1] http://www.opensecrets.org... [2] http://www.google.com... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://www.census.gov... [5] http://redcrosschat.org... [6] http://www.oohoi.com... [7] http://www.newsweek.com... [8] http://images2.memegenerator.net...

A Full Employment Program Would Be Beneficial for the United States

In order to decide whether or not policy makers should have high or low tax policies, we should look to the empirical evidence regarding taxation and its relationship to economic growth and income growth. It turns out, the majority of empirical research has found increasing taxation leads to negative impacts on economic growth, which can be measured as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These negative impacts are not just coincidence, even when researchers control for other factors such as government spending, business cycle conditions, and monetary policy, they still reach the same results. In a study titled, "The robust relationship between taxes and U.S state income growth", published in the National Tax Journal, the author, Robert Reed, concluded that: "My analysis suggests that tax policies take time to work its full effects on the economy. When the specification is sufficiently general to pick up these effects, a negative relationship between taxes and income growth emerges." (1) Additionally, a study of 15 developed countries by the International Monetary Fund found that "a 1 percent spending cut has no significant effect on growth, whereas a 1 percent tax increase reduces GDP by 1.3 percent after two years." (1) In contrast, a study published in the American Economic Review found that "A 1 percentage point cut in the average personal income tax rate raises real GDP per capita by 1.4 percent in the first quarter and by up to 1.8 percent after three quarters." (1) These are just some peer-reviewed study which show negative impacts of taxation on economic growth. Even more can be found at the first link cited. So why do higher taxes result in decreased economic growth? Perhaps it is because a dollar in the hands of the private sector is spent more efficiently than in the hands of the government. Perhaps it's because taxation reduces the incentive for people to work and invest. Theoretically, taxing someone for hiring a worker, or investing in capital goods, etc basically makes it more expensive to do those things, and thus, less of it will be done. This explanation makes sense and is loosely confirmed by the results of empirical research. (1) http://taxfoundation.org...

Taxes and the U.S. Government

"My opponent states that by NOT solving ALL factors of the economic crisis is a waste of time and money. I disagree, helping people getting back to work is a good thing, it might not solve the entire economic crisis, but I think its a step in the right direction. " My opponent neglects the fact that although this might create, jobs for the united states, it would require constant regulation by the U. S government, which in turn would require money to allow for regulation. "Estimates of the costs imposed on the national economy by federal regulation reach $500 billion a year. In Indianapolis, that means more than $1 billion a year is sapped from our local economy just to comply with federal regulations. " (. http://www.cato.org...) As of right now, the government cannot spend money on an idea that simply resolves a small sector of the United States economic crisis, rather, it needs to focus on the bigger picture (a way to repair huge amounts of the economic crisis. ) "This idea can actually save the government money because they are receiving money from the corporations for supplying these workers. " Like i mentioned earlier, the enforcement and regulation of new taxes will cost the United states huge amount of money thus increasing other taxes placed upon the United States citizens. my opponent failed to provide us with evidence as to how much this resolution could save the government or even how much to charge these companies. For this reason, passing this resolution would be a huge risk, as we are unaware as to how effective it could be. In addition, to spending money on enforcing and regulating this tax, the United States government would have to develop a means to punish whatever company fails to pay the money as well as spend more money enforcing these consequences. In conclusion, my opponent has provided no specific information on how effective this resolution might be and how to properly regulate the tax with minimum cost.

Job Creation in the US - Tax outsourcing, Put unemployment beneficiaries to work

IntroductionIt's my pleasure to debate this subject with you. I will be arguing that although cutting taxes itself on the Wealthiest Americans would worsen the economy, the usage of those funds by the government would have a more positive effect on the economy than letting the rich keep their taxes. Here are some assumptions before going forward.Assumptions-The "super rich" are the people making over $250,000 a year, who are currently (under the Bush tax cuts ) taxed at 35%, which Obama has proposed to raise to 39% [1] [2]. - Economic stagnation is partially caused by business uncertainty over federal deficit [3].First ArgumentThe primary problem with the current economic situation is the high unemployment figures and lack of investment. Tax cuts for the rich do not encourage them to invest in their businesses. When a business person decides whether to hire a new employee, it is a simple calculation as to whether that new employee will produce more wealth through productivity than the employee costs in wages. So if the economy is bad, a business person is not going to invest in a new employee with their higher tax return, they are going to save it- which does nothing for hiring unemployed workers and therefore nothing for the economy. Economic growth and hiring is facilitated by demand. Say a business man runs a restaurant. With a bad economy and nobody in the community wealthy enough to eat out, he is not going to hire a new employee regardless of his tax rates because it will be a net loss for him. He'll take his 3% tax cut and keep it in the bank, where it does not see the economy. But, if economic conditions improve and more individuals have disposable income, more people will eat out at the restaurant, increasing the businessman's revenues, and thus hiring a new employee would be a net gain for his company. Therefore, the rich do not create jobs through increased supply, but the middle-class consumer enables the business man to hire through demand. Moreover, the lower and middle classes in America spend over 100% (accumulating debt) of their yearly income, whereas more wealthy Americans tend to save more, and thus spend less income into the economy [4]. So, if the US government raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans by 3 or 4%, and exclusively spent that revenue on public works, infrastructure, middle class tax cuts and public employees, the recipients of that revenue would be more likely to spend that money back into the economy (since lower and middle classes spend more than upper classes), thus creating demand, and thus inventivizing the wealthy in America to invest in new employees, which benefits the rich, poor, and everyone in between. I'll expand on this next roundSecond ArgumentThis one is pretty simple. Polls and studies overwhelmingly show that the US debt and deficit are preventing businessmen and the wealthy from investing (see assumption 2 and source 3). The present tax cuts on the rich have, since their signings in 2001 and 2003, prevented 3.9 trillion dollars to be collected by the treasury, which added considerably to the deficit and debt, and every year the tax cuts are in place adds 200-300 million to the deficit [5]. The GOP talking point that the growth caused by the tax cuts actually increases revenues has never occurred once in US history. And with the Bush tax cuts being the single greatest contributor to the deficit since 2001, it is reasonable to assume that the lowering of tax rates on the rich have weakened the economy over despair over the deficit, and by raising taxes and thus decreasing the deficit, the economy of the US would actually see growth through certainty. I'll expand more, and good luck! [1] http://www.taxfoundation.org... [2] http://money.cnn.com... [3] http://www.oregonlive.com... [4] http://tutor2u.net...[5] http://www.csmonitor.com...

Taxing the rich will benefit our economy

Income tax creates a situation in which everyone is effectively enslaved to the government for a percentage of their total work time during the year. For example, if someone is required to pay 16% of their earnings in income tax, they have been paid for 84% of the work they have done while the government has been paid for the other 16%. Abolishing income tax means that people are able to work for themselves 100% of the time and therefore this increases individual incentive to work.

Abolishing income tax increases individual incentive to work.

"It would not be better to give tax breaks to one or the other as they are both needed for an economy to work" this seems to be the essense of con's argument. he earlier says that investors in general "spend on items they need and want and this helps the economy". i don't dispute this. all i'm arguing is that it's better to give tax breaks to those we specifically are creating jobs and new businesses, as that is in society's better interest than investments in general. other investments would obviously be made, given people will always want profit... even if they are not made as much. what we will have on balance is more jobs and new businesses (more stimulant for the economy) per dollar the taxpayer spends. con has not shown why it's better to spread a set money around to everyone, as opposed to focusing it on job business creators more specifically. he just asserts some benefit that would be caused if we did, not giving an over all picture.

Thanks con , I must reiterate however how close I have brought Con to agree with me on this topic.I will make my points breif and to the point Agian Con's entire case falls on one statement he supposes that a 10% flat tax rate would not be a feasible way to fund our goverment.Con himself says that our lowest income bracket is 10% so under my proposed flat tax rate indeed the entire middle class would be saveing money and paying less tax.From statistics...americans currently spend $300 billion a year in tax preparation costs, to navigate a tax code that is thousands of pages long.Thats right $300 Billion.From the further economic growth that would result from a flat tax it would surely be a better if not equal way of funding our goverments needs and lower the unemployment rate as a result adding jobs would not only cover the tax given by the wealthy but it would give a surplus and spurr economic growth.America could and would be doing much better with a flat tax rate,that is if we want to create jobs , reduce our debt and grow as a nation.Thanks.Sources 1)Logic2)Cons own arguements3)http://www.usnews.com...; Americans currently spend $300 billion a year in tax preparation costs, to navigate a tax code that is thousands of pages long.

Instituting A Flat Income Tax In America

When taxes are lowered, the government has less income. When the government is poor, it cannot fulfill all its duties rightfully. When the people see that the government is poor, they become even more conservative and don't spend their money. If they do not spend their money, the econonmy cannot be stimulated and the status of it will become worse. Therefore, lowering taxes hurts our economy.

Lowering Taxes is not Beneficial to the Economy

Abolishing income tax increases individual incentive to work.

Basic income tax should be abolished

Whilst successful individuals may be confronted with an increased tax bill, the American Jobs Act also significantly reduces taxes on businesses. This is especially important with respect to innovative risk as it is businesses, not individuals, which bear the main brunt of risk following innovation. As such, it is reasonable to assume that the effect of higher tax on the rich will often be negated, with respect to innovation by the lower tax on businesses.1

The American Jobs Act Will Not Help Successful Businesses

Motoko Rich. "Employers Say Jobs Plan Won’t Lead to Hiring Spur." New York Times. September 9th, 2011: "David Catalano, who helped found Modea, a digital advertising company in Blacksburg, Va., said that he was wary of the president’s pledge to ask the 'wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share.' His company was organized as an S Corporation, in which profits are passed through to shareholders, so it would face higher taxes under the president’s proposal, he said. He added: 'My partner and I have reinvested 100 percent of the profits that our agency has made over the last five years back into the company. If the government takes a bigger share of that from me, it directly impedes my ability to grow the agency.'"

Increasing taxes on successful corps will do harm.

Capital gains should be taxed in full as they are earned, not when realized. Capital gains are income, not really different in substance from interest, rents, and royalties: other kinds of capital income that are taxed as ordinary income. Reducing/Abolishing Capital gains negatively affects the economy The difference in tax rates between capital gains and other income is a prime factor behind individual income tax shelters. Since ordinary income is taxed at rates up to 35 percent while long-term capital gains are taxed at a maximum rate of 15 percent, there is a 20 percent reward for every dollar that can be transformed from high-tax compensation, say, to lowtax capital gains. The basic idea is to make an investment that generates deductions, such as for interest, lease Thus, the lower tax rate on long-term capital gains produces several distortions: (1) It encourages investments purely for tax purposes that would not make any sense without the tax savings, draining capital away from other more productive investments. (2) Since tax shelters that can pass legal muster or escape detection tend to be extremely complex, brilliant financial planners, 5 lawyers, and accountants turn their talents to this lucrative, but socially unproductive line of work. (3) Similarly, the enormous tax savings available likely lure too many highly productive people into the private equity business, drawing them away from other potentially more socially valuable enterprises. Lower capital gain rates enables the oversize financial sector to wield enormous influence on the U.S. economy. It encourages corporate executives to take stock-based compensation, because it"s taxed more lightly than the same amount of salary income would be. This practice encourages executives to obsess over short-term stock-market performance at the expense of the long-term success of the corporation. Increasing rates will decrease inequality In 2016, for example, nearly 76 percent of all capital gains went to households earning more than $1,000,000, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center. And 96.2 percent of the households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution are white. Preferential treatment for capital gains meant that the federal government forewent $109.5 billion in taxes in 2016, a giveaway second only to the tax exclusion for employers" contributions to employees" health plans. If capital gain tax rates were raised, then the rich will be taxed their fair share. More money will be given to the government, which will allow more social programs to be implemented that will aid the poor in supporting their family and improving the American economy in general since more money also translates into more importing, exporting, production,etc.

The United States Should Abolish The Capital Gains Tax

Any system which attempts to promote equality by giving low income people money will necessarily create a disincentive to work. The negative income tax reduces that disincentive because there is a reward to work on the margins. Suppose that the negative tax rate is 40%; for every dollar that a low income person earns within the negative tax bracket they will take home 60c (the remaining 40c is deducted from the supplementary income payment, as the 'No' argument correctly identifies). Under a system with an unemployment benefit however the incentives are far worse; as the benefit is removed or substantially reduced if any work is taken up. This means that in order for the incentive to take a job to exist the incomes have to be substantially higher than the unemployment benefit (i.e. you actually LOSE money if you take up a part time job); which is unlikely as the vast majority of people on the unemployment benefit lack the skills to earn high incomes.

It would encourage low income earners to work.

My opponent states that my idea does not solve the general economic crisis, I never claimed it would. I am simply trying to solve ONE of our problem within our current economic crisis. My opponent states that by NOT solving ALL factors of the economic crisis is a waste of time and money. I disagree, helping people getting back to work is a good thing, it might not solve the entire economic crisis, but I think its a step in the right direction. My opponent states that by NOT solving ALL factors of the economic crisis is a waste of money. This idea can actually save the government money because they are receiving money from the corporations for supplying these workers.

"Flat Tax: What Would It Do For Ireland?". Business and Finance Magazine. 5 May 2005 - "A recent study of a revenue-neutral flat tax proposal for the US (Ventura, 1999) shows that, due to the positive effects on individual incentives to invest in productivity enhancing learning and greater hours of labour supply, a flat tax system yields up to a 9% increase in the aggregate efficiency adjusted labour force.[...] In the Irish case, this is equivalent to adding over 180,000 workers with an average productivity without incurring additional social and welfare costs of actually increasing Ireland's population. The more productive the segment of population, the higher are the increases."

Progressive taxes disincentivize hard work and productivity

Point 1: The Rich make a significant contribution to GDP through buying. They buy big ticket items such as mansions, yachts, expensive cars, etc... All of the purchases get factored in to GDP. The more a country spends, the higher it's GDP is. Lowering taxes for the rich would allow them to buy more of these big ticket items, which would thus increase GDP. "The top 5%, those making about $150,000 or more, account for 37% percent of all consumer spending, about as much as the bottom 80% put together."[3] Point 2: The Rich create businesses. Most of the big and medium sized corporations are owned by rich people. If you decrease taxes, that is more the rich can spend on businesses. The more they spend on businesses, the more products that are available at a lower price (which intices consumers to buy, especially in a recession), which in turn increases GDP. Also, the rich can give raises to their employees, spend money to fix working equipment, and make the employee feel more comfortable and safe. Also, they will expand or create new businesses, which increases GDP and decreases unemployment. "The study was published in 2010, and Sinai says he still stands by it. The results are dramatic. Right now, economists say the economy needs to create about 2.4 million jobs a year. Sinai found that eliminating the capital-gains tax alone, with no other policy change, would create 1.3 million per annum, or more than half the total sought. Real gross domestic product would increase by 0.23 percentage point a year. The jobless rate would drop by as much as 0.7 percentage point in a year. And productivity gains would increase by 0.5 percentage point a year."[1] This means that the more money businesses have, the more they will expand, thus creating jobs. If the rich had more money, the same principal would apply. "Lower taxes on the rich will allow them to invest more money into the the US marketplace (obviously if they are smart enough to accumulate and hold onto the money they are smart enough to invest). By investing this money they produce jobs, they produce capital goods which create cheaper goods for the population to enjoy. THe taxes are still too high even with the bush "tax-cuts". Does it make sense that taking money away from the producers of the nation that all of the sudden jobs will be created? Of course not."[2] "The issue boils down to simple economics. Paraphrasing the columnist Daniel Henninger: we can't create new jobs and eat them too. If the United States wants the jobs that small businesses create, then the government cannot confiscate an even greater share of the incomes that generate those jobs."[3] Point 3: The Rich pay a 45% tax rate, and the bottom 50% pay no taxes. "The top 3% earn 30% of all income and pay 52% of all income taxes."[3] "Meanwhile, the 53% of Americans who are paying income taxes are relentlessly slandered as "greedy" and "selfish" for not being willing to hand over EVEN MORE of the money that they worked for in order to pay for benefits for other people. In other words, we have a lot of people in America who want more services from the government, but they are demanding that other people pay for it."[4] Point 4: The Rich give a lot to charity "Those making over $200,000 account for 36% of all charitable contributions."[3] [1]:http://www.bloomberg.com... [2]:http://answers.yahoo.com... [3]:http://www.demint.senate.gov... [4]:http://rightwingnews.com...

Taxes should be decreased for the Rich

Clemens Fuest1 and Bernd Huber. "Is tax progression really good for employment?". Science Daily. 12 Jan. 2000 - "We show that the positive employment effect of tax progression can be generalized to a model with a positive labour supply elasticity of individual workers. However, the wage-moderating effect of tax progression does not unambiguously carry over to a world where the union may fix both wages and individual hours of work. In this framework, the union reacts to tax progression by cutting individual working time."

Progressive taxation is not necessarily good for employment

If the USA corporate taxes were reformed not only would competition be hindered but severely hurt as the bigger companies would be more empowered and would have more money to invest and that would hinder small companies who would be crushed by this new weight that would be the lowered tax rates of the bigger companies and thus smaller companies would be hindered by these new huge assets. The bigger companies would have much more investment power and the smaller companies would have a little bit more, but these rates would be unrivaled by those of the bigger companies. Moreover it would be quite unlikely for foreign companies to go to the US, for still a 20% corporate tax rate, although slightly lower than the EU average (21.34) would not be very attractive since that would require that the companies from the EU, whom I guess might be some potential targets of the movement move their legal residences to the US and that would exclude them from the EU subsidies. It would be very unlikely for target companies to be from the third world since the tax rates there are already pretty low or at the very least the tax codes are full of loopholes.

The US should reform its Corporate Tax

Abolishing Income Tax will grow the economy

Basic income tax should be abolished

Our team has demonstrated throughout the debate that a negative income tax would be less effective than any alternatives such as a welfare system. A negative income tax decreases incentive to work. The study discussed in round two found productivity loss and wage replacement as a result of the system being using used in the experiment. This is also supported by the fact that the tax supplies money instead of providing for individual needs. A normal welfare system uses programs such as food stamps to make sure recipients have only what they need, which prevents productivity loss. It is necessary for the welfare system to be more complex than a negative income tax. In order to make sure welfare is used only for what recipients need, it is necessary to have a relatively complex system. A negative income tax is simple, but it isn't an effective system because it gives money to those who don't need it, which decreases incentive to work. ConclusionOur opponent's argument rests on the assumption that a negative income tax would encourage workers to be productive, but the opposite is true. It has been proven to lead to productivity loss and wage replacement, so it is necessary to have a complex welfare system that provides for what people really need. Thanks to our opponents for a good debate, and thanks to Bsh1 for hosting the tournament.

The United States should adopt a negative income tax.