I think, axelsenzon, that you are partly right. True enough, it's percentages, but it is percent of the total makeup of the federal revenue dollar, not the percent any individual or corporation pays. Thus, a much greater part of the federal revenue dollar comes from individuals, and less from corporations, than used to be the case.

I am not sure the "anti-corporation" mentality is good, either, but the early Americans saw the corporation as something that could easily become more powerful than the individual, and urged more careful public control over that power than we now have. We indeed pay a lot of welfare in America - but it is the corporations that receive the welfare, thanks to the...

I think, axelsenzon, that you are partly right. True enough, it's percentages, but it is percent of the total makeup of the federal revenue dollar, not the percent any individual or corporation pays. Thus, a much greater part of the federal revenue dollar comes from individuals, and less from corporations, than used to be the case.

I am not sure the "anti-corporation" mentality is good, either, but the early Americans saw the corporation as something that could easily become more powerful than the individual, and urged more careful public control over that power than we now have. We indeed pay a lot of welfare in America - but it is the corporations that receive the welfare, thanks to their influence over Congress. The oil companies, for instance, some of which are posting the highest profits of any corporations in history, still receive vast subsidies and pay taxes at lower rates than do individuals. Yet those who must buy their products pay exorbitant rates, and those rates increase the price of almost every product for sale in America, while corporate officers luxuriate in multi-million dollar pay packages.

So yes, we want corporations to thrive, but excessive deregulation has led us to a place where they thrive in a manner that is sometimes harmful to the economy generally (and felt most keenly by the most helpless among us.)

masbury,
revenue, in economic (and accounting) terms, is profit before costs, meaning they do not represent income. its a fallacy to think so. i'll explain simply.
to tell me that you make more revenue collecting 1 dollar from 100 people, than you do collecting $3000 revenue from 2 people is true- but misleading if your talking about income (or profits). it is well accepted by economists that corperations (especially as a whole) add much much more 'income' for federal and state government through taxes

also, that arguement about big businesses and oil companies getting rich or too powerful (or on welfare?*) seems really, really past its prime. that has been an arguement of ...

masbury,
revenue, in economic (and accounting) terms, is profit before costs, meaning they do not represent income. its a fallacy to think so. i'll explain simply.
to tell me that you make more revenue collecting 1 dollar from 100 people, than you do collecting $3000 revenue from 2 people is true- but misleading if your talking about income (or profits). it is well accepted by economists that corperations (especially as a whole) add much much more 'income' for federal and state government through taxes

also, that arguement about big businesses and oil companies getting rich or too powerful (or on welfare?*) seems really, really past its prime. that has been an arguement of politics (and social talking points) since at least the early nineteen hundreds and is no fresher now than then.
what do you think can happen that hasn't already? aside for that there are no more american oilmen (just foreign ones) and anti trust laws anyway.

just fyi, i'm studying for my masters in macro-economics (so i do have some idea of what im talking about)
*that mention of 'welfare the corperations are recieving' this you mean corperate welfare i assume. which is in real life nothing life -welfare- but was a political name atributted (by HW bush, if i remember correct) in referance to tax write-offs.
which i personally would start worrying more-so if the gov started taxing us on losses in business... that should be a concern. but yes, right now we dont tax accounting losses.

Thanks, axelsenzon, I could easily be wrong. Let me take another run at it, and you tell me what you think.

to tell me that you make more revenue collecting 1 dollar from 100 people, than you do collecting $3000 revenue from 2 people is true-
but misleading if your talking about income (or profits). it is well
accepted by economists that corperations (especially as a whole) add
much much more 'income' for federal and state government through taxes

I'm a bit confused here. It looks like you're saying you've collected $100 in revenue from the first group and $3,000 in revenue from the second, for a total of $3100 in revenue. The first group supplied approx. ...

Thanks, axelsenzon, I could easily be wrong. Let me take another run at it, and you tell me what you think.

to tell me that you make more revenue collecting 1 dollar from 100 people, than you do collecting $3000 revenue from 2 people is true-
but misleading if your talking about income (or profits). it is well
accepted by economists that corperations (especially as a whole) add
much much more 'income' for federal and state government through taxes

I'm a bit confused here. It looks like you're saying you've collected $100 in revenue from the first group and $3,000 in revenue from the second, for a total of $3100 in revenue. The first group supplied approx. 3% of the total revenue, the second group, approx. 97%.

So - costs and profit aside for the moment - why is it true, as you say, that the first group supplied more revenue than the second?

@n2

Specifically what I am referring to is the oil industry. They are making absurd profits and if taxed more would not have to pass the tax off to customers.

If they are greedy and do then they risk competing technologies being able to be cost competitive. As it stands now the oil industry receives subsidies which prevent other technologies from competing and oil companies are not passing those savings along to customers.

Income taxes on corporations does allow the government a tool to encourage/discourage some types of activities via credits and the like. Without it I am not sure what tools would be at the governments resources. And I am not accepting laissez-faire for corporations. Th...

@n2

Specifically what I am referring to is the oil industry. They are making absurd profits and if taxed more would not have to pass the tax off to customers.

If they are greedy and do then they risk competing technologies being able to be cost competitive. As it stands now the oil industry receives subsidies which prevent other technologies from competing and oil companies are not passing those savings along to customers.

Income taxes on corporations does allow the government a tool to encourage/discourage some types of activities via credits and the like. Without it I am not sure what tools would be at the governments resources. And I am not accepting laissez-faire for corporations. That's a recipe for disaster.

I do understand the economic concept you are talking about but to implement it would seem to require passage of a law that the amount of corporate income tax that the company does not pay has to be immediately reflected in the same amount of product price drop. Without it people are going to freak out at the cash register.

When I read material from sources like the Tax Foundation they act as if citizens would experience nothing but savings if there is not a corporate income tax. I don't see how this is possible all they will experience is a wash. They get a corresponding and equivalent increase in sales tax. They also experience a hike at the register for as long as the companies fail to pass along the tax savings.

@n2

I knew there was a catch to eliminating corporate taxes but I just couldn't think of it. If you removed corporate income tax on every type of corporation you would have many individuals not paying themselves out of the corporation and harboring their income inside of the corporation tax free. As it is currently, a lot of people do this anyway because for small corporations the coroporate income tax rate on the first $75,000 of income is less for the corporation than it is for individuals.

There was not an included figure for the amount of tax revenue lost by the government if all these people were able to harbor their income within the corporation tax free. And as always this leads to ...

@n2

I knew there was a catch to eliminating corporate taxes but I just couldn't think of it. If you removed corporate income tax on every type of corporation you would have many individuals not paying themselves out of the corporation and harboring their income inside of the corporation tax free. As it is currently, a lot of people do this anyway because for small corporations the coroporate income tax rate on the first $75,000 of income is less for the corporation than it is for individuals.

There was not an included figure for the amount of tax revenue lost by the government if all these people were able to harbor their income within the corporation tax free. And as always this leads to more of the tax burden being borne by the poor and middle income who do not have these tax free income harbors.

There's a related issue worth considering, too. We take it as common knowledge that increasing taxes, especially on upper-level earners, decreases growth. But according to The True Conservative's blog, there are no data that support that conclusion!

So, I wonder if it's the case with corporate taxation as well - that we take it as gospel that increasing corporate taxes limits growth, but there really are no facts to back it up. Anybody got the graphs?

Here's a piece I did on TrueConservative's data

and Here's [url=http://trueconservative.typepad.com/trueconservative/2007/...

There's a related issue worth considering, too. We take it as common knowledge that increasing taxes, especially on upper-level earners, decreases growth. But according to The True Conservative's blog, there are no data that support that conclusion!

So, I wonder if it's the case with corporate taxation as well - that we take it as gospel that increasing corporate taxes limits growth, but there really are no facts to back it up. Anybody got the graphs?

Here's a piece I did on TrueConservative's data

and Here's TrueConservative's Blog.

masbury,
no- revenue is specifically a reference to volume not income. again, if 100 people each gave you one dollar (=$100) dollars, you have more revenue than if you received 1000 dollars from 2 people. but you would not have more money.
(so) if a graph or census says a government collects more revenue from individuals than from corporations (and nothing else is provided in that statement), the only factual data you can infer is that there is more people than corporations under that government.
if with that same information, you try and infer that that government collects more money from people than corps you would be fallacious- because that is not what the ...

masbury,
no- revenue is specifically a reference to volume not income. again, if 100 people each gave you one dollar (=$100) dollars, you have more revenue than if you received 1000 dollars from 2 people. but you would not have more money.
(so) if a graph or census says a government collects more revenue from individuals than from corporations (and nothing else is provided in that statement), the only factual data you can infer is that there is more people than corporations under that government.
if with that same information, you try and infer that that government collects more money from people than corps you would be fallacious- because that is not what the info is telling you. (though its not impossible you are right- but that data did not give you enough information to support that theory)

further,
the only honest way to use figures in this sense is to collect both percentages and monies.
i'll give you a real life example of something i read;

warren buffet has made statements about how he made 50 million dollars last year and only paid 16% in taxes and that his secretary made 60,000 dollars that year and paid 35% in taxes. I (Buffet, said) should not pay less than her in taxes...i can afford to pay more etc. (these are not verbatim)

okay, here when i heard his argument two things resonated, one- thats not fair, blah blah, he's rich etc.
two- (after i composed myself) there was something oddly unsettling about that statement.
and this is it- '[u][i]i shouldn't pay...

further,
the only honest way to use figures in this sense is to collect both percentages and monies.
i'll give you a real life example of something i read;

warren buffet has made statements about how he made 50 million dollars last year and only paid 16% in taxes and that his secretary made 60,000 dollars that year and paid 35% in taxes. I (Buffet, said) should not pay less than her in taxes...i can afford to pay more etc. (these are not verbatim)

okay, here when i heard his argument two things resonated, one- thats not fair, blah blah, he's rich etc.
two- (after i composed myself) there was something oddly unsettling about that statement.
and this is it- 'i shouldn't pay less than her in taxes...' and he didn't.
buffet, arguably, paid more than any other single american last year in individual taxes- but it was through a smaller percentage and that smaller % went a lot farther than any secretary. why? because i did the math to his figures. he paid 16% of 50 million or 8million dollars in taxes, she paid 35% of 60k or 21k.
their percentages of income taxed is different and their actual monies that they each forked over are greatly different.
while he pays about half the percentage she did last year, he paid over 800 times more money than she.

and my only real opinion is that- that information should be included when trying to change the tax code. not 'spin' it out of the conversation. if you still feel that same after including actual moneyed figures- than claim what you want.

booby,
you have this same problem with the jargon and of leaving out information. "In your example there is $100 dollars of revenue and $2000 dollars of revenue and $2000 will always be more than $100."
i really dont think i can explain this incredibly well through this medium, especially if you look at this without an open mind (do you not realize that colloquial dialogue very often missuses technical terms, from all subjects. that, I promise you, is not revenue- your definition. though it is probably the most common mis-usage. revenue does not tell you about money it tells you about consumers or volume. if you have a technical graph, make sure you can read it properly-)
if you want, fi...

booby,
you have this same problem with the jargon and of leaving out information. "In your example there is $100 dollars of revenue and $2000 dollars of revenue and $2000 will always be more than $100."
i really dont think i can explain this incredibly well through this medium, especially if you look at this without an open mind (do you not realize that colloquial dialogue very often missuses technical terms, from all subjects. that, I promise you, is not revenue- your definition. though it is probably the most common mis-usage. revenue does not tell you about money it tells you about consumers or volume. if you have a technical graph, make sure you can read it properly-)
if you want, find a book on micro-econ that covers revenue. if you find the formula MR=MC(=MP), you'll be in right area and you can learn more on the subject.

axel: My Oxford Dictionary defines revenue, as it relates to government, as "a government's annual income from which public expenses are met." I'm sure the intent here is something close to that.

Further, I went to the source, then to the govt numbers, here, and found the 2007 receipts from individual income tax to be 1,163.5B, and the receipts from "corporation income taxes" to be 370.2B. Total receipts were 2568.2B.

These numbers agree with our chart pretty well - the first being in the neighborhood of 40% of total receipts, the second being in the 15% of total receipts rang...

axel: My Oxford Dictionary defines revenue, as it relates to government, as "a government's annual income from which public expenses are met." I'm sure the intent here is something close to that.

Further, I went to the source, then to the govt numbers, here, and found the 2007 receipts from individual income tax to be 1,163.5B, and the receipts from "corporation income taxes" to be 370.2B. Total receipts were 2568.2B.

These numbers agree with our chart pretty well - the first being in the neighborhood of 40% of total receipts, the second being in the 15% of total receipts range. So I think we have to agree that the chart is talking about percentage of dollars, not percentage of sources.

Finally, I have often referred to Warren Buffett's claim. But I have found both in quotes of him directly, and in media discussion of them, that tax rates are most clearly under discussion, not tax amounts. Here's a post from August that references both my own blog and a Clipmarks quote of what Buffett and MSNBC really said: Warren Buffett: $1M for any billionaire who pays higher tax rate than his secretary.

Thanks for thinking on this with me - I do want to represent it accurately.

@axel

Please accept my apology. I was glib and that was uncalled for.

My usage of revenue is appropriate for accounting and finance contexts.

When you are referencing economics and the several different formulas that cover marginal revenue, marginal profit, marginal cost, and marginal factor cost, it leads me to think that you might be saying the following:
"the downturn in percentage of tax revenue attributable to corporations is due to the increase of the U.S. population and the increased quantity of taxes collected from more contributing units of individual taxpayers" (and I may be wrong in assuming that).

However, I believe that the decrease in percentage of revenue contributed by...

@axel

Please accept my apology. I was glib and that was uncalled for.

My usage of revenue is appropriate for accounting and finance contexts.

When you are referencing economics and the several different formulas that cover marginal revenue, marginal profit, marginal cost, and marginal factor cost, it leads me to think that you might be saying the following:
"the downturn in percentage of tax revenue attributable to corporations is due to the increase of the U.S. population and the increased quantity of taxes collected from more contributing units of individual taxpayers" (and I may be wrong in assuming that).

However, I believe that the decrease in percentage of revenue contributed by corporations is more a result in cutting of corporate tax rates. The 1990's was a boom period in corporate profits and there should be an expected increase in the contribution from corporations. Furthermore, wages have remained stagnant, on an inflation adjusted basis, for the last 20 or so years.

I concur with Masbury's analysis.

Once again please accept my apology.