I know you think that might give some extra authority to your argument, but you aren't fooling me. You are no more an expert on the Economics of Taxation than a Wall Street Financial Analyst is an expert on Industrial Economics. You might see one tiny side of the picture better than most, but it is just one tiny side.
Companies absolutely do not subsidize lunches or healthcare for the tax savings that accrue to the employees. They do so because because such subsidies are financially beneficial from a business perspective (i.e., employee recruiting/retention).
Of course they do it because of recruiting and retention, but you can't possibly be this naive. I know of several companies that explicitly provide certain benefits because it is cheaper for them to provide the benefits than to pay employees more to get those benefits. There is an inherent tax benefit to this scheme compared to the alternative of additional salary. If I have a 40% tax rate, $1000 in revenue, $100 in costs, then providing $100 in lunches only costs me $60. I would normally have a liability of $360, but after providing the lunches, my tax liability is $320. If you just pay your employees more, the tax goes down just as much, but then it is taxed on the individual, and the effective cost of the lunch goes up.
This exact incentive is the reason why employee provided health plans are so compelling. Health care is deductible to the employer, but not to the employee. If you got rid of the corporate tax, corporations would no longer have the incentive to be the payer of health care, because the relative benefit of employer-pays vs employee-pays goes away.
Definitely not true. Compliance costs are roughly logarithmic. Scale increases disproportionately at mid-size companies but once you approach multinational status the increase in the number of entities results in significantly less than a linear increase in costs. The advantage of scale is a primary factor in the structure of accounting firms.
You are only describing compliance costs. Enforcement costs are not the same as compliance costs. There is no economies of scale to enforcement costs.
Hahahahaha. Pushing taxes onto shareholders increases the number of rules. You see a reduction in statutory laws but a vast increase in non-statutory rules (i.e., court cases and administrative decisions). It's very easy to keep track of statutory law; it's relative a nightmare to track non-statutory rules.
Except that those costs already exist because we already have personal income taxes and dividend taxes and captal gains taxes. Taxing dividends and capital gains as personal income would be a rule change, but it wouldn't be an increase in rules.
This is not how the tax code actually works. A business expense is generally deductible regardless of the industry if the expense is legitimately related to a business need of the enterprise. Very few business expenses are not legitimate, though due to exceptional levels of fraud and abuse "meals and entertainment" and employee vacation expenses (i.e., paid holidays or vacation time) are usually not fully deductible by a business.
How much fraud and abuse on meals, entertainment, and travel would exist if the corporation had no incentive to do so? Would your company provide for employee training in the Bahamas if it couldn't be sold to the employees as a vacation? Jesus, when was the last time you hung out with an Enterprise Salesman? Their entire lifestyle can be attributed to the corporate tax.
I know you think that might give some extra authority to your argument, but you aren't fooling me. You are no more an expert on the Economics of Taxation than a Wall Street Financial Analyst is an expert on Industrial Economics. You might see one tiny side of the picture better than most, but it is just one tiny side.
Companies absolutely do not subsidize lunches or healthcare for the tax savings that accrue to the employees. They do so because because such subsidies are financially beneficial from a business perspective (i.e., employee recruiting/retention).
Of course they do it because of recruiting and retention, but you can't possibly be this naive. I know of several companies that explicitly provide certain benefits because it is cheaper for them to provide the benefits than to pay employees more to get those benefits. There is an inherent tax benefit to this scheme compared to the alternative of additional salary. If I have a 40% tax rate, $1000 in revenue, $100 in costs, then providing $100 in lunches only costs me $60. I would normally have a liability of $360, but after providing the lunches, my tax liability is $320. If you just pay your employees more, the tax goes down just as much, but then it is taxed on the individual, and the effective cost of the lunch goes up.
This exact incentive is the reason why employee provided health plans are so compelling. Health care is deductible to the employer, but not to the employee. If you got rid of the corporate tax, corporations would no longer have the incentive to be the payer of health care, because the relative benefit of employer-pays vs employee-pays goes away.
Definitely not true. Compliance costs are roughly logarithmic. Scale increases disproportionately at mid-size companies but once you approach multinational status the increase in the number of entities results in significantly less than a linear increase in costs. The advantage of scale is a primary factor in the structure of accounting firms.
You are only describing compliance costs. Enforcement costs are not the same as compliance costs. There is no economies of scale to enforcement costs.
Hahahahaha. Pushing taxes onto shareholders increases the number of rules. You see a reduction in statutory laws but a vast increase in non-statutory rules (i.e., court cases and administrative decisions). It's very easy to keep track of statutory law; it's relative a nightmare to track non-statutory rules.
Except that those costs already exist because we already have personal income taxes and dividend taxes and captal gains taxes. Taxing dividends and capital gains as personal income would be a rule change, but it wouldn't be an increase in rules.
This is not how the tax code actually works. A business expense is generally deductible regardless of the industry if the expense is legitimately related to a business need of the enterprise. Very few business expenses are not legitimate, though due to exceptional levels of fraud and abuse "meals and entertainment" and employee vacation expenses (i.e., paid holidays or vacation time) are usually not fully deductible by a business.
How much fraud and abuse on meals, entertainment, and travel would exist if the corporation had no incentive to do so? Would your company provide for employee training in the Bahamas if it couldn't be sold to the employees as a vacation? Jesus, when was the last time you hung out with an Enterprise Salesman? Their entire lifestyle can be attributed to the corporate tax.