Inflation Is Already Hitting Businesses Hard, so Let’s Kick Them While They’re Down

Top CEOs Wary Of Biden Tax Hikes, New Coronavirus Variants | The Daily Wire

“We urge Congress to reject harmful tax increases like those included in the House-passed Build Back Better Act, which would be a shift in the wrong direction for our economy, American businesses and workers,” said Bolten, who also lauded the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as “an important investment in the long-term health of the economy.”

“This quarter’s survey reflects the encouraging signs we’re seeing with the economic rebound as consumers begin to resume travel and spending,” added Business Roundtable Chairman Doug McMillon, who serves as CEO of Walmart. “Continued progress in defeating the pandemic, including new variants, will be necessary to sustain strong growth into the second half of 2022.”

Inflation is causing business costs to skyrocket, not just in terms of goods and services needed, but also many businesses are being forced to pay their employees more. This means that they must also raise their prices or be forced to suffer losses. Increasing their tax burdens will only make things worse.

Everyone Should Slam Them Over This

Elon Musk Slams Democrats Over Extreme Proposal To Tax Unrealized Capital Gains | The Daily Wire

Exactly. Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2021

Musk is sleazy, arrogant, and probably a little bit crazy. It’s three-quarters of the combination that has made him so wealthy. The fourth part is that he’s incredibly bright.

Taxes on unrealized capital gains are criminally bad. They’re even worse than high corporate taxes, which if you’ve read this blog, you know I can’t stand.

I don’t think this idea is going anywhere. This time. There aren’t enough stupid people in Washington to get this one over the finish line. But there is more stupidity there every year, so it’s only a matter of time.

Do I Really Need to Mention Again Just How Stupid This Is?

Democrat Tax Hike Would Raise U.S. Corporate Taxes To Third Highest Among Major Economies | The Daily Wire

*sigh* Just see my other posts with the tag “Corporate Taxes”

Isn’t This ”Collusion”?

Ireland Joins Biden’s ‘Global Minimum Tax’ Plan | The Daily Wire

Ireland — formerly one of the few holdouts for a pending international “global minimum tax” plan — has joined the agreement.

During a June meeting of the G7, President Biden and other world leaders proposed a “strong global minimum tax” of “at least” 15%. The White House lauded the policy as a “critical step towards ending the decades-long race to the bottom that pushes nations to compete over who can offer the lowest tax rate to large corporations at the expense of protecting workers, investing in infrastructure, and growing the middle class.”

So, basically, these countries all agreed that they’d all have a corporate tax of at least 15%. Some countries had lower than that to attract businesses to them. The bigger countries didn’t want to lose those businesses, and didn’t want to lower their taxes, so they forced the smaller countries to join in their cartel.

This is so mind-numbingly wrong.

And having it written out like that makes it readily apparent just how stupid an idea this is.

Smaller countries were doing well by having lower taxes. In fact, it’s laid out for you later in the article:

Smaller nations — which have historically relied upon lower corporate taxes to compete on the world stage with more developed economies — were initially hesitant to sign the deal. In July, a handful of countries — Barbados, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Kenya, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, St. Vincent, Peru, and the Grenadines — refused to join the 130 other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states that endorsed the plan.

Psst…this means that bigger countries could do well by having lower taxes too.

But then they’d have less control and have fewer opportunities for graft.

And they’d have a wealthier general populace which would entail a populace with more fredom and less dependence on the government.

And we clearly can’t have that.

Corporate taxes are stupid.

High corporate taxes are insanely stupid.

Multiple countries getting together and setting a minimum corporate tax rate is criminally stupid.

A Good Rundown on Corporate Taxes

You’ve read me bitch about them multiple times.

Here’s a nice pic illustrating some of my points:

And a short video:

Or a longer one:

And a complete rundown with lots of links:

The Grim Economics of Higher Corporate Tax Rates | International Liberty (wordpress.com)

If She Really Believes This, Then She’s Too Dumb to Be Press Secretary

Psaki: It’s ‘Unfair And Absurd’ That Companies Would Raise Costs For Consumers Due To Higher Taxes | The Daily Wire

Actually, the first thing they do is cut back on employee expenses by reducing wage growth, cutting benefits, and cutting jobs.

Then they go after the consumers of their goods and services, with higher prices.

Lastly, they reduce dividends to shareholders.

Obviously, the President’s commitment remains not raising taxes for anyone making less than $400,000 a year. There are some — and I’m not sure if this is the case in this report — who argue that, in the past, companies have passed on these costs to consumers. I’m not sure if that’s the argument being made in this report. We feel that that’s unfair and absurd, and the American people would not stand for that.

It’s neither unfair nor absurd. The unfair and absurd bit is actually raising the taxes. When you increase the expense of doing business, that cost has to be made up somewhere. It’s absurd to think otherwise. And criminally stupid.

They Hate Trump So Much They’re Going to Undo the Best Thing He Did

That is an objectively and unequivocally true statement.

Norquist: Democrats' planned business taxes higher than communist China's | Just The News

Under the Democrats' plan, the corporate tax rate would rise to 26.5% from 21%, and the top capital gains tax rate would jump to 28.8% from 23.8%.

Norquist said the new hikes in corporate and capital gains tax rates, among others, will impact average American workers, whether directly or indirectly.

"They're going to take the corporate rate — the tax that American companies pay — up higher than communist China's business tax, higher than the European average," he said. "Okay, so we will not be competitive with China when people are looking to invest, not competitive with Europe when people are looking to invest, start new firms.

26.5% isn’t the end of the world. It was 35% before Trump slashed it to 21%. At least they’re keeping it substantially below the 35%. But we should be lowering it more, particularly in a weakening economy.

I often wonder if politicians in general, and Democrats in particular, have even a basic understanding of math.

If you want businesses to flock to your shores, you have to make it attractive to them to do so. The easiest and best way to do that is to lower the corporate tax rate. If you want businesses to grow more, expand the economy, increase wages, and hire more people, you have to remove the economic burdens that prevent them from doing so. The easiest way to do that is to lower corporate taxes.

How is this not obvious to everyone?

He Needs Better Advice Quick—My Dog Is Available

Biden economic adviser says she supports corporate tax increases because it's the 'right thing to do' | Fox News

It’s never the right thing to do. It’s obscenely stupid to even suggest when the economy is limping. It’s blindingly stupid to suggest after the evidence of the last four years.

How do people get to the position of giving Presidents advice when they clearly don’t do any research beforehand?

Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse on Sunday said the president is proposing corporate tax increases because it's the "right thing to do."

CBS's "Face the Nation" anchor Margaret Brennan pressed Rouse about Biden's proposal to increase the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% or potentially higher after Rouse said Biden's $2 trillion spending plan is "good for the economy."

Umm. Yeah. Did she not see the Trump economy?

I guess she didn’t. I did, however.

Advice to Joe. Find someone with intelligence to advise you on this issue.

“Could” Means “Will”

Biden Admits His Tax Hike Could Include Those Making $200K – PJ Media

And “could” affect people making a lot less than that.

On Friday, the president said that a two-partner family would be impacted if their combined income crosses $400,000. He also claimed that jacking up corporate and business taxes right at the beginning of the recovery from the pandemic “will not slow the economy at all.”

If you believe that last bit, you’ve completely lost your mind.

FACT: Higher Corporate Taxes Mean Lower Wages & Benefits

Five Visuals that Explain Why Higher Corporate Income Tax Rates Are Bad for America | International Liberty (wordpress.com)

Mitchell does a much better job of explaining this than I ever could, so read the whole thing. But here’s a couple key points.

Well, that’s pretty stark.But for those of you who don’t get it:

Decades of experience have led me to conclude that many folks on the left support class-warfare tax policy because they are primarily motivated by a spiteful desire to punish success rather than provide upward mobility for the poor.

As I said, read the whole thing.

Wait—Who Was President Then?

US Incomes Increased More in 2018 Than in the Previous 20 Years—Combined - Foundation for Economic Education (fee.org)

The question, of course, is why did US incomes suddenly explode after decades of tepid growth? The answer is not difficult to find.

The year 2017 saw massive deregulation and passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Estimates placed the deregulation savings at $2 trillion. But what was likely even a bigger factor was the cut businesses saw in corporate taxes.

Prior to 2017, the US had the highest corporate tax in the developed world (if not the whole world). With a top bracket of 35 percent, its corporate tax rate was higher than Communist China and socialist Venezuela.

Huh. We lowered corporate taxes. I think I’ve mentioned before that’s a good idea.

[S]tudies show that workers bear between 50 and 100 percent of the brunt of corporate income taxes.

I think that I’ve mentioned that before too.

So in 2017, when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law, companies saw their tax rate fall from 35 percent to 21 percent. Just that fast, businesses suddenly had more capital to spend to grow their business, improve productivity, and hire more workers—and few things attract workers more than higher wages.

This gets a “duh” from me, but apparently it was too much for our media to grasp.

Media scoffed at the possibility that corporate tax cuts would actually result in wage increases for US workers. But the data speaks for itself: Families saw incomes increase faster than at any time in generations.

Trump was right. I expect to say that quite often over the next four years.

Our current President wants to raise the rates again. Apparently, we need to stop this economic growth before people stop being dependent on government.

I’m Going to Keep Repeating that I Don’t Have a Problem With This

Zoom Profits in 2020: $660 Million. Zoom Tax Payment In 2021: $0. | The Daily Wire

I salute anyone or any entity that can make the tax laws work for them.

And as I’ve said many times, corporate taxes accomplish no good whatsoever. In any fair and equitable society, they’d be abolished.

Maybe Try Making New York More Hospitable for Businesses—Just an Idea

Schumer Begs Airline Not To Move New York Jobs To Florida (thegatewaypundit.com)

The senior New York senator said he made his case on a phone call with JetBlue Chief Executive Robin Hayes Wednesday evening — a day after The Post exclusively reported that the carrier was considering whether to move some jobs from its Long Island City headquarters to existing offices in the Sunshine State.

On Thursday, Schumer told The Post he wanted to remind Hayes that “JetBlue’s roots and its future are here in New York.” He also pointed out the billions of dollars in federal aid that airlines like it have received during the coronavirus crisis.

That last sounds a little bit like extortion to me.

But businesses go from poor environments to better ones. That should be a hint to anyone thinking of raising corporate taxes.