> Corporations do not pay corporate tax, their customers and employees do
Corporations pay tax on their profits not, revenue. Employees have already been paid and customers have already bought before these taxes are levied. (The first bit is of course more complicated; for example, salaries paid for R&D don't always count as a deductible business expense.)
The market price is the market price. If corporations could raise prices further (even without new taxes) without losing customers, they would. If corporations end up being taxed more, raising prices in order to "pass on" those taxes will just cause them to lose customers, and end up with lower revenue (and likely profit too), perhaps even more than if they just sucked it up, paid their taxes, and left prices alone.
> If the argument is that tariffs are passed on to the customer, then corporate tax is definitely passed on to the customer and the employee
No, because they're not the same thing. Taxes, as I said, are applied only to profits. Tariffs are essentially in increase in COGS. They more or less require corporations to increase prices, with the expectation that sales will decrease. (They can also choose not to raise prices, and live with lower profits, if they have the margin to do so.) And this is the actual point of tariffs: to get people to buy less of that particular good, and presumably buy more of a similar locally-produced good. (The problem, of course, is when the locally-produced good already has a higher price, so everyone either has to pay more, or do without.)
>The market price is the market price. If corporations could raise prices further (even without new taxes) without losing customers, they would. If corporations end up being taxed more, raising prices in order to "pass on" those taxes will just cause them to lose customers, and end up with lower revenue (and likely profit too), perhaps even more than if they just sucked it up, paid their taxes, and left prices alone.
I agree with part of this. Corporations will raise prices to make more profit whenever there is opportunity to. They exist to make profit, so they will do anything to do that. I also agree that in theory, a small tax increase on one corporation may make them want to take a profit hit versus a customer size hit. However-
- if all the corporations are all paying the same taxes (which hopefully is how it works), they are all able to raise the market price to cover it. They won't have competition - with lower expenses - to lose customer to. The only lost customer will be the one who simply can no longer afford their product.
- Second, as mentioned in other branches, corporations will do anything to protect and increase profit, including finding loopholes, paying the c-suite insane salaries, accounting for asset purchases and depreciations in ways to reduce the on-paper profit, etc. The more the company does this, the more the corporate tax burden becomes a normal cost of goods expense, which is passed on to the customer and the employees (in the form of worse compensation).
Corporations protect their profits above all else. They will lie, cheat, steal, and change their revenue models to protect profits. Customers pay the taxes, just indirectly.
Corporations pay tax on their profits not, revenue. Employees have already been paid and customers have already bought before these taxes are levied. (The first bit is of course more complicated; for example, salaries paid for R&D don't always count as a deductible business expense.)
The market price is the market price. If corporations could raise prices further (even without new taxes) without losing customers, they would. If corporations end up being taxed more, raising prices in order to "pass on" those taxes will just cause them to lose customers, and end up with lower revenue (and likely profit too), perhaps even more than if they just sucked it up, paid their taxes, and left prices alone.
> If the argument is that tariffs are passed on to the customer, then corporate tax is definitely passed on to the customer and the employee
No, because they're not the same thing. Taxes, as I said, are applied only to profits. Tariffs are essentially in increase in COGS. They more or less require corporations to increase prices, with the expectation that sales will decrease. (They can also choose not to raise prices, and live with lower profits, if they have the margin to do so.) And this is the actual point of tariffs: to get people to buy less of that particular good, and presumably buy more of a similar locally-produced good. (The problem, of course, is when the locally-produced good already has a higher price, so everyone either has to pay more, or do without.)