Back when there were numerous loopholes, deductions, and methods of evasion and nearly none paid that rate? And when they later lowered effective rates, closed loopholes, and ended up collecting more?
Yeah, let's do that. Let's incentive finding ways to avoid paying taxes.
This is exactly how you give incentives to higher CEO pay. Record profits? Give all of it to the CEO and you'll pay none of it to the government. You didn't mention a higher personal tax rate, so end of the day the CEO wins.
Own an S-Corp? Pass through all profits to yourself and pay 0%.
The top 1 percent of earners alone pay over one-third of income taxes.
Accounting for all forms of taxation, they pay roughly 25%.
Corporations "pay nearly no taxes" is just categorically false. Language matters - some companies avoid paying federal income tax. In these cases, chances are it had a combination of both zero or negative book income and either net operating losses, significant foreign profits, sizable capital investments, or all of the above.
Of course, it’s also important to remember that federal income taxes aren’t the only taxes corporations pay. Businesses are also liable for state income taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, and excise taxes, of which are almost entirely unavoidable.
Empirical studies show that workers (i.e., labor) bear more than 50 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax. How is it possible that workers bear the brunt of a tax they don’t even pay? The key lies in the difference between “legal” tax incidence—who is legally obligated to pay a tax—and what economists call “economic” tax incidence—who indirectly pays for a tax, often in the form of lower wages.
The higher business taxes are, the higher the cost of investing is and the less likely businsess owners are to invest in things like equipment, buildings, and trainings that will make their staff more productive. And the less productive workers are, the less their employers can afford to pay them in the long run.
Instead, maybe we look at limiting a companies ability to offshore profits, limit incentives for stock buyback, and adjust how deductions for stock options work.
Crazy idea, how about we make it easier to pay taxes so companies don't feel the need to cheat. What if we make it so it's cheaper to pay federal taxes than it is to avoid them.