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| Re: Portal … take two w/link (1470260) | |||
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Re: Portal … take two w/link |
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Posted by Steamdriven on Thu Mar 22 06:17:23 2018, in response to Re: Portal … take two w/link, posted by italianstallion on Wed Mar 21 20:53:05 2018. I don't think there's an absolute right or wrong answer to the "double taxation of dividends" question. As you point out, it can be justified by the benefits of incorporation, or it can be considered a distortion because the corp has an incentive to pay lower or no dividends. Personally, I think that if we want to tax high incomes more, then just tax high incomes more. My 2c is that a corporation isn't an end user, it's a pass-through and taxing dividends just means dividends are usually not paid.To tax wealth, do as the Founders wrote and have an estate tax (we have, but somehow it's become unpopular). Private foundations should probably be considered estates, they're incorporated so they never undergo a natural death, and pass forever to managers who are bureaucrats, not builders. There are other problems with incorporation of course; "fiduciary duty" requires them to maximize profit, period. The management can't decide "hey, we can afford to keep xyz key functions inside the USA instead of offshoring, we'd still be safely in the black" but that's actually illegal. Of course even if it were legal to do "the right thing", the shareholders would have to agree. Costco's CEO gets flack for paying retail store employees, even the guy stocking shelves, over $40K/year. That CEO is also the company founder and owns a good chunk of it, but he still has to argue his case with the board and investors, who can fire him if they wish. There were good reasons for writing fiduciary duty into law, otherwise management would treat the company as a personal ATM. There is no law or system that can force people to make moral choices. |
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