[DerbyX]

Seeing as so many of them actually pay no tax I'd say your corp tax rate is effectively 0.

[BartSimpson]

True (in some cases). Which is why I promote a simple flat tax over the current 'progressive' system which has become nothing more than a jobs program for accountants, tax lawyers, and DC lobbyists who bribe politicians for tax breaks.

[andyt]

You have a progressive tax regime for corporations? That's unusual.

[DerbyX]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

True (in some cases). Which is why I promote a simple flat tax over the current 'progressive' system which has become nothing more than a jobs program for accountants, tax lawyers, and DC lobbyists who bribe politicians for tax breaks.

If your corporate tax rate is 35% then its a flat tax for everybody right? I have no problems with a small scale progressive tax system whereby small business pay less tax then large businesses. Tie the tax rate into a system whereby employee expenses are the most effective tax break. A company making lots of profit from a fewer employees thus pays more tax then one with more employees. In essence the government says "we won't tax you as much if you provide jobs".

[Proculation]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

True (in some cases). Which is why I promote a simple flat tax over the current 'progressive' system which has become nothing more than a jobs program for accountants, tax lawyers, and DC lobbyists who bribe politicians for tax breaks.

Very true. If you have friends in Washington... you're in business !

[Bruce_the_vii]

I don't think Canada is that far behind the USA in cutting employees when needed. Generally people don't like to see workers not carrying their load, it's part of the culture that these people move down the street. It's supposed to keep the system trim and competitive. We mix this hard nose attitude with social programs like EI.

The USA is going through a deep recession and we're all lucky Canada is doing much better.

I'm a little suspect of some economists in a office that takes the GDP and divides it by the number of people employed and jumps to the conclusion companies are getting the same work out of less employees. I don't believe it's that simple.

[DerbyX]

Bruce_the_vii Bruce_the_vii:

I don't think Canada is that far behind the USA in cutting employees when needed. Generally people don't like to see workers not carrying their load, it's part of the culture that these people move down the street. It's supposed to keep the system trim and competitive. We mix this hard nose attitude with social programs like EI.

The USA is going through a deep recession and we're all lucky Canada is doing much better.

I'm a little suspect of some economists in a office that takes the GDP and divides it by the number of people employed and jumps to the conclusion companies are getting the same work out of less employees. I don't believe it's that simple.

My company is. It has been shedding people and consolidating departments so that workers are expected to help out in other departments should they have any slow time.

We are expected to work at peak rates when the work load is very high and now are expected to do more work when the work load lowers. I'm expected to analyze more samples in less time and that is not a good thing when its somebodies medical specimen I'm analyzing. Worse still is workers who aren't as fast as those of us with greater expertise are told to pick it up. They do but quality suffers.

To add insult to injury our company just spent LOADS on renovating the building. Want to guess this didn't affect corporate bonuses or annual raises?

According to the article that is the reason why US companies are getting better productivity because workers are terrified of losing their job. Discrimination against the unemployed doesn't help. You have to have a job to get a job.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

DerbyX DerbyX:

Tie the tax rate into a system whereby employee expenses are the most effective tax break. A company making lots of profit from a fewer employees thus pays more tax then one with more employees. In essence the government says "we won't tax you as much if you provide jobs".

This is close to something France tried in the early 90's. Only it was to combat a spiralling unemployment rate. It occurred mostly in the manufacturing sector and the plan was to have companies roughly double their employee numbers. This was done mostly by splitting the week into 2. One group worked Mon-Thur. and the other did Friday-Sun. What the gov't did to offset the doubling of payroll and payroll taxes was to give any company that did this a massive tax break for 5 years. That way, they felt companies could afford to increase their employee numbers even though there was no real increase in demand for their product.

Unfortunately, I never did hear if it worked for them or not. Like, is this something that is viable over the long term or was it simply intended as a temporary solution until things picked up?
Either way, it's kind of an intriguing idea.

[andyt]

Norway has 2% unemployment. Yet, they have a very flexible labor system compared to say Germany and France. It's easy to hire and fire people, but there is good support for the unemployed - what there are. Sweden has similar policies. Seems to me they know something we don't over here, where we pat ourselves on the back for having 7% unemployed.

[Thanos]

Hopefully this'll start dawning on the population at large that the endless mantra of "more corporate tax cuts creates jobs" is a total lie. In the US especially, the corporations and ultra-wealthy have been given every single tax cut that they've ever wanted, in addition to an endless stream of tax credits that literally wipe out any taxes they are owing, as well as boundless corporate welfare and subsidies that probably number in the trillions of dollars that they receive from the various levels of government. Yet the re-appearance of non-executive jobs is nowhere to be seen.

"Hah-hah! How does it feel like when you find out you've been cheated?"
- Johnny Rotten, at the last concert of the Sex Pistols, 1978.

[andyt]

Thanos Thanos:

Hopefully this'll start dawning on the population at large that the endless mantra of "more corporate tax cuts creates jobs" is a total lie. In the US especially, the corporations and ultra-wealthy have been given every single tax cut that they've ever wanted, in addition to an endless stream of tax credits that literally wipe out any taxes they are owing, as well as boundless corporate welfare and subsidies that probably number in the trillions of dollars that they receive from the various levels of government. Yet the re-appearance of non-executive jobs is nowhere to be seen.

"Hah-hah! How does it feel like when you find out you've been cheated?"
- Johnny Rotten, at the last concert of the Sex Pistols, 1978.

Take a look just at this forum. The lie is being swallowed hook line and sinker and may I have some more, sir. Psudo, with his WalMart job worries about how much more abuse the rich can take. Bart tells Derby to go to Pyongyang just for bringing up the topic. Proculation and Kahr (who claims to be left of center) will give you rightwing kant about why it all has to be that way. Backed by a chorus of Martin and Shep.

[Thanos]

Well, I said it before and I don't mind having to say it again. The greatest trick any entrenched aristocracy's ever successfully managed to pull off has been the current one where the modern American nobility has managed to convince the working classes that their real enemies are each other and the other people that are even poorer. "We rich folks who don't pay any taxes at all and we corporations who sent all your jobs overseas aren't to blame at all, it's you dummies who actually expected to be paid more than $5 an hour and have some minimum level of benefit coverage who are really the evil ones!". How this bit or utterly insane propaganda managed to so wildly succeed on all levels with so little opposition to it even materializing is beyond amazing.

Next up, we turn a lump of coal into a brick of solid gold!

[Prof_Chomsky]

Thanos, that is quite possibly THE best summary of what is wrong with society I have ever read.

[Proculation]

Thanos Thanos:

Hopefully this'll start dawning on the population at large that the endless mantra of "more corporate tax cuts creates jobs" is a total lie. In the US especially, the corporations and ultra-wealthy have been given every single tax cut that they've ever wanted, in addition to an endless stream of tax credits that literally wipe out any taxes they are owing, as well as boundless corporate welfare and subsidies that probably number in the trillions of dollars that they receive from the various levels of government. Yet the re-appearance of non-executive jobs is nowhere to be seen.

"Hah-hah! How does it feel like when you find out you've been cheated?"
- Johnny Rotten, at the last concert of the Sex Pistols, 1978.

more corporate tax cuts DO create jobs. you are mixing two different things: the economics behind corporate taxes and the corporatism (collusion between big businesses and washington). Crony capitalism is NOT good capitalism.

[Proculation]

It seems we are in the few states without much corruption.