Wednesday, August 15, 2012

All Taxes Are Paid by the Consumer

You cannot tax a corporation, even if you wanted to.  You cannot tax a business.  All taxes on companies show up in the price you pay for their goods and services.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.  If a tax is imposed on a business,  what is more likely to happen is the interval of re-orders by the business to its suppliers is likely to lengthen due to the tax-induced suppression of demand.  Lower-priced alternatives become more attractive or people do without.  Again, anywhere long the line the marginal go under.

Smart businesses narrow selection and buy in bulk to compete in response.  The big boys offer loss leaders.  Small businesses are inclined to try, but get killed trying to do so.  Those bigger buyers grow ever larger and become the Walmarts and Ikeas and Safeways.  Materials and ingredients degrade.  Specialty stores that sell the unique items can still thrive in this milieu.

Costco and Best Buy and Office Depot and Lowes are all the result of state sales taxes.  Walmart failed in Hong Kong, for it has no taxes.  

Then comes cheap credit which fuels a boom and the big boys get ever bigger.  Then comes the bust. The withdrawal of cheap credit shows the reverse of this same process.  Sans the reverse tax of subsidized credit, the marginal fold.  But as we see, all around we get less product of lower quality at same price.

If a company pays taxes and goes out of business without reselling its inventory, then that company was the consumer that paid the taxes.

We do not need what the state provides with the sales taxes it mulcts.  If we eliminated them, we'd get  what services people want at a lower price and better quality, and more employment.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


0 comments: