Swiss bankier arrested in Italy

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Corporations? The clue is in the name.

Should corporations be able to function as independent institutions completely free from the objections that bind the common-man, exploiting society and institute their own separate system which is frees itself from their obligations under the guise 'not being really there'.

I am not actually being obtuse, I understand you are trying to say it is an indirect tax on the people, but that wearing blinkers to the situation. When you have economic-institutions completely side-stepping society and only acting like a financial drain to no benefit, maybe you will start to realise they are no better than a parasite.

Means-of-Production should serve society opposed to exploiting it.

Whilst there are cases where the 'right thing' does happen, there is a great many which do not and these should be cracked down upon. Because, who is the tax avoidance serving? It isn't the consumer, it goes straight into the pockets of CEOs and Shareholders living it up at our expense.

I think corporate taxes are silly, because they're simply passed on to the consumer. That tax burden is, ultimately if not easily recognizably, always passed to the "little gal." Ultimately, the individuals in a polity shoulder the tax burden for that polity. To me, it therefore seems more of a political tool, since the government is (tacitly if not explicitly) hiding some of what it is extracting from its residents and citizens in the guise of consumer prices. I'd love to see everybody nice and aware of the tax burden they shoulder.

That said, I am not going to tell you that the "invisible hand" is a perfect tool for guidance. It may work well with prices and the like, but we tend to find out about manufacturers and others cutting corners only After the water table has been poisoned or the waste dump starts to leak, or the smog starts doing damage. Obviously, the general welfare does require regulation that prevents such, just as the government must establish and enforce standards that minimize or prevent fraud. Most corporate "citizens" are honorable, but by no means all. Regulation, enforcement and punishment must also play their role.

Via my retirement accounts, I AM a shareholder. The point of being a shareholder is to let them use your money to fund their operations and improve them and thereby make you more money. Assuming the organization in which I am investing is ethical, I have little problem with that. I employ a financial advisor to assist in my investment choices and to spread out those investments enough so that an as yet undiscovered "Enron" cannot wreck my finances. I, like a large majority of "shareholders," am not living it up at anyone's expense.

CEO overpaid? Probably true of a number of organizations. Their shareholders should be quick to oust them if their compensation is out of line -- though that requires an investor to actually put in a little effort.

[Ironside]

I think corporate taxes are silly, because they're simply passed on to the consumer. That tax burden is, ultimately if not easily recognizably, always passed to the "little gal." Ultimately, the individuals in a polity shoulder the tax burden for that polity. To me, it therefore seems more of a political tool, since the government is (tacitly if not explicitly) hiding some of what it is extracting from its residents and citizens in the guise of consumer prices. I'd love to see everybody nice and aware of the tax burden they shoulder.

That's a fallacy. In the first stage, it implies that a non-taxed company would be nice and not already go for maximum profitabillity. Any price hike due to (non-VAT) taxes is an attempt to increase prices with the hope that the costumers will accept it. But since the consumer tax cuts into the company profits, the company would still be profitable, even with the new taxes. VAT works diffferently and is an explicit consumer tax, so they behave diffferently, even if they also work a bit as a profit tax.

In the second stage, a company that sends out their profits out of the country are de facto already taxing their costumers in the worst possible way (the "profit tax" gives nothing back to the consumer), so any company tax would actually give a higher return to the "little gal". While certainly not always the case, it does contradict your statement, implying more complexity.

The origin of company taxes are probably that there's a bucketload of money there, but I also suspect they help against "accumulation of wealth" (think chip leader in poker), that stifles the smaller players.