crocodile wrote on Dec 19
th, 2015 at 7:52am:
Just a side note. Andrew, on his blog has been kind enough to post more of his thoughts on corporate taxation. He wholeheartedly agrees that the majority of the burden of corporate tax falls on labour rather than the owners of capital by a margin of 2/3 to 1/3. His only concern is capturing the foreign dividends. Easily fixed through legislation.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8462.12127/fullSeriously, the corporate tax rate of 30% is hurting and we are slowly losing to more competitive jurisdictions.
I am not at all convinced by the argument that it's somehow hurting. It's time for some perspective.
For the 1539 large companies listed:
The total amount of revenue was $1,629,023,186,711.
The total taxable income was $169,906,851,714. (10.43% of revenue).
The total tax paid was $39,862,816,070 (23.46% of taxable income and 2.45% of revenue).
How many PAYE taxpayers are paying no more than 2.45% of their gross income in tax? Not many. Most pay more than that.
It's not just taxes though. Spending needs to be considered. Some of these large corporations receive some form of government assistance. The mining industry alone receives more than $2 billion a year in rebates for diesel fuel. After the various forms of corporate welfare are considered, the corporations are not actually contributing much tax revenue at all.
If we want to consider cutting the corporate tax rate, it must be funded by corresponding deep cuts to corporate welfare so the Budget is not left worse off. The PAYE taxpayer already carries the largest tax burden in Federal taxation. They shouldn't be expected to carry more of it so companies can pay less.