Pandagon

I was taxed on my pay, and used the remainder to pay my property, state and federal income, vehicle, and sales taxes. Does that mean property, state and federal income, vehicle, and sales taxes are double taxation?

They're just trying to have it both ways. Corporations are people when it's convenient and not when it isn't. So, corporat eearnings get taxed, and then once you received them they get taxed again, so they're "double taxed" before they ever get into your fingers.

Of course, given the phase out of the estate tax if corporate earnings were never taxed, then a lot of that income would never ever be taxed not even once.

I bought a can of soup for $1.00 at the grocery store.

Then I discovered Campbell's sold THE VERY SAME CAN to the store for $0.95!!

Double charging!!! THEY are taking almost $2.00 for ONE CAN OF SOUP!!!!

Working class people are double-taxed more than anyone. If you combine income taxes with payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc., working class people pay the highest, not lowest percentage of their income to taxes.

I think you posted the wrong link...

"Double taxation" is one of those great sound bites that really resonates with an ignorant public. The vast majority of people don't have a clue what they're talking about, but they can certainly spit out "Double taxation!" and feel like they've said something.

If the average citizen had any idea how the tax system has been stacked against them, they really would rise up in open revolt. But they're kept clueless, and thus it is easy to Bush and his GOP elite to sell their case that the extremely wealthy need to contribute less to society while the poor and middle class should be made to bear all of the burden.

Yes, see here.

It's all very simple, really. Suppliers of equity capital to public corporations are morally superior to suppliers of labor or suppliers of goods and services to those same corporations, and so should not be taxed on the income they recieve for supplying that capital. Welcome to the ownership society.

The traditional definition of double taxation is a person whose full income is claimed for taxation purpose by two different governments (usually countries). A person who was so claimed by multiple governments would be at an enormous financial disadvantage, and any venture he attempted would be doomed to fail because he could not compete with anyone who was claimed by only one government (he would have to set his prices much higher to make the same profit). This form of double taxation is universally condemned, and rightly so.

What President Bush does with his rhetoric is attempt to tie the concept of double taxation falsely to the concept of one government charging multiple different taxes, a concept that is universally accepted. What the supporters of this false double taxation standard would like to do is, as the saying goes, have their cake and eat it too.

A standard corporation has more legal separation between itself and its shareholders. One of the costs of this legal separation (one of the main things that distinguishes it from an S Corporation or LLC) is that its dividend are taxed. It could be argued that this cost is too high (in order for fair competition, it should not be more of a burden than the liability it shelters), but I cannot see how it can be argued (as the President would need to in order to have an honest debate on this issue) that this cost is not justified.

To summarize, double taxation is bad, but "double taxation" as described by President Bush is not.

GOP rhetoric has nothing to do with real 'double taxation'.

consumption (sales) taxes spring to mind: you pay income tax, then you are taxed again as soon as you spend. of course, the GOP does not care about consumption tax relief.

corporations pay debt interest pretax, but dividends are aftertax. this debt 'tax shield' makes capital structures based on debt more attractive, distorting capital allocation. GOP 'tax relief' does not affect corporate taxes, however, just individual taxes.

the moral of the story: ignore the rhetoric and run the numbers. 'double taxation' rhetoric is about making the tax burden in the US more regressive, not about fairness or efficiency.

Even if "double taxation" were unfair, it wouldn't even come close to being a priority among issues of taxation and economic justice.