Raising corporate burden taxes logic

George Bernard Shaw, subject to punitive income tax in post-war Britain, declared his occupation as tax collector on 2,5% commission. Some companies must know how he felt. In a modern economy, most taxes are collected and paid by businesses.

The government collects tax more cheaply from a few large companies than from millions of personal taxpayers. Governments could not collect 40% of national income in any other way. The few taxes for which individuals have to write out cheques  mostly property taxes  arouse hostility disproportionate to the revenue they raise.

But a tax collected by business is not a tax on business. All taxes are paid by people, in their roles as employees, consumers, shareholders or homeowners. When people talk of a tax on a particular company, what they mean is a tax on the people associated with the company, just as when they talk of a tax on tobacco they mean a tax on the people who sell or use it rather than a tax on the tobacco leaf itself.

For some taxes, it is difficult to identify who the taxpayers are. Is a tax on payroll paid by the shareholders of the company, its customers or by the employees? The answer is hard to assess and probably differs between the short and long run: shareholders may bear the burden initially, but in due course wages may be lower or prices higher. And if the tax discourages employment, it imposes an excess burden: the people who have lost their jobs are worse off, but the government has gained no revenue from them. The costs of the tax exceed the amount of the tax.

Some taxes paid by business fall on shareholders. Most shareholders are themselves institutions  pension funds, investment companies, other businesses  so we need to search further to find the people who pay. Determining the incidence of a tax  the people who are out of pocket as a result of its imposition  is a complex process. The incidence of some taxes, such as the payroll tax and the corporate income tax, remains uncertain. This opacity is often attractive to governments. If people do not know they are paying a tax, they are less likely to complain.

So what do commentators mean when they say that business must shoulder its fair share of the tax burden, or that taxes on business have increased? These statements are nonsensical, taken literally. Perhaps those who make them are talking about the balance between opaque taxes  such as payroll tax or corporate income tax  and more transparent taxes, for example income tax or VAT. Perhaps they are talking about the balance between taxes on shareholders and taxes on employees. Perhaps they have just not thought clearly about what they want to say.

We should be concerned about the overall distribution of the tax burden and this is best examined by looking at the tax system as a whole rather than its individual components. We should be concerned about the economic effects of taxation  how much do taxes discourage employment, enterprise or investment? And we should ensure that the mechanisms of collection are cheap and efficient. Rhetorical talk of burdens on business simply gets in the way of sensible analysis of the key issues in tax policy.

Source: John Kay Raising corporate burden taxes logic Business Day 26 October 2005

For text: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A106128

FMF Policy Bulletin/ 01 November 2005