Tom came back with: "Well... my marriage counts as far as I'M concerned, but the government doesn't seem to think so."

*************

Stupid government.

We'll still accept you and your marriage HERE, tho.

"Every penny that any corporation pays in taxes comes from a single source.  Our wallets.  If taxes go up they just raise the price on goods and services to cover the increase in their costs.  For GM or IBM to survive they'll have to raise their prices or cut their costs through layoffs."

Or they can just take it out of their profits.

But seriously: They will cut costs through layoffs anyway if they think they can save by it. Likewise, they will raise their prices to the maximum of what the market will tolerate no matter how much or how little taxes they pay. This is capitalism, not bartering at a commune.

The  ideas of supply and demand and "buy low, sell high" explicitly create a system where a company at any point will seek to charge the maximum possible for the goods or services they provide. They are already at that maximum. A tax increase for the businesses will not raise that maximum.

Unless a tax increase is accompanied by an increase in the disposable income of consumers, there would, theoretically, be little to no room for a price hike. Unless we make the bizarre assumption that companies are currently capping their profit margins at a level markedly below their profit margin potential.

Which would constitute a breach of the companies' obligation to their shareholders of maximizing profits.

Consider the opposite: if there had been tax cuts, do you think companies would reduce their prices or increase their profits? Hmm.

Here in Norway we have a 25 percent sales tax. This was also the sales tax on food. A few years back, after a lengthy campaign where supermarket chains and conservative politicians argued that cutting the sales tax on food would benefit the consumers, the sales tax on food items was cut in half to 12 percent.  So of course, immediately that 12 percent was passed on to the consumers. How wonderful.

The problem was that these Supermarket chains now knew that consumers were prepared to pay at least 10 percent more for essential goods than they were currently paying. So over the next few years food had an annual price increase higher than other goods that did not have sales tax cuts. A few years later that "tax cut" had been eaten up by inflated price increases.

With the result that consumers, despite promises and assurances made, did not benefit from the cut in the sales tax.

It sounds so good this catch-phrase that a tax increase will increase prices for the consumer. But any company worth its salt will try to increase prices for consumers regardless. The only way a company is able to sustain a price  increase is if consumers get more money. Which would happen if someone decided to tax the rich and give regular consumers a noticable tax cut that will increase their disposable income, their spending power. .

Hmm. Funny how that works.

From Lincoln to Roosevelt to Coolidge to Eisenhower to Nixon to Reagan to Bush -- the GOP has changed much over the years. And it's gonna be changing now again, thankfully... I hope!

Thats true of every party of course.  I don't think the Crazy Christian wing is leaving.  I think Mike Huckabee's showing this year in the primaries and Sarah Palin support in the base make it clear that the CCs are here to stay.

Income is what is taxed.  They can offset income with certain costs the same way we can deduct certain costs like mortgage interest, but if I'm not mistaken it's still the corporate income, not just profit, that is taxed. 

You deduct losses and costs from your taxable income.  You can't think of this like individual taxes that are taken from a paycheck.  You submit a statement of earnings, subtracting out costs.  You are taxed on your profit.