Replying to a message of Jeff Binkley to Bob Ackley:

 JB>>>>> Over the past three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of
 JB>>>>> $27B  annually in taxes --  as much as the bottom 50 percent
 JB>>>>> of individual  taxpayers, 65 million people.

 JB>>>>> The total effective tax rate on oil is about 40 percent, the
 JB>>>>> average  income tax rate for all corporations is 35 percent.

 BA>>>> 

 BA>>>> You forget, Jeff, as did Dr. Perry, that the oil companies did
 BA>>>> not pay one thin dime in taxes to anybody.  Their customers
 BA>>>> did, the taxes they 'paid' were passed directly through to
 BA>>>> those customers. All business do that, if they didn't they'd go
 BA>>>> out of business.

 JB>>> And so when Obama claims to tax our way to cheap gasoline with
 JB>>> this  windfall nonsense, he is fleecing his constituents.  I
 JB>>> hope others see  that too.

 BA>> You are correct.  The so-called 'windfall profits tax' will just be
 BA>> passed along, like all other taxes, to those who purchase the
 BA>> product or service provided.

 BA>> What I'd like to see is a 110% tax on *dividends* paid by the
 BA>> company/companies,
 BA>> a 110% tax on the gain-on-sale for those who sell their stock in
 BA>> those companies 
 BA>> (obviously zero for those who have no gain or a loss on said sale),
 BA>> plus a 150% tax on retained earnings in excess of the previous
 BA>> year's retained earnings for those companies.  I think we'd see a
 BA>> precipitate drop in the price of fuel were that to happen.

 JB> So you believe we can tax our way out of this problem too ?  You just 
 JB> have a different strategy.  Amazing.

Think about it.  That tax can't be passed along to the consumer in the form of
higher prices (which is what usually happens with taxes and which is why I contend
that businesses themselves pay no taxes), because the higher the price the more tax
is due.  And while I'm sure that the stockholders will be less than
thrilled to have a
10% loss on dividend income (100% of the dividend paid plus 10% of that amount
in other assets) the company will be heavily penalized (150% of the amount
of retained earnings held above that amount held the previous year, IOW all
of this year's and 50%
of last year's) for *not* paying that dividend.  The 'profit motive' is
effectively removed.

The goal is not to raise revenue (which is what most liberals want) but to lower
the price of a necessary commodity; in this particular case the lower the
price the less
the shareholders and/or the company will *lose* in taxes.  And BTW it violates one of
my tenets that the only legitimate purpose of taxation is to raise revenue.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+