What's at issue is the personhood of corporations and the definition of "speech." If corporations are "people too," then it follows that they pay taxes just like anyone else, and that they can contribute "speech" in the form of money, to political causes.
If the corporation "people" aren't paying taxes, then they shouldn't be able to use "speech," which really means dollars, to influence politics.
1. Corporations are indeed people, and, even if we got rid of corporate taxes, they would still be paying taxes, through capital gains.
2. Please show me where in the Constitution it states that you lose your inalienable human rights if you don't pay taxes to the Federal Government. Do my children have no rights? Did people who lived before direct taxation was authorized by the 16th Amendment have no rights?
This strikes me as a populist sentiment, but not a well-thought out principle.
The real people, whether they are owners of corporations or not, are free to give all of the "speech" money to political causes that they want.
Indeed. And if they want to do that as a group, they are free to do that as well.
The speech you see in newspapers and magazines is the other sort, the kind made up of words rather than dollars.
Au contraire, it takes dollars to print those newspapers and magazines - and, more to your point those are
corporations engaging in political speech.
Ditto for Greenpeace, the United Auto Workers, and the Veterans Advocacy Group of America. All of them, engaging in political speech. All of them doing so corporately.
As it stands right now, corporations don't pay taxes on the money they pay out in dividends to shareholders. That is not net profit that is taxed. They don't pay taxes on capital improvements, as that is part of their expenses and therefore not part of the profits. That's why raising or lowering the taxes on corporations themselves doesn't affect them very much.
Now, when one of the corporate owners gets capital gains income, it is taxed at a different rate than when one of the employees of said corporation gets a paycheck. The money paid out by said corporation in salaries or dividends is not a part of its profit, and is not taxed. Therefore, the money is not taxed twice.
Now, those state taxes you gloat about do represent money that is taxed twice, thanks to Trump and his tax reform. I pay taxes to the federal government, then pay taxes to the State of California on the whole amount, including what Uncle Sam has already taken. You seem to think that's all well and good, and my just desserts for living in a "liberal" state.
Or, maybe I've misinterpreted your stance on the matter of double taxation.
I don't think I've said anything about California, or, in fact, any "liberal" state in this entire thread, so, you may be conflating me with someone else. My argument is:
When I make money with my business and it is taxed both when I make it and when I shift it to my personal account, that money has been taxed twice.
If we want tax parity between that kind of income and employment-based-income, then we should tax them each only once, but at the same rate, OR
Tax the former twice, but at the same cumulative rate (which is more complex and troublesome, and, I think, therefore less desireable).