Kill Business Profit Tax; Dock Investors Instead: Jonathan Berk

Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The corporate income tax, part ofthe U.S. tax code since 1909, is a failure on all counts. Itisn’t raising much money. It isn’t creating socially desirableincentives, and it isn’t immune from manipulation. We should getrid of it in favor of more efficient levies on capital.

There are two commonly held myths about corporatetaxes. First, that they bring in a lot of money. They don’t.Last year, only 8.9 percent of government revenue came from suchsources. Second, that companies pay the tax. They don’t; onlypeople pay taxes. The corporate tax is extracted from personsassociated with a business: investors, employees and customers.Government revenue from these people has been dropping steadilysince the peak of almost 30 percent in the 1950s.