Rights of Citizen-Corporate versus Citizen-Human

[RedDwarfDogs]

I reflected on the increasing tendency of countries to reduce corporate income tax rates, and have become disturbed by the growing tendency to refer to the "corporations right of free speech".

WHOA FOLKS... the foundation of most democracies is equality of all humans. The idea of restricting voting rights to those who are land owners, etc has been discarded. I think that the "legal personification" of corporations, and the ascribing of human rights to corporation may be a fundamental problem. Corporations are legal entities, not legal citizens.

Many are taxed in many countries on their world wide income if they are deemed resident in that country. This is not the tax situation for most corporations.

I think that we need to revisit the fundamental nature of corporations and busineses. At the lowest level, a properitorship (being a person or immediate family) has traditionally been the basis of taxation (i.e. at one time 90%+ lived on farms). Taxation was based on capital value (farm land) or on value of goods produced (crops).

It is interesting that the shift to tax on the profit produce instead of the value of goods, resulted in a complicated tax structure. This structure gives corporation a wide variety of deductions according to its needs. For humans, the deductions are narrow and often very limited -- for the matter of many health costs (supplements, organic food, non-prescription medicines) there is no deductions. But the equivalent for corporations are allowed.

Has corporation become "super-entitlement" citizens? Is this because corporate boards have replaced the Lords of old? How do we define corporations to prevent this trend?

Is not this super-entitlement the root problem of captial migration and job migration? Are we heading to the new land clearances -- just like the highland clearances were done by the Lords to make better profit, and the irish famine migration.... Except, instead of the people being moved, the "root of living" (was land, it is now jobs) is being moved.

[Packratt]

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for an insightful post, it's an interesting way to look at the problem.

[RebelWithanAK]

I second that. The fact that Corporations have the same rights as individuals here is astoundingly wrong.

[rmnunez]

I don't know whether corporations have become super-entitlement citizens or some sort of analogy to Lords of British yore. The tax issue is interesting because the corporations are ostensibly benefited this way due to their social contribution (particularly employment). Individuals benefitted with deductions tend to enjoy these through no social contribution. Some individuals could incorporate to obtain the fiscal benefits available to corporations. There are deductions available to individuals and not to corporations (as a consequence of marriage, dependants, health-care, home ownership and such).

The corporate right to free speech seems like baloney to me. Corporate communication is advertising to most of us and this sort of communication is explicitly recognized as subject to different rules than the non-commercial sort. Saw some interesting legal material on this relating to a case a couple of years ago against Nike for some fraudulent description of its Asian sweatshops. Nike's free-speech claim rested on some misrepresented Supreme Court case headnote in a railroad case.

[tman_ndsu08]

More reasons to abolish our decietful government.

[castille]

Corporations do get the same rights as citizens.

They have to pay tax twice. First to pay corporate tax, then individual tax.

[suijurisfreeman]

Under "the law" corporations are "persons" also (or atleast have the same standing). I haven't considered myself a "person" since 1993. Corporations are creatures of "government", I am neither the creation of nor the property of the state, I am the living Human Being known as Winston Ward Johnson, ain't no frickin' person! My right are neither derived from nor dependent upon "citizenship".

[rmnunez]

But some of your rights are derived from citizenship (particularly when it comes to things like taxes and liability).

[Impenitent]

right to ignore the state? say that in iran, n korea, china, vietnam, jordan, saudi arabia, ect ad nauseam...

your rights are taken from others from the end of your gun...

watch the state enforce its right with their guns...

[Write Winger]

Corporations do not pay taxes...they collect them. Raise the rates for corporate taxes and in order to meet their obligations to the stockholders...those who pay an additional tax on those same profits, the corporation has to either cut expenses (jobs) or raise prices which in a lot of cases will cause their profits to go down...which will result in the lowering of production (jobs).

So governments and their minions who have no grasp of how economics works think it makes good press to attack the legal entity of the evil corporation. A corporation is us. It is the stockholders, the pensioners, the workers, the management people. It owns buildings and infrastructure and it provides the means for a lot of revenue to flow to the state, allowing our poor people to have color TVs and cell phones. Corporate America makes a handy whipping boy to sell twaddle to he masses in exchange for votes so a few people with visions of a socialist state can weild power.

Hate the corporations? Want them reigned in? How do you feel about bread lines?