From reading some of the posts here it is easy to see that a few just don't get it. Regardless of what Corps. pay in taxes who would benefit people and the economy better Corps. keeping their taxable money, or government getting their dirty corrupt hands on it? I think the answer is pretty simple if you know anything about economics.
Corporations, businesses, and nonprofit enterprises are by law required to produce financial statements that include all of their current and expected future liabilities. In contrast the government gets away without having to provide honest financial statements. The US treasury's balance sheet does not include the massive unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare, and other federal future obligations...and we have people whine about what corporations are doing.
A fairly conservative estimate of governments unfunded liabilities of the year ending 2011 is 87 trillion. When the expenses of the governments entitlement programs are added up, it becomes clear that to avoid going deeper into debt, would require over 8 trillion in tax collection a year. If congress confiscated the entire earnings of all tax payers earning more than $66,000 and all corporate profits. It wouldn't be enough to cover the 8 trillion per year growth of US liabilities....and we have people whine about corporations not paying their fair share. The message coming from Washington, especially from the Marxist politicians, and the Marxist news media, is that we solve our budget problems by raising taxes on the rich. If many Americans were not so ignorant, such a message would be insulting to our intelligence, but if one is ignorant the rich and corps. don't pay their fair share.
In 2011 Congress spent 3.7 trillion, about 10 billion per day. If Congress imposed a 100 percent tax on all earnings above 250,000K per year, it would bring in about 1.9 trillion. that would run Washington for about 190 days.
The profits of the fortune 500 companies come to 400 billion. That would keep government running for another 40 days.
America has 400 billionaires with a combined net worth of 1.3 trillion. If Congress stole their assets, stocks, bonds, yachts, airplanes, mansions, and jewelry, it would get government to at least late fall. The fact is there are not enough rich people to come anywhere close to satisfying governments runaway spending, and appetite. the real tragedy for this nations future is that there are millions of uninformed people who will buy the political lies and treachery that our problems can be solved by taxing the rich and corporations. Its not very hard to see. All you have to do is open your eyes.
One thing I have noticed is the people with socialist mindsets are always clamoring for rich people and corporations to pay more taxes, but never mention the fact that government needs to make massive spending cuts. Its always we need more of everything, and corporations and the rich need to pay their fair share. Its actually pretty senseless.