Corporate Tax

  

Categories: Tax, Company Management

It's like income tax for companies. The same way you owe the government a certain amount of your income just for existing within the country's borders, corporations owe the government a certain percentage of its profits.

These taxes can be levied on all levels of government, national, state, or even local. And you think your taxes are complicated? The corporate tax code has layers of rules and interpretations and grey areas. That's why big companies have entire divisions of accountants.

Corporate tax is a politically controversial thing as well. To the common man, a company making a billion dollars is just an unfathomable load of profit. But the company dug oil wells and took ten billion dollars of capital to get that oil. So the guy complaining about whoever making a billion dollars in profits...also happens to love paying only three bucks a gallon for his gas instead of eight, like they do in Europe, where they layer taxes upon taxes.

So corporate taxes can be pushed high. American companies then earn less, and end up being less competitive on a few fronts with the rest of the world, which has lower taxes. Think: China.

Many companies pay dividends as well, but dividends come after corporate taxes, so when the recipient of the dividend gets that divvy, she pays tax on it...again. Should corporate taxes consider that "double-taxation"? Maybe. Not an easy political football to throw around.

And there's another hot potato: what's deductible? In the 70's, corporate taxes were massive, but corporations could deduct just about everything. Think: That snazzy country club membership for each of its execs. That pool table for the break room. That firefighters' pole from the 9th floor to the 8th.

So...just looking at the number in a vacuum doesn't mean all that much if enough can be deducted so that the corporation doesn't have enough profits to be taxed in the first place. The process is kind of a mood ring. Each decade, it seems, different resource allocation pressures get recognized, and the tide (and mood ring color) shifts.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is the difference between ...3066 Views

00:01

Shmoop and the Bible: Song of Solomon. I'm Cecil B DeShmoop here and today we're

00:08

gonna be talking about the Song of Solomon - that doesn't refer to Solomon's [man stands on stage]

00:12

go to karaoke jam, which by the way is Britney Spears "toxic" - bet you didn't know

00:17

that - and yes it makes everyone in the karaoke bar very uncomfortable. Anyway. We

00:22

all know that the Old Testament is known for being a little, you know fire and [book open]

00:26

brimstone, but Song of Solomon puts the brakes on all that in order to tell [couple picnicking]

00:31

a good old-fashioned love story. And, you might want to put a can next to you. this

00:36

gets sickeningly sweet. So, the Song of Solomon also known as the Song of Songs [man holds can]

00:41

deals with two young people who are deeply in love, but in a super creative [couple watches sunset]

00:47

plot twist her family doesn't approve. The book begins with the bride talking

00:52

about her potential groom it's pretty disgustingly clear that they're in love [couple on a boat]

00:56

but this is actually the first time in the Bible that we see two people in love.

01:00

So, SOS is kind of saying hey guys love can actually exist between people and [couple shares spaghetti]

01:07

it's an awesome God-given gift. I mean sure it can also be seen as a

01:11

representation of God's love for Israel, You know, God equals man, Israel equals [bearded man mails letter]

01:16

woman but I'd like to think God would have penned better lines, "then your neck

01:21

is like the Tower of David built in rows of stone". Yeah like come on that's [ couple talks outside tents]

01:27

definitely a dumb boy's attempt at really flirting. All right. And you know I'm

01:31

speaking from experience here. Well, she says his love is better than wine, which [couple in vineyard]

01:37

is nice and all but my wife once told me that marrying me was the, and I quote,

01:41

"single greatest regret of her life". unquote. Though, you know comparable. Well [couple in a church]

01:48

a lot of the imagery in the poem is based on nature, which is a nice concept

01:51

until you realize that the dude was probably scribbling this last minute. [man writes while running]

01:55

Like, come on check out these choice lines. "Your hair is like a flock of goats" That's really really bad. That was a compliment back then.

02:03

"Your teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep." yeah those things did he just pick out

02:10

random things he saw on the road to her place or what? And, like it's a little

02:14

weird. like why is he so into barnyard animals? hmm hmm

02:19

And anyway back to our couple. Well, the sketchy groom runs to the bride's window [ man approaches building]

02:23

to invite her to escape with him - classic move - and sure they fantasize about it

02:27

but that's about as far as that scene goes. It's g-rated- which is probably

02:31

smart move on her part. Who knows where goat boy's mind might [ couple lays in grass]

02:34

wander. Baaaa. well the next scene comes from a dream the bride has. In it she [girl in bed]

02:40

sees her groom dressed as King Solomon surrounded by tons of servants. It might

02:45

just be one servant who weighs tons, and glad they focus on her dreams and not

02:52

his, all that bleating would give me a headache.

02:54

anyway we then switched to the groom's point of view and we get to hear about [couple argue]

02:58

how great his bride is and how much it stinks that she's so far away. Riveting.

03:03

next we go back to some dreams the bride's having. In one she's dressed as a [woman in costume]

03:07

giant armadillo- we're not making this up people- giant armadillo. And she's singing

03:12

the 12 days of Christmas while people throw bananas at her. Which have appeal.

03:16

and another she can see the groom at her window but she can't get to him. Only one [woman waves from window]

03:21

of those dreams is true, and all right well we'll leave it up to you to decide

03:24

what we made up there. Sorry, just a curveball. All right, well the poem

03:28

continues with the bride describing how attractive her groom is - yikes. [woman writes while sitting under a tree]

03:31

Watch out guys, getting real pg-13 now up in here.

03:34

wonder if someone's being paid by the word for this scintillating tale. Well we

03:38

continue reading about how much these two saps love each other and how

03:41

obsessed they are with each other, and we all know a couple like this. We all hate [man scowls in the corner]

03:46

a couple like. This, we all secretly cackle when that couple breaks up - Angie,

03:50

Brad- some of us don't even secretly cackle. some of us have lost friendships

03:54

over our public cackling. All right, I stand by it. [,man shrugs]

03:57

Anyway as the book comes to a close we see that the bride hasn't disowned her

04:01

protective family, but instead is pleading with them to let her groom into [mother and father pictured]

04:05

the house. they're probably like "well when he's written to you, why is he so into goats?"

04:12

"What's up with that?" Well the book ends with family saying "yeah you're too young

04:17

to get married but we'll help you plan a marriage when [couple at a wedding]

04:21

you come of age ,but for real he's super into goats. Just saying" . All right, well

04:27

it's implied in the bride yelled "you just don't understand our love", and

04:31

and stormed off to her room to pout and listen to whatever mixtapes[girl listens to music]

04:35

the groom had made for her. Well, the books last lines are final declarations

04:39

of love from both the groom and the bride. You can now use that can I told [couple holds hands]

04:44

you to put next to you at the start of this video. Got it all out? Excellent, here

04:48

we go, that's the Song of Solomon. Well I'm off to write my wife a beautiful poem

04:53

I'm thinking it'll go something like your "eyes are like a gang of pigs that [man stands waving arms]

04:58

want to have a street fight against another gang of pigs, your lips are like

05:03

two worms thrashing about in manure " . See, it's romantic gestures like these that

05:08

make my wife Google things like "can a marriage be annulled after 16 years?" [woman scowls]

Up Next

Finance: Why Do Taxes Exist?
138 Views

Why do taxes exist? Without taxes, Uncle Sam wouldn't be able to boss us around via the IRS, which uses taxpayer money to run the government. Those...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)