Comment by ajsnigrutin
Comment by ajsnigrutin 2 days ago
I understood it more as "the individuals should be taxed the same (so, much lower amount) as corporations".
If company X can pay just <small percent> of their income as taxes (all together), why can't random bobby do the same?
The law requires you to have a fire extinguisher in your office? Sure, buy one, but since it's a cost of doing business, that money comes from the pre-tax pile and is not taxed extra. The law requires me to wear pants when I go out, why do i have to buy them from post-tax pile of money (so, after ~50% gone to the government), and still pay 9.5% VAT on them? I can buy those same black jeans as a company (eg. consider black jeans a work uniform), and avoid all those taxes). Rent? Pre-tax money for a comoany, post-tax for an individual. In some countries (eg. mine, slovenia) you have even bigger stupidities... you have a CO2 tax (and some other) on gasoline (and other fuels), and you pay VAT on top of that tax... the co2 tax included in the base to calculate the VAT... you literally pay taxes on taxes. Again, businesses don't have to pay that VAT (they deduct it) because well.. they need the company car to do business.
The distinction is business vs personal, not company vs individual. A sole trader can usually do avoid income and VAT on all those things (except some deductions pertaining to payroll benefits). Some countries have an alternative arrangement where very small traders pay VAT but also retain VAT on the products they sell rather than actually netting out the VAT on a return.