It's so crazy, it just might work.

We'd definitely need a different Congress to get it passed, though.

Interesting concept, but just remember no business pays taxes, they just pass it on to the customers. And since most of Wal-Mart customers are middle to low income, you would be creating a tax on them.

If businesses "pass it on to their customers" their prices will be higher than their competitors, and they won't sell anything. If all their competitors are doing the same thing and all have to raise their prices, then perhaps the prices will better reflect the actual cost of getting good to the customers. Right now, there definitely is a higher cost than what we are paying, it's just that the extra cost is taken in taxes (to pay for the medical and food stamps of the workers, eventually), but we don't see that cost as being linked to the good we buy.

By correcting the low wage problem, the cost of good will become more apparent.

It seems like that "invisible hand of the market" just disappears in a puff of convenience whenever it doesn't jibe with big business' interests.

"they'll just take it out of their customers." Like customers have no choice but to pay whatever the companies are charging - they can't go somewhere else, they can't just not buy certain things. So the argument is always that we can't do anything about anything, because we'll just be forced to pay more, market forces be damned.

that if we tax less than we pay less for goods.

It's not true, but who cares?

what do I care? Let the big box corporate welfare queens take their lumps.

This will level the playing field for the mom and pops.

Meh....I tend to think low income shoppers would feel good knowing more of what they pay goes to the employees who serve them rather than corporate executives and shareholder profits.

I do.

...

.... that buys at WalMart or eats fast food that's who. And anyone that cannot afford to pay another dime for their fast food meal should probably eat at home.

Please read up a bit on micro economics and learn about the impact of taxes on supply and demand curves.

Having managed and now own my own company, I pass on 100% of my tax cost to my consumers. I do not pay one penny of my money to the government. Those that hire me pay it all. And yes, I have a very successful business with a bright future.

seems like that system is working out pretty well.

I've managed my own software industry business for almost 15 years now, and I'd have to engage in some serious self-delusion to convince myself that I don't pay taxes.

Yes, of course taxes are figured into your bottom line, like any other expense-- but they aren't simply 'passed along to the consumer'. I have competitors. I have other expenses. My profit margin may have to lower a bit when expenses go up-- and the big companies this is aimed at have enormous profit margins. I also have broader interests, like wanting the streets paved and access to educated people for employment. Taxes pay for those things.

you should know that (with the exception of property and sales taxes) you pay (income) taxes on profits, not revenue ... how exactly do you pass this income taxes onto the consumer.

I call BS on this rightwing frame.

(psss, there actually ARE real small business owners here on DU)

And thank ALL OF YOU who are, for just that - I'd rather work for less for small business than work at anything for a multinational.

Wonder who it could have been?

that all Democrats are takers, not makers.

Which is why blue states are net contributors to the treasury, while red states are well...a bunch of welfare states.

Republican administrations are where the economy always falls apart, and Democratic administrations are where they are put back together against all Republican stonewalling. Also, see California.

But we are just a bunch of freeloaders, paying Wal Mart's labor production costs and paying oil companies to drill. And paying farms to put smaller farms out of business and then not to farm...

The stupidity of the Republican position is astonishing.

You drive on roads paid for by taxes. You get an education paid for by taxes. All of those things that enabled you to start a business (small business loans, etc.) are at least in part subsidized by taxes. Yet, you are proud to say that you make your customers pay your taxes. So you give nothing back to the society and government that has enabled your business. That's just selfish, which is the mark of a conservative or libertarian. Selfish as in, "I've got mine, so screw you."

Prove me wrong and tell us the name of your business.

I own a security company that provides assistance to local and international companies. My customers come to me by word of mouth. So, no I will not give the name or location of my company. If you do not believe how I do business, than so be it. I posted on this topic, supporting a raise to the minimum wage, not to make it an attack on my business model. I have no problem with my business practices.

YOu'd have to a conscience first.

it sounds illegal.

I bet on the weekends, the guy also belongs to a Black Ops unit that's so super-secret that even the President doesn't know about it. Yes, that's it.

... that they need public assistance to survive, your business deserves to fail. It may be a profit enginine for you, but it is a net loss to the general public. That would make you no better than a thief or a vandal.

what you charge. If they have to pay an additional tax because they don't pay their employees enough the last thing they will do, if they can help it, is to pass the increase along to their customers. What they will do is cut cost elsewhere like their suppliers for example.

If you actually owned and ran a business, as I have for some time now, you'd understand just how stupid you made yourself look.


Please show me how you get your customers to pay your income tax on net earnings.

Via their own tax bill. When I buy something at a store, a portion of the sales taxes I pay go to anti-poverty programs. When I get taxes taken from my paycheck, a portion of those go to anti-poverty programs.

Wal-Mart is successful because it has offloaded a significant portion of their labor costs onto all of us. It's time to reverse that. If Wal-Mart wants to pay crap, they can pay for the anti-poverty programs their employees use. If Wal-Mart doesn't want to pay that tax, they can pay their workers more.

They'll either raise prices, reduce profits, or rein in executive compensation. If they only raise prices, someone else will do the others and undercut them.

Make the corporations that refuse to pay a living wage pay the costs for the support programs. If they have to raise prices slightly, that will allow consumers to make a more informed decision about where to buy their stuff. More likely market pressures will force them to cut profits or executive compensation to keep prices competitive.

Chamber of Commerce, right-wing, propaganda bullshit.

The Right has pushed that for YEARS whenever the subject of tax increases or minimum wage increases comes up.

It's a lie put out there so people who are in the middle class who give a damn about the poor are told that THEY will have to pay more. It's an appeal to their selfish side. They'd like to see wages go up but not if it costs THEM anything. Especially since THEIR wages have been flat for decades and they have had to cut back. Hell, can't even take a vacation with the family because that trip to Wally World costs money.

Besides, after all the prices go up it will hurt the poor more than it helped,...right?

The Waltons of Walmart receive hundreds of millions in dividends each year which could be used to pay living wages.

The dividend recipients (investors) are not carrying the true cost of the business if they are paying their employees less than is necessary for those employees to live on.

Pray tell how tax breaks cause them to "create jobs". You can't have it both ways.

because, in the end, these companies will start paying employees enough to keep them from getting hit with that tax.

(Nah. They'll squeal like stuck pigs because what you wrote is bull shit)

Then why would businesses be against a tax increase they won't have to pay in the end anyway?

People would stop buying junk from Walmart. Would cause a big surge in manufacturing in the United States again. Wonderful.

That means the shareholders will see a drop in dividends.

Saying businesses just pass taxes along is the old right wing shuffle that lumps the gross in with the net.

Now paying their people a living wage, say $12-$15 per hour would all figure into the gross and that would be passed on and one estimate I've seen in the increased cost at the register is a whopping forty six cents per week for a family of four.

A Prick Tax on rich pricks who pay shit wages and encourage their employees to live on food stamps and Medicaid just to survive sounds like a good idea short term but it would have to be enacted on a state by state basis. The Clown Congress will balk at anything sensible just like they've refused to discuss a job bill or a significant rise in the minimum wage.

But, with a government that works for the corporate world, it will never happen.

Helps more, too. The corps would just pass on their taxes in higher prices anyway, so no real change.

Now, if one wanted to REALLY change things, make the 'lousy-pay' tax be paid by the CEO's and upper management of said companies! The worse their companies pay, the higher their personal taxes!

How do they undercut them is everyone gets taxed for paying too little? Unless they want to cut CEO salaries and management, and I'm happy with that sort of cost cutting.

Raise prices, cut profits or cut executive compensation.

If Wal-Mart only raises prices, there are plenty of other stores that will do some of the other two in order to take Wal-Mart's business.

the difference between Costco and Sam's Club?

Who'd hire the better management? The existing, crappy management. Not gonna happen, because it threatens their jobs.

We had sort of a 'maximum wage' in the 50's. In the form of a 91% top marginal tax rate. Most of the income beyond a certain point just goes to the government anyway - might as well pay the folks at the bottom more. If you have to write a check to the Feds - you want to make the amount as small as possible.

All we need to do is adjust income tax, capital gains tax and corporate taxes back to where they were in the 50's.

We've tried the 'Reagan approach' and since it isn't trickling down as promised. It just makes sense to return to the tax policies that did work. We might as well throw in a few of the old antitrust laws for good measure.

Money has no intrinsic value (the most common type of money doesn't even have a physical existence) it was only created to make bartering easier. If it isn't circulating it should be confiscated.

In times past - you had to be able to defend what you owned. Because the things you owned had a physical existence that others could take from you if you didn't have it secured.

With electronic money - that reality has been replaced with the ability to stockpile money without any kind of physical security, it is a system that doesn't work for most of the world.

I say we go back to that maximum wage. We also need to adjust payroll tax so that it eats up the other 9% beyond that point.

Some meals, travel, and phone "privileges" are taxed if you're the lowly employee.

or do we only single out the corporations we don't like?

Corporations want their expenses socialized, and their risks socialized. It's only when we look at their profits that they suddenly become capitalists.

If small businesses pay so little that their employees are on food stamps, maybe they should pay a bit more too, but OTOH it could be for places that employee more than a certain number of people. Raising the minimum wage would affect everyone, including small businesses. Are you opposed to raising the minimum wage?

who should have been left to fail instead of being bailed out. There's always exceptions for the rich.

you have no business running a business at all.

This would tend to skew hiring towards people unlikely to qualify for public assistance. They'll hire the college student who is still a deduction on their parents taxes instead of the single mother of two who will still qualify for food stamps.

Just raise the minimum wage.

Like you said the simplest answer is to raise the minimum wage.

AND tax them for their employee's state and local subsides, like Section 8, food stamps and health care.

Make them PAY UP.
Edit: typo

when corporations want us to STFU and go back to our little world of corporate news.

Sue dead beat companies to cover the cost of social programs

That's the kind of analogy I think a lot of right-wingers might get behind. Oh, who am I kidding. But it does make sense.

Would love to see this - maybe some socially progressive state will take it on. Well, ahem, that blows Alaska off the map, unless an oil company sponsors it.............

this seems doable and there is a (similar) model for such a craw back in the insurance industry ... it's called Subrogation.

and it would just provide more incentive for them to lobby to get rid of things like food stamps, medicaid, etc., and the EIC, or at the very least, to increase their income eligibility limits.

And it's not that complicated. "Last year, these SSNs received $$$ in aid. Your tax is $$$."

It introduces another middle man, in the form of government. Taxes are spent on all sorts of things, after all, and I would be concerned that such an arrangement would actually give the government an impetus to cut social spending. After all, what's to stop them from spending that "lousy pay tax" money on a few very expensive bombers made by their pals?

I'd rather see the minimum wage increased.

Pass a law which limits the highest compensated person in a company to no more than 300% of the compensation given to lowest compensated employee in the company.

So if the lowest paid employee currently receives $18,000 a year, then the highest paid person in the company would be limited to $54,000 a year including alternative forms of compensation; so they can't get around it by giving income as stock, bonuses, and other perks what do you wanna bet there would be some fairly quick raises to a living wage.

is to pay people a living wage, money spent in the economy avoids the third man of government oversight and disbursement.
It might work if the tax on the employer who pays substandard wages were double what it costs the taxpayers in subsidies to the underpaid. A better incentive to pay a decent wage. And, yes the marketplace would force employers to pay or go out of business.

Let's get behind this! I'd really like to see this gather strength

Last edited Fri Jan 24, 2014, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Assuming the employer wouldn't get a deduction for the subsidized amount on which the taxes are paid, the effective tax rate on the subsidies would be 2 times their regular tax rate; the tax on the subsidized amount included in income and the tax on the amount they could have deducted if they actually paid the subsidized amount as wages. They still come out ahead paying the tax rather than the wages but at least they are contributing something to the support of their employees.

A lot of Americans (at least in California) hire someone to clean their houses or mow their lawns and do gardening. Very often these people do not earn much. They also rely on food stamps, etc. Should those who hire them be required to pay a portion of the government's costs? How in the world would you figure that out?

Should this be limited to large employers?

And, no, I don't hire someone to do my gardening or clean my house.

... We could do so much if a majority of the electorate thought logically. We'd have to do some other logical things along with it, like get money out of elections, get an Amendment passed to cancel out "Citizens United." Get a majority panel of logical-thinking Justices on the Supreme court.

It is in total opposition to the free market. Big welfare progam to business.

As pointed out upthread, yes, the businessman passes on the taxes to his customers. Of course he does...that's his only source of revenue unless he's in the money tree business. But if we reduce his tax burden, we have shifted the cost away from the customer who chooses to buy his product to a non-existent, captive customer.

Example: Indy plans to give a baseball cap manufacturer a taxbreak to relocate to a larger facility, provide tax abatement for some period of time, etc. (BTW, the place that is currently occupied would become unoccupied and a burden on the rest of us...having to look at an empty building with a for lease sign in front of it)

Anyway, I don't wear a cap. Only bought 1 cap in my life and that was in the outer banks to keep the sun out of my eyes in my convertible. By giving that manuf a tax break, the normal overhead of his business, taxes due because of the social contract to provide his business services, to me. A non-customer.

Secondly, the argument is confused because the "owner" is pretending it's his taxes. It's not. That's the cost to his business. By giving him a break we are unleveling the playing field. His competitor isn't necessarily given a break.

We have broken the free market. It is no longer free.

In fact, we've made it even worse because there might be a potential innovator who might need some help and may just have a product which would be much more beneficial to the common good than a baseball cap guy. Like a guy who has a new manufacturing method for solar cells and just needs a little help to get started.

Lastly, the Solyndra thing, in case anyone suggests it, isn't the same thing. It's a false equivalency. The gov't was investing in a technology...Solyndra just happened to be one of the places a seed was thown.

And it would work. I am sorry that it never occurred to me.

can be found, in order to recoup those costs.

I think this is essentially the same thing. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for employers' refusal to meet their responsibility to pay their employees a reasonable wage.

To bad it's just another idea that will never happen.

It is impossible, however, because those same companies run the country and tell everyone else what to do and when to do it. Mostly our lawmakers.

I've posted this idea several times on Huffpost, Alternet, and other venues. It makes perfect sense. We, the taxpayers, are subsidizing these prick bastards. They rightly see, since there is no downside, that their low wages policies are make great business sense.

Since we can easily come up with the actual numbers for the bill--let's just bill them directly for all benefit dollars their employees require.

The bill would be massive for Walmart alone.

I think they would instantly get the point and starting paying higher wages. After all they get a tax break on all the wages they pay. Oh, and this expense penalty should be declared not tax deductible.

PEACE!

It's not that you are giving taxpayer money to people who are somehow unproductive...

Tax payer money is paying the wages of the employees that some of the richest employers won't.

and read the comments after--the defense of wal-mart, the clear hatred for workers, etc., is beyond sickening.

I know this came up 6 months abo, but I never heard the outcome. It makes perfect sense. Eliminate the "minimum wage", but if your employees are in poverty and seek assistance from the state, then the employer has to pay for that. With such a law, it would be amazing how quickly we would get to something like a living wage because it would make absolutely no sense for the business to pay the extra penalties. They would simply give the money to their workers in the first place. We would all be better off because the amount we would all be taxed to subsidize Wal*Mart would go down.

Likewise if power companies had to pay the FULL cost of the pollution they dump into our atmosphere, they would be much more inclined to invest in cleaner energy sources.

The ONLY way a free market system can produce a good result for all of society (and not just enrich the few at the expense of the many) is when the corporations have to bear the FULL cost of their activities.