Do Corporations Ever Pay Taxes?

It is a popular mantra as the Democrats trot out the well-worn class envy argument that big corporations (along with all the rich) do not pay their fair share.  What about big corporations.  Have they ever paid taxes?  Will they ever pay taxes?  Can they be made to pay taxes?  Unlike personal income I would suggest to you that corporate income never really gets taxed.  Consider an example.  Let take big oil since they are the really really bad bad guys.  Let consider Exxon/Mobil:

Revenue for 2010 was 383 billion
Profit for 2010 was 30.5 billion
While large corporations often pay no income tax in the United States and this is true with Exxon/Mobil it does not mean that they do not pay taxes.  Exxon/Mobil paid 7.7 billion in taxes through sales tax and duties.

We could argue till the "cows come home" about effective tax rates and and if they are paying their fair share and is it right that they are paying more income tax to foreign countries than to the United States.  It seems there is a more fundamental question.  Where does Exxon/Mobil get their money to tax?  in 2010 they got it from their 383 billion dollars in revenue.  This is the income they generated from the goods and services they provided.  So the money came from their customers!  While some of their customers are no doubt other big corporations some of their customers are ordinary regular consumers like you and me who make a trip or two to the gas pump one or two times a week.  And where did their big corporations customers get their money to pay Exxon/Mobil.  They got their money from the revenues they generated by providing goods and services to their customers.

The reality is that every dime of taxes paid by Exxon/Mobil was paid by you and me; the consumer.  It always has been, it always will be.  The tax burden of a business is a cost of doing business and the cost is passed on to the customer, and it eventually makes it way down to the individual consumer.

So the next time you want Congress to sock it to the big corporations and make them pay their fair share prepare to open your wallet because the tax increase is coming to a gas pump near you in the form of higher prices.

Think about it!