The Worst Tax

Richard Rahn has an article posted at the Cato Institute about the corporate income tax:

Rank the following taxes from best to worst: individual income taxes; payroll taxes, corporate income taxes, sales or consumption taxes, and residential property taxes. The vast majority of economists would rank the corporate income tax as being worst and the sales tax and residential property tax as the best.

Unfortunately, the corporate income tax is often the favorite tax of fiscally irresponsible politicians because it is not easily seen. In fact, the corporate tax is paid by workers in lower wages and fewer new jobs, by consumers in higher prices and by savers and investors in lower rates of return. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), based in Paris and not known for favoring lower taxes, published a new study last month, "Tax and Economic Growth," which provides more evidence that the corporate income tax interferes most (as compared with other taxes) with proper resource allocation, productivity growth, and economic efficiency.

I think the corporate tax should be eliminated. It is ineffective and produces a small portion of the total tax take. It defies common sense to believe that the tax falls on some evil entity known as a corporation. All taxes, are paid by individuals as corporations just pass the tax along either to employees, customers or investors. If the goal is to increase job creation, I can think of no better way to do so than to reduce or eliminate corporate taxes.