A few years ago I had occasion to converse with a Chief Accountant of Federal Express. I mentioned to the pleasant young man how a teacher in an accounting class told us about an associate who was angrily given a choice: cook the books to make his corporation look good, or be fired.
At just the suggestion of this dishonesty, the Federal Express officer was incensed. He’d heard this before and emphatically declared FedEx. paid its taxes and reported its earnings in an above board manner.
I believe him.
So why do corporations and the rich get such a bad rap? Why are they so hated in many circles?
Perhaps because they adhere to jungle rules in which only the strong survive. If FedEx was not diligent in making its deals (half off for large customers, for example) it would be chewed up and digested by UPS, and Big Brown would feel the same sympathy as a snake stuffing a rat.
In this same regard, corporations’ high priced attorneys and lobbyists are continually bending the laws to their advantage. Our tax code is now more than three feet thick and thousands of pages are added each year.
A great number of people are so flustered by the awful labyrinth that makes tax attorneys all warm inside, they use the short form and overpay in frustration.
This has been caused by the rich paying attention to how taxes are affecting them, then responding in their “business is business” manner.
So are the rich and their corporations evil?
Yes, some are.
But the fault lies mostly with the federal government, not them. It’s our congresses and presidents who have stuffed their pockets with cash then bowed to the pressures. It’s the federal government which should be making the rules under which the game of business and finance is played. And it is our federal government that has failed so miserably and behaved in such an evil manner, not the corporate snakes and rats in the forest.
Concerning taxes at least, the answer to this on-going nonsense is to replace the IRS and its mountains of paper with the simple, effective FairTax. The screaming and rending of robes by tax attorneys and lobbyists in D.C. will be horrible to witness, but with the FairTax, corporations, and their rich owners, will pay their fair share, which they are not now doing. From your local book store, please get and read the FairTax book.
Grimgold