All of the wages that Nike and Amazon pay are taxed though.
That labor income is taxed particularly heavily (compared to generic income, which in turn is taxed extra compared to capital income) is another, and bigger, problem, yes.
It doesn’t mitigate the fact that effectively untaxed corporate returns amount to potentially infinite deferral of taxes on capital accumulation on top of the low rates paid when capital gains are realized.
Corporate retained profits that aren’t passed through to owners for tax purposes should be taxed, with no sheltering or protection, at the maximum marginal personal income tax rate, corporate distributions should be deductible expenses, and capital distributions and gains should be taxed as normal income to the recipient (but, to fairly treat long term gains—as well as irregular non-capital income—asset basis values should be adjusted for inflation and there should be provisions for optional advance recognition of income for tax purposes and optional deferred recognition over a period of years for windfalls. And “payroll taxes” shouldn’t be separate from personal inncome taxes; all incone regardless of source should be taxed for the programs they support and be counted for eligibility purposes (for social security specifically, additional bend points at and points beyond the current maximum should be adopted instead of the income and benefit caps.)
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That labor income is taxed particularly heavily (compared to generic income, which in turn is taxed extra compared to capital income) is another, and bigger, problem, yes.
It doesn’t mitigate the fact that effectively untaxed corporate returns amount to potentially infinite deferral of taxes on capital accumulation on top of the low rates paid when capital gains are realized.
Corporate retained profits that aren’t passed through to owners for tax purposes should be taxed, with no sheltering or protection, at the maximum marginal personal income tax rate, corporate distributions should be deductible expenses, and capital distributions and gains should be taxed as normal income to the recipient (but, to fairly treat long term gains—as well as irregular non-capital income—asset basis values should be adjusted for inflation and there should be provisions for optional advance recognition of income for tax purposes and optional deferred recognition over a period of years for windfalls. And “payroll taxes” shouldn’t be separate from personal inncome taxes; all incone regardless of source should be taxed for the programs they support and be counted for eligibility purposes (for social security specifically, additional bend points at and points beyond the current maximum should be adopted instead of the income and benefit caps.)