Business 101. Every business must add its fixed costs, to its variable costs to determine what its break even point is. That includes everything, including taxes that are assessed by government (like health care taxes on employees) If your break even point is 1000 dollars per day and you only take in 999 dollars you are losing money. Raising prices is not just a no brainer. My father was in the plywood resin business. The bids were often won or lost by a HALF PENNY per pound. Keep in mind, they would sell three for four tanker trucks per week to some plywood mills, so they bought 40,000 # of resin per week, that comes out 200 dollars per week the plywood mill may not be able to pass on to his customers. There are literally thousands of products in the competitive market where price determines who gets the business and who goes out of business. When you see business move from the city to the valley which is common, they are offsetting the costs in real estate taxes and rent and weigh that against the increased variable costs of transportation costs.

The simple cost of fuel on semi trucks can break a owner operator of a 18 wheeler, if the owner cannot add a surcharge to the cost of his freight charges. Most businesses are dependent on trucking and maybe rail to transport raw materials or finished product to either the mfg plant or to a distribution center. The freight costs are in addtion to the cost of the product.
That 50 cents a gallon state and federal fuel tax affects the cost of transportation much more than it affects you and I going to work. If a semi gets 7 miles to the gallon and travels 560 miles per day, the boss paid the state and federal government
40.00 in fuel tax for one day, for one truck. The driver may make 40 cents per mile, so that cost the company 224.00 in wages, plus social security taxes, medicare, labor and industrys, plus the prorated costs of any vacation benefits, sick leave, 401k and medical insurance. Every employee is responsible for part of those listed federal programs, so he doesnt take home 224 dollars.

If we buy each others products or services, we pay for a small part of the fees and taxes imposed by the government, plus all other variable costs and fixed costs. We also pay for inflation created by deficit spending. Social security payments do not reflect the increased costs of inflation in every category. The government chose to leave some of those out, so they dont have to increase the COLA for seniors on Social security. We pay more for the comodities such as oil, (priced in dollars) and grain and other foods. Corn has gone up due to its demand in ethanol. Its also used to feed livestock and its put into a lot of food products, even dog food.

All the policies that government makes affects every single business and its passed along to every single customer. When the Fed raises interest rates, it just cut into the profits of every business that has a line of credit for flooring costs for cars or boats, variable loan rates on the land or building or equipment.

During the Eisenhower administration the top tax rate was 90 percent. The reason few paid anywhere near that was, the government allowed very liberal deductions. The boss didnt own the truck or corvette, he drove to work. The company did.
Kennedy brought it down to 70 percent. Reagan brought it down to about 28%. In the mean time, the tax deductions for the vette went away along with a lot of other deductible expenses. The company could own the vehicle, but the IRS now taxed that benefit back to the employee of the company. The basic reason more money comes in at lower tax rates, is because, the company or rich individual doesn't have to shelter it or piss away money on a new vette every single year.

The size of the tax code is larger than a bible. It contains all the deductions and credits, depreciation schedules that keep tax attorneys and accountants very busy earning money, that could be saved by eliminating the majority of language in the tax code. We would also save money at the federal level, like the IRS whos job it is to enforce all the codes.

Last week one radio program announced that GE paid no income tax. They obviously made a profit, but the tax code allowed them to deduct expenses, take credits and depreciate equipment at a rate that offset the profits for the year. It doesnt mean that GE paid no taxes. Business pay lots of taxes.

Nothing gets in the tax code without the help of an expensive lobbyist, a vote from congress and a signature from the president.
While your democratic representative says tax the rich, his chief of staff is looking over the new proposal for deductible expenses, credits and depreciation schedules from the company or industry lobbyist. The lobbyist gets paid. The politician gets a donation for his campaign and the big business gets an edge over the little business. MacDonalds and other companies already got waivers from Obamacare. The waivers supposedly go away in 2013 or 2014 but, nothing prevents the company from sending the lobbyist out to extend the waiver.

They are not going to take in enough money to cover the spending of people who cannot say no. I think the name is Nassau county in NY, or some county in Connecticut that has the highest property taxes in the nation and it still has a deficit to cover. It was on the news a couple months ago.

Borrowing 40 cents on top of every dollar collected is your representatives way of saying, you are not paying enough. He wont get your vote if he targets you. So he targets the guy you work for. It will never be enough. When the guy you work for feels the pinch, what do you expect he will do?

After five years in congress, they actually think they deserve a pension for the rest of their lives. The same people and attitude ran the house bank, that was exposed in the early 90's. Lots of congressmen bounced checks, that you would be in trouble for. Congressmen have to live in their districts. Rich folks can move and many of them do and so do the big companies that are overtaxed.

You can tax the rich, but dont expect much when your little nonprofit wants a donation. There wont be enough money, so youll ask government to do more. And around it goes.