The reason a tax break is not a bill of attainder is because they do not usually target a specific company.
Say the corporate tax rate is 25%. It does not matter if you are an oil company, a paper company, a book publisher, or a beer brewer. You all pay 25% tax.
But then the oil industry gets a special tax break that says they get to deduct the cost of oil exploration from their taxes.
A paper company doesn't explore for oil, so they do not get this deduction.
The bottom line result is that the oil industry is paying a smaller percentage of taxes than all the other industries.
And as has been shown, this is actually happening. Therefore, totally constitutional.
To defend this as a "legitimate business expense" is to willfully ignore that all the other industries have business expenses, too. And if they do not all get special carve-outs for all of their business expenses, then we have an unlevel playing field.
This results in the companies with the deepest pockets getting what they want in the tax code and everyone else losing out.
To excuse this as necessary complication is to excuse corruption.
The Republican Party argues if you remove all these carve outs, you can lower the tax rate on everyone, and simplify the tax code greatly.
So wake up. You guys are on the wrong side of the argument.
Say the corporate tax rate is 25%. It does not matter if you are an oil company, a paper company, a book publisher, or a beer brewer. You all pay 25% tax.
But then the oil industry gets a special tax break that says they get to deduct the cost of oil exploration from their taxes.
A paper company doesn't explore for oil, so they do not get this deduction.
The bottom line result is that the oil industry is paying a smaller percentage of taxes than all the other industries.
And as has been shown, this is actually happening. Therefore, totally constitutional.
To defend this as a "legitimate business expense" is to willfully ignore that all the other industries have business expenses, too. And if they do not all get special carve-outs for all of their business expenses, then we have an unlevel playing field.
This results in the companies with the deepest pockets getting what they want in the tax code and everyone else losing out.
To excuse this as necessary complication is to excuse corruption.
The Republican Party argues if you remove all these carve outs, you can lower the tax rate on everyone, and simplify the tax code greatly.
So wake up. You guys are on the wrong side of the argument.
Last edited: