A Critique of the Corporate Legal Persons Doctrine: The Case of Corporate Taxation

In his commentary in The Wall Street Journal in 2010, Michael Boskin went over the disadvantages in levying an income tax on corporations. Within his argument, he observes, “Of course, the corporation is a legal entity; only people pay taxes.”[1]  In so doing, he transcended, if only for a moment, his own approach that was oriented simply to giving the pros and cons of corporate taxation.  His observation is significant, and it gives us a launching pad of sorts by which we can approach the corporate income tax as a itself as a concept, rather than simply assessing its utility. In short, corporate taxation is an oxymoron if only humans pay tax. In fact, we can conclude from Boskin's remark that the doctrine that corporations are legal persons has been incorrectly construed.

The full essay is at "A Critique of the Corporate Legal Persons Doctrine." 

1. Michael Boskin, "Time to Junk the Corporate Tax," The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2010.

Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity

The book, Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, presents a number of cases of unethical conduct at American companies in several industries, along with some cases from other regions of the world for comparative perspective. A variety of industries are represented so to evince a common denominator lurking beneath specific instances of unethical conduct in business. The emphasis here is not on ethical decision-making, for it does not go deep enough. Rather, the underlying mentality out of which the decisions come is to be unearthed to be examined in the light of day. The mentality can be characterized as a mendacious narcissism having little or no regard for other people or institutions; yet even this characterization is incomplete, for a certain presumptuousness or even arrogance is can also be discerned in the cases. The mentality can be deemed to be inherently unethical in itself, regardless of whether any ensuing sordid conduct ensues.
 

The book, Cases of Unethical Business, can be obtained in print or as an ebook at Amazon.com.

Cardiologists as Ethicists: On Cheney’s Heart Transplant

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney had a heart transplant on March 24, 2012, "after five heart attacks over the past 25 years and countless medical procedures to keep him going. Cheney, 71, waited nearly two years for his new heart, the gift of an unknown donor.”[1] At the time, more than 3,100 Americans were on the states’ waiting list for a heart. Of the roughly 2,300 heart transplants performed in 2011, 332 were over sixty-five. On average, heart failure was killing 57,000 Americans a year at the time, so just a fraction of those who could use a heart get one. One might question, therefore, whether the 332 recipients who were over 65, and Cheney, who was 71, should have been allowed to avail themselves of the relatively short supply of available hearts.

The full essay is at "Cardiologists as Ethicists."

                                  

1. Kasie Hunt, “Dick Cheney Heart Transplant: Former VicePresident Recovering After Undergoing Surgery,” The Huffington Post, March 24, 2012.