Here is an idea: Let us end taxes on corporations. Yes. Zero taxes for the big businesses of America.

By now, some readers snorts have set their newspapers alight. What? Are you crazy? Let corporations escape paying their “fair share”??? How outrageous! Free them from their civic duty??? Obscene! This would be a gift to greedy capitalists.

Before we get too churned up and burned up, let us look at a few realities. One is that corporations do not pay taxes. They really do not. Because they pass along the cost of taxes to others.

They pass along the cost of taxes to customers. By raising their prices. They pass them along to workers. By holding back pay raises and benefits. They pass them along to future workers. By scrubbing plans for new plants and expansions. Or by moving plants abroad.

They pass along the cost of taxes by squeezing suppliers. Who, in turn, squeeze their workers. To make up their losses.

They recover the cost of taxes by donating less to charities. They contribute less to employee pension plans.

This is not fancy economic theory. This is everyday reality. Evidence of this is all around us.

Two years ago Congress cut tax rates for corporations. From 35 percent down to 21 percent. In theory this should cause companies to do the opposite of what they do when tax rates go up.

Well, they have. For instance, wages are up.  Average hourly wages now run about 3.2 percent higher than a year ago. The pay of low-wage workers is up the most.

Corporations have hired more workers. And created more jobs. Everywhere in the economy we see more jobs and workers. This has forced some companies to pay workers more. As have increases in the minimum wage.

Companies also poured 24 percent more into pension plans the first year after the tax cuts.

If we want to slow these trends we only need to raise tax rates on corporations again.

Meanwhile, corporations are hardly raising prices. Various indexes show only modest price rises. Some show virtually none.

When tax rates go up, corporations give less to charities. And since rates came down? In 2018 they gave 5.4 percent more. Charity experts predict they will increase their gifts by many millions more this year and next.

Corporations have been pouring money into new plants and expansion. They have not blown the barn doors down. But many are clearly waiting for the smoke to lift from the trade battle with China.

The President claims our lower tax rates have prompted companies to bring countless jobs back to this country from overseas. And inspired foreign companies to flock to our shores. Not true. An exaggeration. But it is fair to say things are better than they were. And lower tax rates cannot erase this fact: Manufacturing just costs more here. Because American workers cost more than workers in China and third world countries.

When we hear that some big companies paid no federal taxes we go bonkers. Politicians vilify them. And hold them up for ridicule.

Elizabeth Warren did this with FedEx recently. She all but declared FedEx an enemy. This because FedEx paid zero taxes in 2018. The company’s CEO responded with a few facts.

One is that our former high tax rates for business helped hollow out our industrial regions. They drove jobs overseas. Another is that President Obama wanted to lower corporate tax rates.

When those lowered tax rates finally arrived FedEx immediately ordered a fleet of 24 new planes from Boeing. Before the tax cuts the company planned to cut back on such spending.

Each new plane injects $500 million into the economy – mostly by way of jobs at Boeing, GE and other aero suppliers. The new jobs for each plane will stream $45 million to federal, state and local tax collectors.

He also reminded the good senator that FedEx paid $10 billion in U.S. taxes the last 5 years. And will certainly pay more in years to come. After all, he pointed out, most of the taxes his company did not pay in 2018 will eventually arrive in Washington. The tax reforms merely let FedEx defer them.

Back to the point of this column. We have every reason to cut our tax rates to zero for corporations. Because corporations are conduits. They simply pass taxes along to other players.

If we ended federal taxes on companies we would probably begin to attract companies from around the world. What an alluring prospect for businesses. American soil, American workers and zero corporate taxes.

From Tom…as in Morgan.

Find Tom at tomasinmorgan.com. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com.