While that is true (depending on the jurisdiction), I find it weird that this is so readily acceptable when talking about a corporation when all of us are taxed on our income before it even reaches our bank account.
If it's more fair to tax profits than revenues, we should be advocating for individuals to be treated in the more fair way, rather than advocating for corporations to be treated in the less fair way, don't you think?
Besides, corporations generally have outside sources of funding other than income, while people generally don't. Thus corporations can run at a deficit, sometimes for a long time, while they figure out how to turn a profit. Do you think there's really a societal benefit to drive new businesses into bankruptcy before they get their footing by taxing them while they're losing money?
Individuals are broadly taxed like companies in most western countries, it just turns out that most individuals don't actually incur many expenses in producing their income.
The vast majority of W-2 workers can't deduct unreimbursed employee expenses. So it’s not even that they don’t incur them, but rather that “employees” aren’t eligible
Completely different from a VC firm giving you $100 million in exchange for some equity with the understanding that they just might lose it all and get nothing back.
What do you think a tax deduction for mortgage interest is, if not a way to avoid taxing individuals on part of their revenue?
Your personal income is for yourself. A corporation's revenue that goes towards expenses is for the customer. Say you buy a gold at $700, and turn it into gold jewelry that you sell it for a $1000. If the tax rate is 30%, and the jeweler is taxed on the revenue, the jeweler would have made no money at all! If you do tax the expenses, it would have to be passed straight to the consumer.
