The modern thinking is high tax rates incentivize spending earnings on plant/R&D to avoid high tax on profits. Thus high corp taxes are good as long as you can’t weasel out of them by globalization, etc.
The federal government mostly uses corporate taxation to weasel out of its Constitutional mandate to regulate interstate and international commerce. It placates the public anger at corrupt practices by symbolically "punishing" corporations with taxation instead of simply making corruption illegal. It always writes in "work-arounds" for tax liabilities that negate any real impact on corporations/donors that usually don't apply to small businesses.
Imports aren't the death blow to American prosperity that most believe them to be, as we get real resources and someone else's labor in exchange for currency we mostly pull from our backsides. Our failure is in not recognizing the reality of a fiat currency and providing for the needs of the working class and the value of public purpose spending.
And of course taxes fund beneficial things like defense, transport, research, the SEC, EPA, that keep people and markets healthy. Without government the economy looks like Somalia.
This has nothing to do with taxing anyone, as tax revenue is an oxymoron when applied to private sector entities. The money has to be created before it can be collected or borrowed, so neither taxation nor bonds can be "funding mechanisms" for federal spending.
The concept of taxation "funding" our government and its programs has been the easiest to sell because it resonates with how voters relate to their money, but the most damaging because it suggests that "efficiency" in government is highly desireable and denies the fact that federal spending is the monopoly issuance mechanism for the US dollar. It is far more accurate to state that our government "funds" us than is the reverse.
The ability to levy and collect taxes from anyone it chooses is important to retaining economic sovereignty, but the actual collection is not relevant to spending beyond inflation or equity control. If dollars spent by Congress do not increase inflation beyond acceptable limits or create additional inequity there is no need to tax anyone to "pay for" something that is paid for when the spending occurs. The monopoly issuer of the currency simply doesn't function by the same rules as its "users".
