They say that the only two things that are certain in life are death and taxes, but that only applies to individuals, and does not apply to corporations. Not only are corporations perpetual, but they are also taxed quite differently than individuals. For instance, Colgate was founded in 1806, DuPont in 1802, and Jim Beam in 1795, of which none of these corporations have been subjected to an estate tax, because these corporations are still in existence as of today, so that monies that have been earned and invested, as well as property that they hold and have acquired, all these have stayed within their corporate hands, subject only to present day taxes, of which corporations can avail themselves of all sorts of strategies to reduce their tax footprint considerably.
For instance, corporations are allowed to deduct items such as medical insurance, travel expenses, vehicles and their associated expenses, meals, entertainment, office supplies, and numerous other assorted business expenses. Additionally, if that company has a year in which they lose money, those losses can be utilized later against future gains, by being permitted to deduct those previous losses against their tax liability. So too, inventory can be written off, buildings and equipment can be depreciated, the cost of borrowing money is expensed, the perks that high executives receive are expensed, income from controlled foreign subsidiaries can be deferred, special tax laws for production done within the United States is utilized, and accelerated depreciation of certain assets is available.
Basically, though corporations rail against the tax code as being unduly high within America, these same corporations are afforded all types of tax set asides, privileges, and a wide swath of exemptions, that suppresses their legitimate tax amount owed to government entities by such a great deal, that as reported by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) these publically held corporations "paid no federal income tax from 2008-2015," which includes International Paper, Priceline.com, General Electric, and Duke Energy.
Not only do corporations often find a way to minimize their fair taxation, but the sheer size of these corporations dwarfs individuals, so that even though Bill Gates is the richest man in all of America, with an approximate worth of $89 billion, he is far surpassed by the market capitalization of Apple, which is approximately $877 billion. These giant corporations that are perpetual are only matched in their power by the Federal government, for even the largest State government in America, which is California, has a budget of "only" $171 billion.
This so indicates that this country is effectively run by the Federal government, which is also perpetual, in conjunction with the biggest corporations in America, of which, because the Federal government is the taxing authority, and the corporations are enabled to avoid and to avert fair taxation, that we essentially live in a country that is run not by the people and for the people, but are run instead by governmental and corporate entities that are made up of privileged people that assert their power and influence in a manner that they control everything of real meaning and purpose.
So that, though each individual is entitled to a democratic vote, those votes in actuality do not change public or corporate policy, and therefore the peoples of this great nation, bit by bit, but relentlessly, are losing their sovereignty, with such, begin replaced by a new form of servitude to the government/corporate powers.