Tariffs are no different than corporate taxes.
Except localized on particular products.
#3 | Posted by oneironaut
Corporate taxes are taxes on profits. Tariffs are taxes on the price of goods. Tariffs push up prices similar to a sales tax.
Tariffs are not passed on 100% to consumers because you have local producers who are not targeted by tariffs. But, as more people buy their cheaper products, they will raise their prices (law of supply and demand). And, some of their inputs will have to come from sources targeted by tariffs (or local suppliers who raise their prices due to increased demand) so most of the tariff will eventually get passed on to consumers.
Corporate tax increases are shared by shareholders, employees, and consumers.
"We find that the incidence on consumers, workers, and shareholders is 31 percent, 38 percent, and 31 percent, respectively." www.cato.org
Libertarians like to point out that the largest share is born by the employees, but a majority of the impact on "employees" is on executives (who have profit based compensation packages). So about a third of corporate taxes will be passed on to consumers, and somewhere under a half will be borne by the working class (includes price increases and wage impacts of non-executives).
