They are taxed because they are beneficiaries of society's investment in infrastructure and people. They benefit directly from a healthy, educated population, enforcement of construction codes, the operation of the legal system, roads and waterways, etc. Companies aren't entirely benign, either, so part of those taxes goes to environmental impact assessment and handling they don't pay for, such as pollution, health hazards, etc.
If you were to make the case the healthy, educated employees could be compensated through their wages, then that still leaves infrastructure, externalities and the legal system.
While you could privatise infrastructure, I think it would be a bad idea. It could lead to shady schemes where a corporation "taxes" its employees on the toll road leading up to the building. Considering historical examples like company stores, I'm not sure we could rule that scenario out. Also, where does infrastructure stop and what does it include? The last miles of telecoms, power, water and other utilities or more?
As to the legal system, it seems self-evident we don't want that privatised. Do you disagree?
On the topic of externalities: I suppose it's feasible to create new taxes specifically for what are now considered externalities, so corporations pay for them: pollution, carbon footprint, burnouts/boreouts, etc. Would you be in favour of those?
A corporation is an abstraction that does not exist, so it cannot benefit from those things you listed.
The human shareholders and human staff benefit (and profit) from those things, and there are already mechanisms in place to tax those human beings, either as shareholders or as staff with ordinary income.
A corporation exists, just as a thought exists, they are both information and they can both change "reality" quite profoundly. Just because you can't touch it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and can't change things.
Corporations can be criminally charged. They are not abstractions, they are associations of people. You need to rethink your arbitrary definition of "abstraction".
Are you sure about that? Corporations cannot act (they have no hands, and no brains), and thus they cannot break the law. It also is relatively difficult to throw a corporation in jail for a criminal violation.
Even a much more informal association of people, a "criminal conspiracy", cannot be criminally charged as a single abstracted entity: the individuals who performed that conspiracy must be charged.
If you were to make the case the healthy, educated employees could be compensated through their wages, then that still leaves infrastructure, externalities and the legal system.
While you could privatise infrastructure, I think it would be a bad idea. It could lead to shady schemes where a corporation "taxes" its employees on the toll road leading up to the building. Considering historical examples like company stores, I'm not sure we could rule that scenario out. Also, where does infrastructure stop and what does it include? The last miles of telecoms, power, water and other utilities or more?
As to the legal system, it seems self-evident we don't want that privatised. Do you disagree?
On the topic of externalities: I suppose it's feasible to create new taxes specifically for what are now considered externalities, so corporations pay for them: pollution, carbon footprint, burnouts/boreouts, etc. Would you be in favour of those?