What amount of money can a corporation spend on entertainment
"There is no simple rule like ""you can/can't spend more/less than $X per person."" Instead there is a reasonableness test. There is such a thing as an audit of just your travel and entertainment expenses - I know because I've had one for my Ontario corporation. I've deducted company Christmas parties, and going-away dinners for departing employees, without incident. (You know, I presume, about only deducting half of certain expenses?) If the reason for the entertainment is to acquire or keep either employees or clients, there shouldn't be a problem.  Things are slightly trickier with very small companies. Microsoft can send an entire team to Hawaii, with their families, as a reward at the end of a tough project, and deduct it. You probably can't send yourself as a similar reward. If your party is strictly for your neighbours, personal friends, and close family, with no clients, potential clients, employees, potential employees, suppliers, or potential suppliers in attendance, then no, don't deduct it. If you imagine yourself telling an auditor why you threw the party and why the business funded it, you'll know whether it's ok to do it or not."
"These types of diagrams appear all throughout Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad book.  The arrows in the diagrams represent cash flow. For example, the first two diagrams of this type in the book are:  The idea being presented here is that an asset generates income, and a liability generates expenses.  According to the book, rich people spend their money buying assets, while middle class people buy liabilities. The diagram you posted above does not appear in the edition of the book I have (Warner Books Edition, printed in 2000).  However, the following similar diagram appears in the chapter titled ""The History of Taxes and the Power of Corporations"":  The idea behind this diagram is to demonstrate what the author considers the tax advantages of a personal corporation: using a corporation to pay for certain expenses with pre-tax dollars.  Here is a quote from this chapter: Employees earn and get taxed and they try to live on what is left.  A corporation earns, spends everything it can, and is taxed on anything that is left.  It's one of the biggest legal tax loopholes that the rich use.  They're easy to set up and are not expensive if you own investments that are producing good cash flow.  For example; by owning your own corporation - vacations are board meetings in Hawaii.  Car payments, insurance, repairs are company expenses.  Health club membership is a company expense.  Most restaurant meals are partial expenses.  And on and on - but do it legally with pre-tax dollars. This piece of advice, like so much of the book, may contain a small amount of truth, but is oversimplified and potentially dangerous if taken a face value.  There are many examples, as JoeTaxpayer mentioned, of people who tried to deduct too many expenses and failed to make a business case for them that would satisfy the IRS." "They already do, it is just sneaky how it is done.  They have created a system with healthcare where we pay up to three times more per capita than any other western country.  They do this by setting up particular legislation and shutting down public options (and anything else that might cut out administration and executive profits).  They don't need to directly tax us in order to keep an unreasonable amount of money flowing to corporate executives and wealthy share holders.  That is without even getting into pharmaceutics and prohibition legislation.  One way they could easily keep money flowing to Hollywood, would be an additional tax refund that applies to ""legitimate"" entertainment costs.  Or perhaps doing as Canada does and adding taxes to storage media.  They can also continue to cut web freedom, options and bandwidth.  Every bit of legislation I see come down the pipe (with only a couple of notable exceptions, such as dadt) has been about protecting profits for the top of the economic pile, at the expense of everyone else.  EDIT:  I would also like to mention that our taxes already fund healthcare, and in fact, we pay so much that we could have a universal system already just with the money we spend via taxes.  It is so hyper-inflated because of the vast amount of profit built into the system at all levels.  http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/OECD042111.cfm http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=1258  We have to cut out admin and profits to the hyper-wealthy if we wish to have a reasonable healthcare system.  This chart in particular shows the problem.  http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/images/OECDChart3_1.gif  This was just in 2008, costs have increased since then at the accelerated rate.  So yes, the oligarchy has ways of making us pay without introducing specific new taxation." There's no formula for how much is the ideal amount to spend on entertainment and fun. As JoeTaxpayer says, it's all about balance. Maybe relative costs are different in France than in the US where I live, but here, housing and the things that go with it -- electricity, heat, insurance, maybe a few other miscellaneous items -- are usually a huge portion of a young person's expenses. If you don't mind living with your parents -- and they don't mind having you -- you can save a lot of money. There are lots of things you can do for fun that don't cost a lot of money. If your idea of fun is collecting fancy cars and making round-the-world trips, yes, that can get expensive fast. When I was in my 20s, my entertainment mostly consisted of going to movies, amusement parks, and occasional concerts; and playing computer games. Those aren't super expensive as long as you don't do them every day. And keeping my car running, which saved money over buying a new car. These days I'm in a situation analogous to yours: I'm getting older, and so I'm trying to build up a retirement account so I can retire comfortably. So I have to balance how much I put away for retirement with spending on fun things now. I have certain targets, and so I budget that I will put this amount away for retirement every month, and my spending money is what I have left. I think that's better than, spend whatever I want on fun, and then put what's left toward retirement. The latter plan is probably a fast route to debt. "gatorsrule, First I want to say that I agree with you that the gators rule.  Now, on to economics.  I will try to address each of your points as best I can.   -The lack of ""demand"" is aggregate demand.  This includes individual spending, corporate spending, government spending, and exports.  Individual spending is down as geerussel pointed out.  Whether or not that is a good thing let's reserve for later.  Next, corporate spending is at all time lows.  The S&amp;P 500 companies have the highest cash on hand ever in history.  Nobody is hiring.  Bond issues are down.  Mergers are down.  Capital is being hoarded.  Third up, government spending.  We all know this is up, but don't rush to add in the fed and bailouts to this number, lets just consider it what the government actually spends into the economy.  Lastly, exports are down because the rest of the world is hurting.  So, 3 out of the 4 components of aggregate demand are down, and there are those that want the government to stop spending as well, which would make it a straight 4 for 4.   -Interest rates.  Well, if you know that aggregate demand is down, that tells you everything you need to know about interest rates.  If companies were borrowing, hiring, expanding, opening plants, etc. etc. etc., then interest rates would naturally rise due to loans being made to these companies.  The fact is that companies are not expanding, and loans are not being made, due to no demand for them.  Bank reserves are at an all time high.  Nobody is willing to take out a loan to grow their business right now because aggregate demand is down so hard.  At the same time the stock market spooked everyone, and on top of it, people are paying down their home mortgages at a record pace.  So you have record low demand for loans, and record high supply of capital (money), so, yeah interest rates are at 1%, effectively 0 if you are in a savings account.   -Devaluing the currency to boost the exports component of the aggregate demand curve seems like it could work, but since the rest of the world is also hurting who are you going to export to?  The corporate sector isn't going to start spending until the consumer is on their feet.  The consumer isn't going to start spending until they get jobs.  Do you see the chinese finger trap here???  The only way out of the riddle is to increase government spending, and history has shown that it works." Yes and no. This really should be taught at junior school level in a capitalist country but that is a different argument. A company is influenced by its shareholders but not in the way you are hoping. This is the only area where a Company must behave democratically with one share one vote. If you own one share in a company (specifically a voting share), then you are entitled to attend an AGM where you will have a vote on issues presented by the board. You might have an opportunity to make a statement or ask a question at the AGM, but I wouldn't rely on it. You will not be able to influence the companies behavior beyond that unless you control enough shares to influence the board. Notice I said 'control' not 'own'. If you get other shareholders to agree to vote with you, then you effectively control their shares. Shareholders are there to get a return on their investment, so you must convince them that they will get a better return by agreeing with you then by following the board (that they put there!). Convince them that (for example) a trespass lawsuit will rob the company of more value then the profit to be made and they might agree to not trespass. Morals, ethics, justice etc., are human attributes and since most shareholders are other corporations not humans, they have no place in your arguments with one exception; Goodwill is a value that appears on a balance sheet and you might be able to use emotional arguments to show that there is a risk of a loss of goodwill from the proposed actions. You can make your argument stronger by generating media pressure on customers and suppliers of the company to make critical public comments. Not sure how authoritative it is, but according to this site, yes: Can a corporation, partnership or other non-living entity make the contribution to an ESA? Yes. The tax law does not restrict the ability to make contributions to living individuals. Corporations and other entities may make contributions without regard for the usual donor income limit.  However, the same site indicates that you can just give the child the $2K and have them contribute to their own ESA, so yes, the income limit is pretty easy to get around. Another form of 'shareholder' activism. You might be able to buy a single share, which it seems would cost around $35, attend the AGM, and ask questions and/or shout or sing and delay proceedings. There would certainly be security guards or police ready to remove protesters at an AGM. Yeah sure they would add up to trillions but a very small percentage of it would go towards the important issues. So even if they did force them to pay it up you would not notice a difference. So until something gets done about the way the government spends it's money the big corporations might as well keep it and partially use it to research new technology in the industry or to advance their company because giving that extra money to the government is like burning money.