But how can a company buy assets if it doesn't have any money? Oh, sorry, of course it does, because it has income which is generated from selling things to customers. So why shouldn't it pay income tax on its income? Ah, because it's an abstract entity that should not pay tax (as the post I replied to suggested).
Ultimately, the money is either paid as a salary to someone (in which case they pay income tax), or it is used to purchase something (in which case sales tax is paid).
Alternatively, if companies don't pay taxes, they shouldn't enjoy benefits such as protection of laws or electricity provided by infrastructure that is paid for by taxes.
The company should be paying real estate tax if it owns property. That should pay for infrastructure. If it uses electricity, I'm pretty sure it's paying for it.
Why should the general public pay the salaries of lawmakers if they're going to pass laws in favour of companies that don't pay taxes?
The concept of a corporation was invented to allow a group of people to shift the risk of enterprise into an abstract entity. But just because it's an abstract entity doesn't mean that it's not part of the economy.
It is a part of the economy, but it's an intermediate part. The money is either spent to purchase something (sales tax), or paid to someone (personal income tax).
Now, taxes can be used to incentivize behavior. Perhaps it's in the national interest for companies to spend their money immediately, in which case, it should be taxed, to incentivize companies to spend instead of turning a profit.
Personally, I think some sort of fairly low tax, say maybe 10% of income, would be appropriate, based on employee pay. So if a company had most of its work force in the US but tried to shift the profit to an offshore subsidiary with only a couple people staffing an office, the bulk of it would still be taxable. And if a company tried to maliciously shift its profits to avoid paying taxes, it ought to be punitively taxed, say 50% of profit. Hopefully that would eliminate all the economic waste of the tax avoidance industry.