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Corporations, including railroads, don't pay taxes. The pass any taxes levied on them to the people who buy their goods and services, unless they lack sufficient pricing power to do so. In that case the taxes are paid by the shareholders and/or the workers. The notion that the workers may bear some of the burden of corporate taxes that cannot be shifted to the businesses' customers has been demonstrated in several scholarly papers that can be accessed on-line.  Here is how it works. A corporation pays property taxes, as an example, to a taxing authority (finance department), as per your example.  The property taxes are a business expense. To cover them the corporation includes them in its pricing model. It then passes the property tax expenditure, which it rendered to the state finance department,on to the customers. How do I know?  I was the chief accountant, amongst other things, for a Fortune 250 corporation for many years. I did it or had it done every accounting period. If the North Carolina or any other state taxed highways, it would be taxing itself.  Cintra would collect the tax, just like sales taxes, and pass it back to the state.  Cintra would, however, as I noted in my post, be liable for any ad valorem taxes levied on its property, i.e. offices, lay-down yards, etc. The difference is between taxes levied on Cintra's off-road property and the roadway, which will be owned by North Carolina. Cintra's role, as I understand it, is to oversee the construction of the roadway and collect the tolls, which are designed to cover construction and operating costs, as well as provide a return to the company's shareholders.  Cintra is owned by Ferrovial.   The notion that corporations and businesses don't pay taxes is difficult to grasp. Politicians know this. It is one of the reasons that they rail - no pun intended - against corporate loopholes, etc., and urge corporations to pay their fair share of the tax burden. If politicians were honest, which would be a stretch, the corporate income tax, as well as other taxes levied on corporations, would be eliminated. After all, at the end of the day, they are paid by people. In 2012, according to the American Association of Railroads, the Class 1s paid $960 million in property taxes. During the same year operating expenses were $40.2 billion. Thus, property taxes were 2.29 per cent of operating expenses. Income taxes and payroll taxes were the big tax items for the Class 1s in 2012. They totaled $6.5 billion or 15.5 per cent of operating expenses. Railroads don't charge themselves a user fee, where as highway users are charged a user fee in lieu of property taxes.  And highway users don't pay property taxes because they pay user fees for their use of the highways. At the end of the day, contrary to popular belief, American motorists, for the most part, pay for the highways that they use.  Whether the commercial users, i.e. truckers, bus operators, etc. pay their fair share is subject to sharp debate. Those who argue that highways should be taxed overlook the benefit side of the equation. Highways have helped generate huge roadside investments, i.e. shopping malls, restaurants, auto service facilities, etc. They all pay taxes.  If there were no highways there would be no roadside businesses. Also, if highways were assessed property taxes, they would be passed through to the end users in higher fees. Everything shipped by truck, which includes most food, medicines, clothing, etc. would increase in price. It probably would touch off a serious round of inflation.   Taxing highways is just not going to happen. It would be political suicide for any politician to suggest it.
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