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Better yet, end all taxes on individuals. Instead, all taxes should be levied against corporations, and they should cover the entire bill for a functioning society... And society should democratically decide what that entails. Tax the corporations so much that their stock prices fall back to realistic numbers. Then we won't have any of these fake billionaires who's "wealth is tied up in stocks", but also they can get loans against them. It should be very easy to get "rich" by working yourself, it should be very hard to get rich "letting your money work for you"
Maybe a hot take, but I actually think individual progressive taxes are great. Have a generous tax free threshold, but individual taxes stops excessive wealth hoarding and (in the case of inheritance tax) dynasties
I agree, and on inheritance anything over like $1m should be taxed heavily. Anything over say $10m or so should be taxed at or near 100%.
Inheritance tax is very good and fair. But a tricky problem is that if one place has a big inheritance tax, and another place doesn't - then rich people basically just put all their money in the place with no inheritance tax. ... We should do it anyway, but it does mean the bulk of that money probably won't get taxed.
Yeah, the race to the bottom is always an issue. It should still be done, but it needs to be considered.
It's just an extra step... Everyone gets a paycheck from a corporation of some kind... Instead of hundreds of millions to deal with, the IRS could just focus on the companies
Ok, so every American company becomes the subsidiary of a company registered in Bermuda or Ireland. They report no profits from their American subsidiaries, so they pay no taxes.
Corporations don't have to "live" anywhere, so they don't have anything to lose by ceasing to exist in high tax areas and "moving" to low tax ones. It's why companies based in Kansas City switch back and forth from being Kansas-based or Missouri-based, whatever's convenient for their taxes.
If they want to sell their shit in the US they have to allow us to audit them everywhere
So, they don't sell their shit in the US. Problem solved.
Someone will fill their shoes... That's the beauty of the free market
Let me guess, you're an American who has never lived outside the US?
That's correct
I am not a tax expert (IANATE?), but with all the tax havens and multi-national businesses would they not just relocate? I am very much interested in the simplification of the tax code such that the burden shifts back to those keen on wealth extraction. I just dunno what that looks like as code and in impementation.
Sure, they can relocate. But you could structure the law so that you can't sell anything then. Apple is free to leave the US and not pay taxes, but then they are not allowed to sell anything in the US, have any offices in the US or hire anyone in the US. Of course such a law would never happen. But it's absolutely possible in theory.
But you could structure the law so that you can’t sell anything then.
So, why would they sell anything? What incentive does a corporation have to do business in a region where taxes are punishing? Why not just focus their efforts in Europe, South America and Asia?
It would be like Cuba. If you want a car, you can buy one... but it's going to be a Franken-car built from the parts scrounged together from the last time there were car companies operating in the country.
They'd still be profitable... At the end of the day the workers create the wealth. All we'd be doing is putting that wealth towards what we collectively agree on before anyone can take it as profit. But, there'd still be profit left over.
They'd still be profitable, but less profitable, so they'd be lowest priority.
If you're American, you may not realize this, but there are a lot of products and services that are only available in the USA because that's the most profitable place for them. The companies have plans to eventually expand to Canada, and then maybe Europe, but the focus is now on the US because that's where the profit is.
If the US had extremely high taxes for those companies, they'd focus elsewhere. Sure, eventually they'd get around to the US once they saturated the European, Asian, Canadian, Mexican, South American and African markets, but it would never be a priority. And, for a lot of companies, "getting around to serving the US market" just wouldn't happen.
Well I'd hope those other places would follow suit. But also, the free market would still allow others to fill the shoes of the companies that left. And whether a company pays a worker who then pays taxes, or whether we cut out the middleman and the company just pays the taxes directly, it's the same amount leaving the company. But also, if corporations actually had to pay taxes maybe they'd start pushing on each other to stop gouging the government.
But also, the free market would still allow others to fill the shoes of the companies that left.
The Free Market would also allow them to set up their business in Europe and go for that market instead. And, since they make a much bigger profit in Europe than in the US, that would be their focus. The only companies that would set up in the US are the ones that are not able to make the bigger profits available in Europe.
This is basically like the car market in the USSR after WWII. The major American, European and Japanese automakers didn't operate there, but of course that didn't mean there weren't any cars. It just meant that there weren't any good cars.
The incentive is to make a profit. It would just be enormous profit instead of an unimaginable one.
Plenty of companies concentrate their efforts in places that are the most profitable and ignore areas that are less profitable.
Just look at how many companies are only available in the US and not available in Europe, Asia, even Canada. Sure, they might get around to the US eventually, but it would be lowest priority since it's the least profitable territory.
Being a huge market is still a major factor. A company would still prefer to do business in a 300M population English speaking country with a 10% profit margin, than a 10M population country with a 30% profit margin. But you are correct, companies that don't want to pay taxes would leave. I say good riddance.
Right now, a lot of companies start in the US because the US is the best place to start. 330 million people, one language, good profits, etc. But, a punishing tax might mean that the profit margin is much less than 10%. 10% is a huge profit margin for most businesses, so it might drop from say 5% to 1%. At that point, Europe looks a lot more promising as a place to start. 450 million people, for the most part it's one regulatory zone, you do have to have things in multiple languages, so that's a bit difficult.
Then, after Europe there's east Asia: Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan. Then slightly poorer countries like Indonesia and India. Maybe South America next.
The US would be near the bottom of the list if it was the only country with a punishing tax rate.
Well works for me seeing how I'm in Europe. :P
If they want to sell their shit in the US they have to let us audit them everywhere and tax accordingly
A tax on the amount of CO2 released per person, both directly and indirectly?
Good, but hard to measure fairly. Essentially all the emissions for everyone are 'indirect'. They are the result of the processes used to produce the goods we consume, etc. So then, should the consumer be responsible for those emissions directly, or should it be the factory workers, or the people who own the factory, or the people who supplied the fuel that was used to run the factory, or the people who payed the people who supplied the fuel... etc.
We could think about untangling it, but probably easier to just tax the rich and then tackle the CO2 problem separately - probably by also taxing the people who own the factory for emissions.
The tax will burden the end consumer the most - perhaps that's what's need to end especially polluting buying habits: charge the true cost.