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”
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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”
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
If they want to sell their shit in the US they have to let us audit them everywhere and tax accordingly
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.
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.