5 ms·

Maybe Obama should consider a tax amnesty? Get money in from outside the US at a low tax rate (something is better than nothing right) and get it circulating in

• tanto 10y ago
  Why should the biggest villains get amnesty when small time crooks get sentenced for life? I would rather prefer if the ones doing the worst crimes resulting in millions of people dying because of poverty get also sentenced for life.
  • twblalock 10y ago
    Are you more interested in punishing people, or repatriating money from tax havens and using it to solve national problems, including poverty?
    • xmdgngsnsgnn 10y ago
      >repatriating money from tax havens and using it to solve national problems, including poverty There is little evidence that this will actually occur, otherwise places like Panama would be utopian paradises from all of the foreign cash. You can't solve "national problems, including poverty," if you refuse to tax the incoming money and instead let it continue to sit in corporate coffers.
    • ionised 10y ago
      I'm interested in both.
• nradov 10y ago
  Tax amnesties just encourage future tax evasion, since everyone will always be waiting for another amnesty. They create a moral hazard by causing disrespect for the rule of law.
  • twblalock 10y ago
    That's only the case if everything else remains the same. A tax amnesty coupled with significantly harsher penalties for future evasion would probably work pretty well.
  • afterburner 10y ago
    Yes, this has been done before and failed, see: Ancient Rome. Giving tax avoiders exactly what they want doesn't accomplish anything.
    • ericd 10y ago
      I don't know why this is downvoted, it's correct. They used to have tax holidays regularly in Ancient Rome, and it caused people to learn to wait for the next tax holiday.
  • cloudjacker 10y ago
    or the government finds a way to finance itself in a way that doesn't exclude itself from economic activity just a thought, worked 100 years ago from before it started financing itself with a passive income tax it is entirely possible, also consider that no form of better tax compliance would solve its budget problems. The idea of paying 'fair share' is disingenuous when it is funding embezzlement within the military and defense sector waaaaay before it funds an an oft cited road or school the biggest irony here is that I'm not a tax protester. maybe closer to a historian.
    • megablast 10y ago
      Of of course. The government should run itself as a business. Just shut down other businesses that are profitable, and take over their market. That worked in the past right. And the lower taxes should encourage business growth, even despite the fact that the government could come in and take over at anytime.
      • cloudjacker 10y ago
• feklar 10y ago
  An amnesty for cash repatriation is what Trump is currently shilling as part of his job creation platform since corps like Apple have billions overseas https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-22/tim-cook-s-181-billion-headache-apple-s-cash-held-overseas https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-22/tim-cook-... and are pressured by shareholders to not return it to the US where it will be taxed. Tim Cook will have to pay out 70 billion lump sum to the feds on that overseas pile of money. Obama was also working on an amnesty for years and it never happened for whatever reasons. Of course this would work once then build up again overseas as they would just wait for another amnesty as explained by other posters.
• marcrosoft 10y ago
  Maybe Obama should consider lowering taxes to compete with other countries.
  • astrodust 10y ago
    Other countries, like Panama, don't have the same infrastructure or financial obligations. They can operate at much lower tax rates.
    • marcrosoft 10y ago
      Pretend you are a company and you just gave your VC this excuse.
      • astrodust 10y ago
        Why is Silicon Valley in California? Why not pack up all that shit and move to Panama? You are really lost if you think tax rates are the only thing that matters. If your VC is so profit focused they'd throw everything else away in the name of profits then maybe that's a VC you shouldn't have partnered with.
    • marcrosoft 10y ago
      Pretend you are a company and you just gave your VC this excuse.
  • JBReefer 10y ago
    I don't understand how people that encourage corporate competition discourage state competition.
  • capisce 10y ago
    Or use tariffs and other economic sanctions against tax havens to prevent a a global race to the bottom. Lowering taxes is not the only option.