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Decentralization of power. For example, I'd love to see a progressive tax rate for corporations: companies' tax rates would be based on total revenue or profi

by cwkoss 10y ago

Decentralization of power. For example, I'd love to see a progressive tax rate for corporations: companies' tax rates would be based on total revenue or profits. ex. If your company earns less than $50k/year, no taxes, 10% tax rate up to 250k, 20% up to $1M, 40% up to 10M, 50% on earnings over $10M. This would provide a strong incentive to only maintain a large corporation if the value of your economy of scale exceeds the additional tax burden. Most companies would have an incentive to break up into many smaller subsidiaries. This would provide additional opportunities for competition, prevent profitable departments from being dragged down by executive mismanagement, and minimize the ability for power and wealth to be concentrated. Would probably need some anti-collusion laws to make sure entities are truly 'separate' to prevent shell games. But I think it would be pretty useful if it could be implemented properly.

scythe 10y ago
IIRC this is the situation (or with a slightly different mechanism such as regulations affecting only large companies) in e.g. France and some other European countries, but an unintended consequence is that the ownership structure of large corporations becomes complex and usually spread across multiple countries, such as the infamous tax-avoidance strategies used by IKEA. This creates a barrier to entry that makes large actors more entrenched in some cases. The best way to see this in action is to compare the ages of the largest European companies (e.g. BASF) with the ages of the largest American companies (incl. Amazon, Google); the largest American companies are generally much younger.
- ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
  You cherry picked an industry only a few decades old for your American Companies. If you look at established industries the largest companies are more than a century old as well, in auto GM and Ford have 3 times the revenue of BASF and more than twice as many employees, each. For comparison of the companies you listed, Amazon's revenue last year was $133 Billion compared to GM's $166 Billion. The US's largest chemical company, fairly close in size to BASF, is Dow Chemical, also more than a century old
onlyrealcuzzo 10y ago
I've never encountered this concept before, but I appreciate the introduction greatly! I love this idea.
antisthenes 10y ago
You haven't really answered the question: > For example, I'd love to see a progressive tax rate for corporations: companies' tax rates would be based on total revenue or profits. ex. If your company earns less than $50k/year, no taxes, 10% tax rate up to 250k, 20% up to $1M, 40% up to 10M, 50% on earnings over $10M. What sort of politicians would actually push this through Congress? What stops it from being repealed with the next cycle? Without a culture of socialism and understanding that corporate/owner and individual interests are not incentive compatible, none of this would work.

by cwkoss 10y ago

scythe 10y ago

IIRC this is the situation (or with a slightly different mechanism such as regulations affecting only large companies) in e.g. France and some other European countries, but an unintended consequence is that the ownership structure of large corporations becomes complex and usually spread across multiple countries, such as the infamous tax-avoidance strategies used by IKEA. This creates a barrier to entry that makes large actors more entrenched in some cases. The best way to see this in action is to compare the ages of the largest European companies (e.g. BASF) with the ages of the largest American companies (incl. Amazon, Google); the largest American companies are generally much younger.

ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
You cherry picked an industry only a few decades old for your American Companies. If you look at established industries the largest companies are more than a century old as well, in auto GM and Ford have 3 times the revenue of BASF and more than twice as many employees, each. For comparison of the companies you listed, Amazon's revenue last year was $133 Billion compared to GM's $166 Billion. The US's largest chemical company, fairly close in size to BASF, is Dow Chemical, also more than a century old

onlyrealcuzzo 10y ago

I've never encountered this concept before, but I appreciate the introduction greatly! I love this idea.

antisthenes 10y ago

You haven't really answered the question: > For example, I'd love to see a progressive tax rate for corporations: companies' tax rates would be based on total revenue or profits. ex. If your company earns less than $50k/year, no taxes, 10% tax rate up to 250k, 20% up to $1M, 40% up to 10M, 50% on earnings over $10M. What sort of politicians would actually push this through Congress? What stops it from being repealed with the next cycle? Without a culture of socialism and understanding that corporate/owner and individual interests are not incentive compatible, none of this would work.