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> They are screwed. That's true if you think the solution has to come from more legislation and/or more taxation. Those approaches will simply encourage compan
by curiousgeorgio 9y ago
> They are screwed.
That's true if you think the solution has to come from more legislation and/or more taxation. Those approaches will simply encourage companies to move more of their operations to other more favorable jurisdictions.
If there's a way to save money, and companies have a responsibility to shareholders to be as profitable as (legally) possible, they'll do what they need to in order to save the money. We need to stop expecting some kind of moral accountability above what the law demands. There are plenty of natural incentives for companies to be morally responsible above what the law requires, but anything less isn't illegal unless it's illegal.
You can continue to play cat and mouse with laws and loopholes, or take a different approach...
Instead, if you consider the option of lowering taxes (on all companies) to compete with those other countries, you'll actually provide an incentive for more large companies to keep their businesses - and their taxable profits - in the US. It may be a lower tax as a percentage, but it would actually increase tax revenue in the long run, in addition to boosting the economy.
The music industry can provide a fairly good analogy: when (the original) Napster became popular along with other file sharing networks, the music industry wanted to solve the growing piracy problem by throwing people in jail and pushing for stricter laws. In the end, that did nothing to help the problem. What did help? When iTunes actually provided a decent, legal alternative to piracy, it took off and hoards of people who had been pirating music actually spent money obtaining music legally because it was reasonable and competitive (in terms of convenience) with networks like Napster. The lesson: you don't fight widespread behavior with legislation; you steer it with aligned incentives.
- tsbertalan 9y agoEven better than bringing all corporate taxes down to the lowest rate; force tax havens to bring the lowest rate up to something reasonable. A global economy demands global rule of law. Then, yes, market forces can be used to direct corporate citizenship (and therefore employment+tax revenue) to where it is needed (assuming sufficiently far-sighted governance to realize the global equivalent of Ohio needing more federal assistance than California, and also robustness to regulatory capture). Your race to the bottom would only ensure that governments eventually cede all power to multinational corporations. Then, we're back to feudalism, only global this time.
- curiousgeorgio 9y ago> force tax havens to bring the lowest rate up to something reasonable Easier said than done. Not going to happen any time soon (or ever, in my opinion). > Your race to the bottom would only ensure that governments eventually cede all power to multinational corporations. If corporate taxes are the only thing standing between where we are now and the downfall of governments or the rise of global feudalism, we're already screwed. The corporate tax rate could be 0, and it really wouldn't make that big of a difference in terms of total tax revenue or government power (individual taxes still make up the vast majority of tax revenue).