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I can't agree with this enough. Expecting profit-motivated companies to voluntarily choose to pay more tax than they have to is fundamentally doomed to failure
by matthewmacleod 9y ago
I can't agree with this enough.
Expecting profit-motivated companies to voluntarily choose to pay more tax than they have to is fundamentally doomed to failure. One of the powers of the free market is to encourage the elimination of inefficiency and waste—not that it's perfect at that—and we can't expect to both have our cake and eat it, in that sense.
I strongly agree that many companies should be contributing more to the state for the services that they use. But the way to do that is though robust and clear taxation frameworks, not some kind of general social pressure to pay an arbitrary, 'acceptable' amount of tax.
- charlesdm 9y agoYes, I agree they're not paying enough, and should be paying more. But that will only happen when laws are changed.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y agoYou can't have a robust and clear taxation framework in a plutocracy, because government is owned by the rich and run for the benefit of the rich. And they're hardly likely to support legislation that forces them to pay more tax. (Even if some are, there will always be a powerful lobbying effort agains any such move.) The economic and political rhetoric around "freedom", "taxation is bad because government is bad", and so on is a propaganda exercise. It isn't something that appeared spontaneously as a self-evident social truth. The more time I spend finding out about the history of political though in the US, the more I realise that the dominant narrative is the language and thinking of the hyper-rich, generated and maintained entirely for their benefit.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoA related problem is that international stage is a market by itself. Nations compete for the business of large corporations. Which leads to creation of ridiculous tax exemptions and loopholes.