But tax shelters aren't just manna sent down from Heaven to small island nations. They're products of the tax code- what we tax and how much. If "tax shelters"

But tax shelters aren't just manna sent down from Heaven to small island nations. They're products of the tax code- what we tax and how much. If "tax shelters" are nonproductive, that doesn't say much of anything about the tax rate directly- it's an orthogonal issue. If we're taxing things that we want more than things we don't want, that's the problem! The tax rate sets, among other things, how strong of an incentive folks have to do things that are taxed less. Right now, some unproductive and sometimes downright absurd things are taxed less. Playing with the tax rate just sets how big of a problem that is- to eliminate it, you need to do meaningful incentive engineering.