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It's not a race to the bottom, for a number of reasons America is a good place already for international corporations to have headquarters. We have a strong and

It's not a race to the bottom, for a number of reasons America is a good place already for international corporations to have headquarters. We have a strong and mostly fair legal system, and rule of law that many countries do not have. We have a world class workforce. But by having high corporate income tax you are driving away companies that would otherwise HQ here and bring money and taxes. I see benefits and no downsides to making the environment here even more appealing to corportations.

dmos62 7y ago
Race to the bottom was not a clear expression of what I meant. I meant that US would compete with other tax environments for lowest corporate taxes, which would drive down corporate taxes globally. The obvious implication is that the corporations then contribute even less to the governmental budgets. In terms of foreign policy, this has the problem of breaking solidarity with other countries. Actually, it seems that the whole idea is based on competition instead of cooperation, but given US policies today, that would be normal. What I'm wondering is would this pay off to the winner that would attract many corporations, but derive minimal taxes from them. What's the mechanism to profit from their operating within your administrative unit in that case?
- solotronics 7y ago
  Corporations don't exist in a vacuum, they are organizations of people working and recieving salaries. I would argue that by having corporate headquarters located somewhere you are bringing massive net benefit if you only look at salary. The corporate income tax is just extra that the government can squeeze out of them and its become apparent that the biggest corporations can get out of most of that anyways in the US by careful gaming of the tax code. Thus my proposal to lower the rate to a more realistic amount and simplify the tax code. Amazon paid $0 corporate income tax last year on $11 billion in income, they structure the company around reinvesting all the profit for the exact reason of not paying taxes. 2% flat rate for everyone is much better than 0% for the most cunning.

dmos62 7y ago

Race to the bottom was not a clear expression of what I meant. I meant that US would compete with other tax environments for lowest corporate taxes, which would drive down corporate taxes globally. The obvious implication is that the corporations then contribute even less to the governmental budgets. In terms of foreign policy, this has the problem of breaking solidarity with other countries. Actually, it seems that the whole idea is based on competition instead of cooperation, but given US policies today, that would be normal. What I'm wondering is would this pay off to the winner that would attract many corporations, but derive minimal taxes from them. What's the mechanism to profit from their operating within your administrative unit in that case?

solotronics 7y ago
Corporations don't exist in a vacuum, they are organizations of people working and recieving salaries. I would argue that by having corporate headquarters located somewhere you are bringing massive net benefit if you only look at salary. The corporate income tax is just extra that the government can squeeze out of them and its become apparent that the biggest corporations can get out of most of that anyways in the US by careful gaming of the tax code. Thus my proposal to lower the rate to a more realistic amount and simplify the tax code. Amazon paid $0 corporate income tax last year on $11 billion in income, they structure the company around reinvesting all the profit for the exact reason of not paying taxes. 2% flat rate for everyone is much better than 0% for the most cunning.