4 ms·

Better yet, dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income, both capital gains and salary. The amount of hu

Better yet, dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income, both capital gains and salary. The amount of human time and energy wasted on taxation is mind bogglingly stupid. Politicians trying to influence the behavior of their minions by designing these convoluted "tax-based incentive" schemes is the whole problem in the first place. Just tax all money that comes into anyones hands at say 30% and let the market decide what activity is most efficient for the world. Then maybe the 500 million intelligent people working around the globe as tax authorities, tax attorneys, tax lobbyists, tax preparers, tax accountants, and tax consultants...could spend their time doing more useful things for humanity.

axlee 5y ago
> Better yet, dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income, both capital gains and salary. Fraudsters skirted that by keeping their corporation's assets on the books and expensing everything, never actually receiving/spending anything themselves.
- pembrook 5y ago
  People are already incentivized to do that in the current system. How does removing corporate tax make that any different?
  - notahacker 5y ago
    By removing the audit of the corporations.
    - m12k 5y ago
      No need to cook the books if the government already gave you everything that you'd otherwise have to lie to obtain!
- djbebs 5y ago
  Small sibgle owner companies do that a lot. Big multinationals? No
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - axlee 5y ago
    Because they don't have to. They would go back to that in a heartbeat if they had to. It's about maximizing shareholder's revenues, post-tax.
    - pembrook 5y ago
      There would be no way to do that with a giant public company. Instead of distributing profits to shareholders, is Microsoft going to buy 1,000,000 BMWs for their investors and hold them on their books as company cars to dodge taxes? Not practical.
eptcyka 5y ago
There is no single change that could be made to tax policy that'd fix this. Instead, we have to find ways to empower the government and make them willing to take what's ours - ours in the sense that the people deserve that their representatives take hold of what belongs to the people. Individual changes to policy will force the artistic accountants to devise new workarounds.
nix23 5y ago
>dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income No thanks, you have no right to tell us (Switzerland) how much taxes we have to pay. First fix your own US-tax-system. EDIT: I think he meant that: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/11/bidens-plans-for-a-global-corporate-tax-rate-could-make-the-world-a-fairer-place https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/11/bidens-plan...
- yohannparis 5y ago
  I think the author of your quote meant global as in "one form for all USA taxes related to income", not as in "international".
- m12k 5y ago
  Agreed, trying to get the whole world to agree on a single tax rate (0 or otherwise) is unrealistic, and completely ignores the sovereignty of countries to design their tax system as they please. What needs to happen is a modernized way to calculate which percentage of global profits from each company are taxable in which country, and then leave it up to each country how to tax that (or not). The current system lets companies cook the books in a way where they can effectively relocate their profits to any country they want.
  - nix23 5y ago
    Absolutely that would be a fair a good thing.
mohanmcgeek 5y ago
> simply enforce a global flat tax Enforced by whom? Why would a developing country want to tax companies at the same level if they're trying to attract investments? Anyway, why should any country listen to any other country on what the tax rate should be? Why should a company be forced to pay tax on foreign income if the country in which they supposedly made that income doesn't want to them to pay taxes? The worst part is that this comment starts with "simply enforce"
- pembrook 5y ago
  > Why would a developing country want to tax companies at the same level The point of removing corporate tax is to not tax companies at all. Remove the decision of how to position your country against others altogether. You could enforce these things by creating a free-trade area for anybody who joins, and excluding or putting stiff tariffs on those who don't.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    > You could enforce these things by creating a free-trade area for anybody who joins, and excluding those who don't. Then you need those free trade agreements. Remember the last time when it was only between EU and US? Protests in many European countries and in the end Trump decided to break it off.

axlee 5y ago

> Better yet, dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income, both capital gains and salary. Fraudsters skirted that by keeping their corporation's assets on the books and expensing everything, never actually receiving/spending anything themselves.

pembrook 5y ago
People are already incentivized to do that in the current system. How does removing corporate tax make that any different?
- notahacker 5y ago
  By removing the audit of the corporations.
  - m12k 5y ago
    No need to cook the books if the government already gave you everything that you'd otherwise have to lie to obtain!
djbebs 5y ago
Small sibgle owner companies do that a lot. Big multinationals? No
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- axlee 5y ago
  Because they don't have to. They would go back to that in a heartbeat if they had to. It's about maximizing shareholder's revenues, post-tax.
  - pembrook 5y ago
    There would be no way to do that with a giant public company. Instead of distributing profits to shareholders, is Microsoft going to buy 1,000,000 BMWs for their investors and hold them on their books as company cars to dodge taxes? Not practical.

eptcyka 5y ago

There is no single change that could be made to tax policy that'd fix this. Instead, we have to find ways to empower the government and make them willing to take what's ours - ours in the sense that the people deserve that their representatives take hold of what belongs to the people. Individual changes to policy will force the artistic accountants to devise new workarounds.

nix23 5y ago

>dump corporate tax altogether and simply enforce a global flat tax on all forms of personal income No thanks, you have no right to tell us (Switzerland) how much taxes we have to pay. First fix your own US-tax-system. EDIT: I think he meant that: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/11/bidens-plans-for-a-global-corporate-tax-rate-could-make-the-world-a-fairer-place https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/11/bidens-plan...

yohannparis 5y ago
I think the author of your quote meant global as in "one form for all USA taxes related to income", not as in "international".
m12k 5y ago
Agreed, trying to get the whole world to agree on a single tax rate (0 or otherwise) is unrealistic, and completely ignores the sovereignty of countries to design their tax system as they please. What needs to happen is a modernized way to calculate which percentage of global profits from each company are taxable in which country, and then leave it up to each country how to tax that (or not). The current system lets companies cook the books in a way where they can effectively relocate their profits to any country they want.
- nix23 5y ago
  Absolutely that would be a fair a good thing.

mohanmcgeek 5y ago

> simply enforce a global flat tax Enforced by whom? Why would a developing country want to tax companies at the same level if they're trying to attract investments? Anyway, why should any country listen to any other country on what the tax rate should be? Why should a company be forced to pay tax on foreign income if the country in which they supposedly made that income doesn't want to them to pay taxes? The worst part is that this comment starts with "simply enforce"

pembrook 5y ago
> Why would a developing country want to tax companies at the same level The point of removing corporate tax is to not tax companies at all. Remove the decision of how to position your country against others altogether. You could enforce these things by creating a free-trade area for anybody who joins, and excluding or putting stiff tariffs on those who don't.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  > You could enforce these things by creating a free-trade area for anybody who joins, and excluding those who don't. Then you need those free trade agreements. Remember the last time when it was only between EU and US? Protests in many European countries and in the end Trump decided to break it off.