Using tax policy to push corporations and their billionaire founders/executives/shareholders to change their behavior might be the more rational strategy. For

Using tax policy to push corporations and their billionaire founders/executives/shareholders to change their behavior might be the more rational strategy. For example, elimination of tax breaks for the fossil fuel sector: > "The intangible drilling cost deduction (which expenses as opposed to capitalizes certain drilling costs) has been around for over 100 years, and the percentage depletion allowance (15% reduction in gross income of a productive well) has also been around nearly that long. (Forbes)" This discourages investment in fossil fuels, and of course transferring the tax breaks to the renewable industry would encourage growth in that sector. Similarly, if we went back to 1960s corporate tax rates (50% top tier), well, corporations avoided those high rates by getting deductions for their massive R&D efforts (see Bell Labs etc.). If we want technological development, encouraging large-scale private sector R&D makes sense (see China's technological development history). Such policies don't necessarily increase government revenue but they do push corporate behavioral changes and technological development.