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I want to go one step further than this idea and introduce carbon tariffs on imported goods coupled with price ceilings so corporations can't pass off the tarif

I want to go one step further than this idea and introduce carbon tariffs on imported goods coupled with price ceilings so corporations can't pass off the tariffs to wealthy people and still profit. The corporations should be paying these taxes and their bottom line should suffer if they're selling dirty goods. They should not be able to make the profit margins they're making today by manufacturing cheap trash in China and selling it for insane markups in first-world countries. The price ceilings should be set based on some amount of maximum profit margin companies should be allowed to make. If they want to make bigger margins they're going to have to move manufacturing to cleaner countries and then they can apply their insane markups.

munk-a 4y ago
I'm actually quite in favor of, essentially, a minimum VAT tax. The US demands that good manufacturing pays some reasonable level of VAT taxes (let's say 10% as an example). If Apple builds a laptop in China they value at 300$ (paying 45$ in VAT to China) and then ship it over to Bermuda to "endow it with their brand" adding 1700$ to the value and paying a VAT tax of .5% then, once it arrives at US shores, we simply bar the good entry until 9.5% of 1700$ is surrendered to the US government to account for VAT dodging. It's an incredibly easy way to close a whole bunch of tax loopholes at once.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  So, an import tariff that is waived against imports from countries with sufficiently high taxes on production, provided those taxes are characterized the right way? Seems like a monumentally bad idea > It’s an incredibly easy way to close a whole bunch of tax loopholes at once. I don’t think it closes any tax loopholes.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    Tax compatibility is a pretty solved problem - countries frequently coordinate to make sure income and other taxes don't end up being double counted so it's not like this would happen accidentally[1]. And the point isn't so much that the US should collect all this revenue - it's just to make tax havens moot and unnecessary. Why spend money shipping laptops to Bermuda so you can put a sticker on them there if you aren't saving any money? 1. There's a positive incentive here, if you work and live in country A and are considering working in country B either country B can craft their tax system so that you won't end up paying the same taxes to both country A or country B... or they can not do that. If they fail to make their tax law compatible they lose out on your tax income (it instead all goes to country A) since nobody wants to be double taxed - if they make their tax laws compatible then they essentially get some free income and another earner. Digital nomads pulling down six digit salaries in low cost of living countries also injects a whole lot of money into the local economy and generally just makes things better - and the country retains the right to limit visas if they ever have any issues with it.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Tax compatibility is a pretty solved problem Tax compatibility with VAT only is a sensible concept where the destination country has a VAT itself, which the US does not. Otherwise, a minimum VAT on imports is just a global punitive import tariff, and has nothing to do with compatibility. Even where its sensible, it still has potential problems that can be introduced through other parts of the tax system, but…we don’t really need to consider that in this case.

munk-a 4y ago

I'm actually quite in favor of, essentially, a minimum VAT tax. The US demands that good manufacturing pays some reasonable level of VAT taxes (let's say 10% as an example). If Apple builds a laptop in China they value at 300$ (paying 45$ in VAT to China) and then ship it over to Bermuda to "endow it with their brand" adding 1700$ to the value and paying a VAT tax of .5% then, once it arrives at US shores, we simply bar the good entry until 9.5% of 1700$ is surrendered to the US government to account for VAT dodging. It's an incredibly easy way to close a whole bunch of tax loopholes at once.

dragonwriter 4y ago
So, an import tariff that is waived against imports from countries with sufficiently high taxes on production, provided those taxes are characterized the right way? Seems like a monumentally bad idea > It’s an incredibly easy way to close a whole bunch of tax loopholes at once. I don’t think it closes any tax loopholes.
- munk-a 4y ago
  Tax compatibility is a pretty solved problem - countries frequently coordinate to make sure income and other taxes don't end up being double counted so it's not like this would happen accidentally[1]. And the point isn't so much that the US should collect all this revenue - it's just to make tax havens moot and unnecessary. Why spend money shipping laptops to Bermuda so you can put a sticker on them there if you aren't saving any money? 1. There's a positive incentive here, if you work and live in country A and are considering working in country B either country B can craft their tax system so that you won't end up paying the same taxes to both country A or country B... or they can not do that. If they fail to make their tax law compatible they lose out on your tax income (it instead all goes to country A) since nobody wants to be double taxed - if they make their tax laws compatible then they essentially get some free income and another earner. Digital nomads pulling down six digit salaries in low cost of living countries also injects a whole lot of money into the local economy and generally just makes things better - and the country retains the right to limit visas if they ever have any issues with it.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Tax compatibility is a pretty solved problem Tax compatibility with VAT only is a sensible concept where the destination country has a VAT itself, which the US does not. Otherwise, a minimum VAT on imports is just a global punitive import tariff, and has nothing to do with compatibility. Even where its sensible, it still has potential problems that can be introduced through other parts of the tax system, but…we don’t really need to consider that in this case.