There has been a lot of hand wringing over Trump’s deal with Carrier to save jobs in Indiana. I’ve been thinking about tax policy.
Here’s my half baked idea.
- I like the idea of lowering (if not getting rid of entirely) the corporate income tax. Big companies can afford to hire lawyers and accountants to offshore business or invert their business to avoid income tax while other companies can’t. This places the tax burden on small and medium sized companies. Ditch the corporate income tax to level the playing field.
- Audit big companies to determine how many foreign workers they have (including in subsidiaries) and charge them personal income tax and payroll tax for their overseas work force. E.g. If GM has 1,000 people in Mexico making cars, GM pays no corporate income tax, but has to pay the payroll tax and personal income tax burden for the 1,000 Mexican workers as an equivalent rate to what it would pay US workers in the same positions. If GM moved those jobs back to the US, then the US workers pay the income tax and GM doesn’t have to.
It’s not just the cheaper labor, you’d have to couple this with killing the EPA.
Lots of their regulations don’t make the air more breathable or water more drinkable; but they damn sure make business unprofitable.
Unprofitable business is a feature, not a bug.
If corporations are businesses, they should pay business taxes. If they are considered “a person” by the courts, they should pay personal income taxes. What… they are both??? Pay both taxes!
Repeat after me: Corporations don’t pay tax. Every penny they have comes from customers – that would be you and me. Corporate taxes take income and hand it over to the government before it can be considered profit. Since you’re buying their products with your take home money, that earned value created by what you do for a living has been taxed already. All the corporation is doing is acting as a collections agency for the government, taking more of your money you’ve already been taxed on.
You’re 100% right on the really big companies having entire staffs of lawyers on the payroll to find ways to put the burden on someone else, while the little guys end up paying proportionally more.
Not sure about the second one. It has to be written so that teams of lawyers can’t scam it, which sounds tough.
As for the EPA, they jumped the shark years ago. When they decided “navigable waters of the United States” applied to mud puddles and the furrows from plowing were “mini mountain ranges” that had to be regulated. Time to close the doors, padlock the buildings, and send everyone home with a pink slip.
Why should anyone — rich person, poor person, big business or small — pay taxes at all?
Tell me what the “government” is selling. Maybe I’ll buy some of it?