▲ | jmyeet 5 days ago | |||||||
I firmly believe we need revenue apportionment of profits. By this I mean that if you have $100 billion in revenue and $80 billion in costs then you have $20 billion in profits. If half that revenue ($50 billion) comes from sales in the US then half that profit ($10 billion) is taxable US income. You might be tempted to argue they'll use subsidiaries to shift profits but we already have ways of dealing with that. We also have earnings that get reported to financial markets so you can always use the baseline revenue and earnings numbers from that. We have ways too of dealing with transfer pricing and profit-shifting. How far do companies get if they can't report earnings to the markets? Or if they try and tank earnings to reduce their tax liability? You might be tempted to ask "what about private companies?" Subject them to the same reporting standards and auditing requirements of any US-listed company or they don't get access to the US market. This idea that companies can't be taxed because they're too clever needs to die. So does the idea that they shouldn't be taxed. Governments, particularly the US government and the EU, wield extraordinary power. You can bring companies to heel by withholding access to a market pretty quickly. It's why I always laugh when companies threaten to abandon a market. As long as there is profit to be made, a company will never leave. Non-IP assets can't generally be picked and moved so you always hold sway over a significant portion of their assets. And the US has the additional power to withhold access essentially to the global financial system. And of course governments always have the option of nationalizing industries. Governments should serve the interests of their citizens and corporations should serve the interests of those governments. Governments should not be subservient to corporate interests. Unfortunately, the US government at this point is basically just six companies in a trenchcoat. | ||||||||
▲ | tossandthrow 5 days ago | parent [-] | |||||||
This would heavily encourage exports and disalign the company's incentives with the nation's. I do, however, this could be a good idea. But I think the true issue is that we need a globally unified tax framework (and serious retaliation if a nation decides not to adopt it). | ||||||||
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