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dachworker 2 hours ago

Corporate taxes don't work and taxing the rich is super hard. Could this be a way for the state to suplement tax revenue?

lantry an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It creates a lot of perverse incentives, and is probably a bad idea in the long run. If the govt makes more money when intel is successful, then the govt is incentivized to sabotage Intel's competitors (e.g. through tariffs, export controls, and many other powers). This distorts the free market that is (allegedly) at the center of America's success

vizzier an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The answer is probably an automatic state in any company over a specific size given to the government. The only competition is then international.

dibujaron 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I read recently that corporate taxes used to be a lot higher on large conglomerated companies, which used to deter monopolization somewhat. Under this automatic-stake idea, it'd be interesting if the government's stake in corporations increased as they got larger? Companies try to avoid this and so don't combine so much?

Of course once the government does have a large stake in the largest monopoly-like companies, it's immensely motivated to keep them large. Hmm. This idea isn't good.

smallerfish an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Still perverse incentives. In this case the government is implicitly biased against startups competing against a giant.

nafey an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Reinventing Socialism from first principals

jazzyjackson an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

See also: confessions of an economic hitman, the mysterious affair of Olivetti

US government has always had a policy of sabotaging international competition

choult 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, not enough money in it.

Tax the rich.

jauntywundrkind an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Just remember Piketty too, Capital in the 21st Century: the purpose is not generate revenue. Taxation's primary purpose is to prevent extreme concentrations of wealth & power, to diffuse the un-democratic dangers hazards and threats.

tehjoker an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That's confusing. The rich make their money and hold their assets in economically productive (or extractive) enterprises. Land, factories, services, arms, etc are the real storehouses of wealth. If you take that from the rich, they have nothing.

contagiousflow an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> Corporate taxes don't work

What does this mean?

anon7725 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

I am not the original commenter, but I interpret it to mean that large corporations can almost always arrange it so that they don't pay tax or don't pay their fair share of tax. 88 companies paid $0 tax on $105B in profit in 2025[0]

[0] https://itep.org/88-profitable-corporations-paid-zero-income...