Taxing ideas

Before I prove that God can exist, a quick word on tax havens.

We all know they're a bad thing. They allow corporations and the rich to avoid paying their share and have no real beneficial purpose. But you can't help other people's tax laws, right?

Wrong. The solution to tax havens is very simple. No company registered in a tax haven can do business in the US, nor can any company owned by one or even a sister of one. End of tax havens. Also, you want to live in our countries, that we build and maintain, you can pay taxes. No escaping because of residence requirements. We simply tax you pro rata for every day you're here. If you own a house, we tax that. If you own two, we tax them both, the second one double, because we don't have enough houses to go round. If you own three, we just shoot you (only kidding!).

Currently, the clowns who pass as representatives of the people in the States are trying to get passed a measure that will allow companies to repatriate profits from overseas at a reduced rate of tax (the Republicans want 5% afaik and the Dems a smidge more).

This is obviously a terrible idea at a time when everyone's pretending the money's run out (even allowing for the truth that there is no crisis and obviously no lack of money, given that money is points, not prizes). Obviously, it works for businesses: outsource our jobs, then make obscene profits flogging your shit to the people you outsourced our jobs to. But it's hard to see what the benefits of that are for us. We keep hearing that if we don't tax corporations, they will have more money that they will use to give us all great jobs.

But look, there are 10% out of work in the States, so it must be obvious to anyone but the slowest that that's thorough bullshit, and anyway, it's easy to grasp that companies create jobs to meet demand, not because they feel happy because they have lots of money. It's also, sadly, easy for the right to muddy the water because individuals tend to be generous when they have extra money, so companies can be painted as creating jobs as acts of charity, rather than as a way to make even more money. Companies are not people though, whatever the Supreme Court says, and, although they could be, they are not constituted as vehicles for us all to have work but as big money machines.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:23 pm