It’s past time we reformed our tax laws, including corporate/business taxes.
Others have said this, but my motives are different.
I favor a gross-receipts tax. And it must be applied equally to every sale of goods or services that takes place in this country.
I don’t care where the company originated, where it’s currently based. If that company wants access to the American market, pay the tax.
As an example, consider Toblerone. They’re a Swiss company that makes chocolate, good chocolate as a matter of fact.
They can sell their product in Switzerland, no effect on American taxes. BUT…if they sell in the US, the US buyer will pay a business GR Tax, say 10% as a ball-park figure. It might be as much as 20%, in practical terms; I’ve a reason for selecting that figure.
US companies MIGHT, I emphasize MIGHT, get a deduction for salaries paid to US workers, who pay US personal taxes. But even so, I would limit the deduction for top salaries. As for benefits, if the company wants to pay them, fold the value into individual income, and tax the entire package.
The European nations already do this. You might not be aware of it, but they do.
I’m an American, I write books, I market them through Amazon, an American company that also has foreign subsidiaries. My books sell in many of the world’s largest nations. As an example, I’ve sold books in France, in the UK, in Canada, in Australia, in Japan.
Amazon pays a Value-Added Tax, VAT, on each book I sell in the EU. Note that I’m not a citizen there, but my sales to those markets are taxed.
I think we should do the same.
Suppose every sale by a company based in the US, in Mexico, in China, in Indonesia, in Vietnam, in Korea, in Japan, paid the same tax rate as a company in Omaha?
So why shouldn’t we? A more important question is, why CAN’T we?
We’ve signed various ‘free trade’ agreements. Mexican car parts, for example, are shipped to the US where they’re put into vehicles that are sold to US citizens. There are many others. They come in essentially tax-free. Others, folks like Romney, pay taxes in places like Switzerland and deduct those from they pay their own government. They switch sales to tax havens, hide profits offshore, all while taking advantage of the US laws and the US Government.
Free Trade isn’t. It’s a scam that takes our economy out of the hands of our government and hands it over to international businesses. Those agreements are essentially worthless; other nations aren’t nearly as willing to honor the spirit of such agreements and even the lax ‘laws’ are also broken.
It’s past time this was changed.
I don’t have much hope of that, however; look at the House’s version of the Omnibus budget bill, you’ll see where the next Congress will focus their attention.
Tags: Free Trade Agreements. Value Added Taxes., Gross Receipts Tax, Taxation
Jlknapp505's Blog 
December 13, 2014 at 12:29 pm |
Like. Should try to spread the idea, and not give up hope. We are probably currently, relative to the abuse of corporate power, where we were relative to slavery 200 years ago.
December 13, 2014 at 12:46 pm |
Not giving up. I’ll keep writing.
This problem, like so many, goes back to our corrupt political system. No one’s working on a solution because being paid not to.