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Comment by xupybd | Hacker News Reader

I wish these sorts of things would come into focus more often in politics. This should get bipartisan support, this should bring equality in a way that every side should agree on.

I'm on the far right economically but really think tax law is not working, now that companies can distribute operations internationally. As such many of the benefits markets bring to the world are offset by global corporations skating the tax system and get advantages that are only due to their scale and do not add any efficiency. A country should have the ability to lower corporate rates so they attract more business. But they gain nothing if they're just attracting shell companies that simply stash money. They need business to move in that offer jobs and wealth creation.

I doubt those on the left would agree with me on the finer points, but I'm sure they want to see these companies paying their fair share. So why is this not being dealt with?

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I posted this in another thread recently, but I think it’s worth repeating here:

We’re really better off eliminating the corporate tax altogether. It’s a pretty small portion of tax revenue and the only reason it exists is to be a plank for politicians who want to tax the "greedy corporations." All corporate income is either paid as dividends, paid as salaries, or reinvested. When it is paid as dividends, it is taxed as capital gains. When it is paid as salaries, it is taxed as income. When it is reinvested, it is either lost, or eventually becomes income and capital gains. There is no need to have another layer of taxation that just makes a giant accounting mess and creates all sorts of ridiculous incentives to use tax shelters.

Individuals also create corporates to spend money, i can create a single owner entity and spend money like i am from my personal bank account

People do it, but it’s not legal. The corporate funds are for the corporation’s purposes. If you need the money for personal purposes, you’re supposed to take a distribution or pay yourself a salary. If you get caught doing otherwise, you’ll owe the IRS all of the back taxes and some hefty penalties.

What if you pay yourself a salary in Caimans? Here is the problem.

expensing items that aren't actually for your business activities is tax fraud.

Which you cannot prosecute easily thanks to some of the loopholes mentioned in the post itself.

I have recently had a question about this. When a foreigner owns a fraction of a corporation, what taxes do they pay to the US government on their dividends and appreciation? It occurred to me that if the answer is, "none," That would represent a material, difficult-to-otherwise-arrange advantage of the corporate tax: levying taxes on foreigners. (I don't mean advantage here in the moral sense -- just in the practical one.)

That’s a really good point. According to https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/nonusresidenttax... , non-resident aliens are taxed on dividends from American companies, but not for capital gains.

Would we be changing any important incentives by leaving untaxed that portion of corporate income responsible for foreigners’ appreciation? Otherwise, it doesn’t seem like a very significant source of revenue.

You say in excess of 100 million USD is not a significant source of revenue. I hope this is due to ignorance. It is more than the budget of some rich countries.

Taxation on foreign individuals is a thing done all the time with duties.

Absolute amounts are not very useful for making tax policy. If it represents a tiny portion of federal receipts, and doesn’t serve to prevent some end-run around other parts of the tax law or other perverse incentives, there seems to be a weak case for maintaining a tax policy that causes all sorts of other undesirable outcomes.

> So why is this not being dealt with?

I assume because people with money do not want to pay more taxes, and people with money find lobbying has an excellent ROI.

Not to mention actual politicians take advantage of these loopholes at time. In a bipartisan way.

We fund our political campaigns by selling policy concessions. The result is an unintended but highly effective "mandatory bribery policy."

Campaign finance reform is a prerequisite for any policy that goes against the interest of any concentrated pool of wealth.

> So why is this not being dealt with?

It's talked about and being dealt with constantly!

President Bush had a repatriation holiday for lowered taxes of repatriated capital.

President Obama tried to get assets repatriated.

President Trump's tax plan has a lower corporate tax rate in order to stop the movement of capital to lower tax jurisdictions. Also, this plan attempts to close this offshoring move, for multinationals, by requiring the repatriation of assets.

There are valid reasons that so many companies decide to offshore profits to a lower tax jurisdiction from what is onerous taxation by the US.

None of the above attempts to wage war (militarily if need be) on the actual tax havens. These only attempt to provide incentives that are not even close to comparable to 0 tax rate you can get.

> None of the above attempts to wage war (militarily if need be) on the actual tax havens.

Wage a military war against tax havens? Is that in an attempt to obtain other people's money?

I don't think you really understand the issue. Tax avoidance is, by definition, legal in the US. Tax evasion is the problem. If you don't know today who is engaging in tax evasion, how will military strikes on Ireland and Bermuda ferret those people out and make them pay? Do you have the particular law offices and bank locations mapped out on GPS to strike with tomahawks?

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