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I think this rant is a little tired, but I do agree with one point you made, and it’s been something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

> Also that they tend to be well below personal rates these days plus this gap widening. Increasingly this tax burden needs to be picked up from citizens. I suspect this is a significant variable of the degrading working/middle class lifestyle.

I think that we should radically raise corporate tax rate on profits, and provide marginally zero tax on any income (up to a large limit, eg $500k) that isn’t capital gains. This would shift the focus of corporations from increasing profits and stock price and instead put the focus on paying employees more. It was also shift corporate focus less on stock price rises and more on dividend increases (capital gains vs income).

These two things seem like they’d provide a much more stable environment for workers. Paying employees more becomes the new tax write off. Employees benefit because they don’t worry about taxes and get paid more, and it reduced the economic benefit of keeping the money in the company instead.

>This would shift the focus of corporations from increasing profits and stock price and instead put the focus on paying employees more.

Won't the corporations just make up for it by paying all the profits to their executives?

This is sick. Just because I live in Singapore and pay about 20% income tax and zero corporate tax, I"m apparently degrading the working class lifestyle?

Why does Singapore have better infrastructure and governance than your country? With no natural resources and no land.

You cannot buy your way out of bad governance. If you want a better "lifestyle", elect a better government, the tax rate paid by people in foreign countries has nothing to do with it.

Singapore is taking from other nations. Are you familiar with double Irish? Load of companies do this to run their business in one location and pay lower tax in another.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

Also FYI most companies in Singapore pay 17% tax, not zero.

And you ask why singapore has good infrastructure, well ~$70k per capita GDP helps these things.

> somoene in some country im not part of has money and it isnt taxed according to how my country says it should be taxed

> therefore we need global tax minimum agreements

how does this follow? this isnt reddit or 4chan; your particular philosophy isnt assumed to be truth.

Why? Double Irish is a classic example. Countries can conduct business in one location and pay tax in another.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

so just change the definition of who needs to be taxed what to whatever you want in your country. at the end of the day, the company has the option to actually (not just for show) move wherever to another country if it doesn't like your tax. granted, i dont know how corpo rats think so i cant say whether they would not want to live outside the US or something. this doesnt mean there needs to be a global tax minimum.

when i pay tax personally i am getting scammed (robbed). i dont work for a corpo like 99% of the users here that creates deliberately broken products nor do i get any funding from the government to spend on OLED screens while pretending its to boost the economy

> corporate level, which is the more important

Corporate income taxes only bring in ~5% of the US Federal budget, all the individual taxes have always been more substantial:

https://taxfoundation.org/how-has-federal-revenue-changed-ov...

There's fantastic concept called competition.

If country can do with less money it might attract more businesses. This pushes others to improve their operations too. Global tax minimums remove or soften this incentive which is a bad thing. Most governments are not efficient already and this will not help.

There's a fantastic concept called racing to the bottom.

Small countries can afford to be tax havens because even getting 1% of a multibillion company covers their needs well enough. Meanwhile, the country housing the thousands of workers, damaging roads, using infrastructure, healthcare, etc, get nothing. Global tax minimums are the only way we have a society that keeps functioning.

> There's fantastic concept called competition.

This isn't what is at play in the case of tax havens.

What you call competition other might call race to the bottom.

It doesn't take a genius to see the problem either, look at companies like airbnb who barely pay any tax in countries they operate in because technically they just have a "customer service office" in said country while the money is moved to Luxembourg, Ireland, &c.

How do you feel about price minimums, say for telco, gasoline, health care?

I ask because taxes are the price you pay for (insert your country's services here).

No, taxes is the price I pay for bureaucrats and politicians to not starve. It's a kind of charity.

All these services can be provided by businesses, and I can pay for them on a per-need basis.

I 100% agree with you, it's kind of the point that I'm trying to make above...

Maybe I should have called it a price instead of the price.

There are many many services that cannot be done by businesses. From the foundational regulatory framework and enforcement of laws that make substantial businesses possible in the first place, to more practical things like safety and security.

That these cannot be done by businesses is just an assertion, re-enforcing the status quo.

"The Machinery of Freedom"[0] is a book describing how a lot of these could work. I'm not yet sold that they would, but I'm not outright discarding the ideas.

[0]: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Cap...

Oh I don’t disagree that there aren’t things that could rather be served by businesses.

What I haven’t heard however are a couple of good examples (in a particular society) that are viable and would make a material positive dent, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear some good ideas, especially in jurisdictions where a govt does a lot.

> No, taxes is the price I pay for bureaucrats and politicians to not starve. It's a kind of charity.

I feel like most people, including you, have absolutely no idea of how their taxes are spent. Unless you live in an absolute corrupt shit hole you're dead wrong

No I have, but a lot of people - probably including you - take authorities and their budget committees at face-value when they report where they spend tax money.