Obama Administration Urges Immediate Action on 'Inversions'

The best tricks to lower you tax rate are only available to the largest companies. Startups pay full price.

New startup idea: tax evasion as a service. It would use the same transfer pricing techniques like Google and Apple. Money would be shuffled using the Double Irish, Dutch Sandwich, etc. Shell companies would be formed and "office space" and "employees" would be shared between the various subscribers. The company would handle all the paper work, legal requirements, incorporation and account setup. You'd pay for the service with a small percentage of your savings.

I'm against tax evasion, but if we're going to have it, we may as well make it fair to the little guys.

While I understand the frustrations of tax dodging, I have to admit that this increasing barriers against capital flight reminds me of a economic 'Berlin wall' and ultimately doomed to fail.

Given the fluidity of people and resources, over-taxation could be considered damage and easily routed around (to borrow a phrase).

At some point, we're going to have to address the reasons why people/money are leaving. Unfortunate, that take is harder than rhetoric and simple laws.

Why shouldn't the US create a tax structure that encourages businesses to "invert" to the US?

Yes, cracking down on companies pulling these sorts of stunts is a good idea.

However, I think a better idea is raise capital gains taxes on foreign companies since this "trick" only really benefits the investors. I suspect if the Board's stockholder backers finds themselves paying more for their foreign investments they might reconsider...