Wipes out corporate loopholes in one fell swoop!
So simple a seventh grader could do it!
In fact, a seventh grader did do it. My campaign manager, Calvin Green, figured the taxes for Amazon in under four minutes. (And it didn't come out zero!) Once elected, I’ll be slashing corporate taxes by at least a third. But not from what they are now—from what they were in 1959, when the top bracket rate was 92%. Which is way too high. But they’ll still be almost twice what they are now.
I highly value fostering a healthy private sector by avoiding stiflingly high taxes, but this giveaway passed off as a tax plan is economic suicide.
But regardless of what the percentages are, it's a moot point if the mega-corporations are going to manipulate their way out of them. So I would respectfully like to offer an innovative tax plan that wipes out corporate loopholes and shell games in one fell swoop.
Corporations employ squadrons of high-paid tax lawyers to tell the government "Yeah, see, we took in $100 billion, but yada yada...and, well, see, we owe zero."
Amazon, Verizon, Bank of America, Pfizer, Netflix—this orgy of tax dodging is running rampant. And seeing as how the tax codes are in large part authored by these very corporations, it's easy to see why.
My plan that fixes all that. You simply levy a 5% tax based on total gross revenue. It's not an "income" tax. Income tax is based on some theoretical profit-and-loss. It’s calculated using all sorts of convoluted high-jinks comprehensible only to tax accountants. This is simply a tax on gross revenue.
Oh and—this is important—this is NOT an additional tax. It’s a minimum tax. It sits waiting in the wings, ready to kick in only if the tax bill of a corporation falls below this point. For example, if a company takes in 100 billion and claims their income tax is zero, then they owe $5 billion. Simple. A seventh grader could do the taxes for Amazon. And it might go something like this:
Seventh grader: “Let’s see here, you took in $240 billion dollars?” (BTW, they did. Their gross revenue for 2018 was about a quarter trillion.)
Amazon: “Yes, but see, our actual taxable income is yada yada yada, because of bla bla bla, and so, see, we owe nothing.”
Seventh grader: “OK, well, that’ll be $12 billion, please.”
By the way (this is important too): This applies only to mega-corporations with mega-revenue, not to small-to-medium businesses.
Keeping 95¢ of every dollar taken in (regardless of what they claim their profit or lack thereof is) would be only a small cost of doing business. Although I'm sure corporate lobbyists and their bought-and-paid-for Congress-minions would claim it would be devastating.
Another benefit of this plan, since this is not "income" tax but a cost-of-doing-business tax, would be that the old "Yeah, see, we moved our corporate office to Switzerland so we owe nothing" ploy is out the window, too.
There. Problem solved. Next. Back
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