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I think this is an absolutely incredible idea if it could actually be made in a way such that the taxation and other factors could not be easily avoided. But there's one unspoken problem with taxes and particularly corporate taxes.

Large companies are perceived as being proportionally beneficial to the US economy. If you made the US a place that was meaningfully undesirable for corporations, they can leave. And even if these companies did not leave, you would strongly deter new companies. For instance imagine you were able to create your system such that it could not be simply avoided through various typical methods. So big companies really did risk losing up to 50% of their net. How long would it take before e.g. YCombinator started requiring new companies to incorporate in e.g. Hong Kong (or wherever) instead of the US? Perhaps even moving the entire operation abroad.

So even though I think this would be an absolutely incredible idea, I do not think it would work or be meaningfully considered in practice.



generally, large corporations (and wealthy people) do not, and will not, leave the US because of taxes. people want to live here and companies want to do business here. badly. but they also want an unfair advantage and will say anything (like "we'll just take our toys and leave!") to try to get it.


It was actually common, they still do business here, before the tax law change they would do an inversion so they'd no longer be taxed by the US on their foreign profits (US had worldwide taxation while most every other country did not).

Here's an article about 2016: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/tax-inversion-tracker/

US citizens can't avoid worldwide taxation, but they certainly move states to avoid taxes.


yes, our tilted tax system let them do that without any repercussion. not only can they keep doing business as they always have, they get extra incentive on top. let's just equalize the tax treatment of individuals and corporations already.




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