This will be a short dairy but hopefully provide some new discussions on the purpose and methods of taxation.
When does a business on balance present a net cost to the U.S. saddling the rest of us with paying its burden to society?
One of the odd facts I saw was that Walmart by itself accounts for 11% of the U.S. Balance of Payments deficit. Combine this fact with the percent of Walmart employees requiring some kind of government assistance, the state and local tax breaks they often receive and the other small businesses forced out the market and we have an example of a business whose profit is heavily subsidized by the rest of us.
If we truly want to prevent this from occurring and promote wealth formation for the entirety of the U.S - not just the few, then one method might be to examine the costs to society as a percentage and tax the profits and their derivatives at an equivalent rate.
I'm taking numbers out of the air as an illustration as I don't have the time to quantify them now, so please don't take the below numbers as gospel. They do convey the point, however.
Assume:
11% Balance of payments deficit
30% Walmart employees requiring government assistance
3% non green energy usage
2% State and local tax breaks
5% infrastructure benefit (highways, etc.)
5% market protection (police, courts, military, etc.)
Clearly not a complete list but it shows some possibilities.
For a total of 56% society costs, then the appropriate tax is 56% on all profits, dividends and portions of estates on a flow through basis.. of these costs the 1st 4 or 46% are directly within Walmarts ability to control as a company. Do the right thing and pay less tax.
While this rule may not be applicable to all businesses it could be applied to major retailers easily enough and certain other industries. Apply this rule and method to every retail business with over $1 million in net sales and watch manufacturing jobs and a living wage return to the U.S.
This example may be overly simplistic but it does lend itself to discussion of methods of taxation not presently considered.
Just a thought..