We should, indeed, eliminate taxes on foreign corporate earnings. Most of that money would wind up back here, in the relative safety of US banks & investments. A substantial portion of that money would go to paying dividends, which would directly generate capital gains taxes, and much of the rest would wind up being invested here in the US.
We would be doing what we should be as a center of innovation: importing cash from the rest of the world and using it to improve the US economy. Considering that today this money not only generates $0 in taxes, but does not benefit our economy in any way in terms of investment etc, this seems like something that even politicians could wrap their heads around. Yet, it is unlikely that it will ever happen.
Five minutes later the argument would be "why should we pay taxes on US earnings but zero overseas? Why discriminate against US consumers? Why are US products cheaper overseas?"
Yeah, it's actually very logical once people drop their emotionally charged attitude towards "the corporations". I'd rather see US corporate cash in US bank accounts to be spent on a mix of continued innovation, local job creation and dividends to investors.
There's the other side also - the US would effectively become a corporate tax haven. That in combination with our long standing excellent legal system, would likely be an impetus for foreign companies to incorporate in the US opposed to say Hong Kong or London.
You'd think the attitude of the "land of the free" would be "open for business" instead of so adversarial.
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>or just get rid of them all-together
We should, indeed, eliminate taxes on foreign corporate earnings. Most of that money would wind up back here, in the relative safety of US banks & investments. A substantial portion of that money would go to paying dividends, which would directly generate capital gains taxes, and much of the rest would wind up being invested here in the US.
We would be doing what we should be as a center of innovation: importing cash from the rest of the world and using it to improve the US economy. Considering that today this money not only generates $0 in taxes, but does not benefit our economy in any way in terms of investment etc, this seems like something that even politicians could wrap their heads around. Yet, it is unlikely that it will ever happen.
Five minutes later the argument would be "why should we pay taxes on US earnings but zero overseas? Why discriminate against US consumers? Why are US products cheaper overseas?"
Yeah, it's actually very logical once people drop their emotionally charged attitude towards "the corporations". I'd rather see US corporate cash in US bank accounts to be spent on a mix of continued innovation, local job creation and dividends to investors.
There's the other side also - the US would effectively become a corporate tax haven. That in combination with our long standing excellent legal system, would likely be an impetus for foreign companies to incorporate in the US opposed to say Hong Kong or London.
You'd think the attitude of the "land of the free" would be "open for business" instead of so adversarial.