| a very heavy handed approach that will almost certainly fail in the real world would be to tax corporate revenue, not profit. This is VERY invasive and I would not recommend it at all but I don't see an approach that is simple enough like this that does not require international co-operation. In my simple mind, the failure is in defining profits. How do we define profit? The devil is probably in the details. * If Wally's world buys widgets for $6B and sells them for $10B but then turns around and spends $5B on long term infrastructure, did they make a profit? Do they owe any taxes? Something closer to home: Once we get into the details, it is very easy to get lost in there. When they spend $100 per hour to hire a consultant (programmer), does that count as capital expenditure? How? I am not a lawyer and I am definitely not an accountant. I would imagine loopholes can be closed but it requires technical expertise that I lack. * Perhaps only allow cross-border expenses to countries that honor a certain level of agreement? PS: I am not so sure about taxing income in other countries. None of what I say applies to expatriating money from overseas. It only applies to monies a company makes in our country and tries to ship overseas. If Apple sells $100B worth of iPhones in the UK, should they pay corporate income tax on it in the US? Why not pay corporate tax on that in the UK? |