[AlexTWithBeard]

Sounds very reasonable. I'm sure there's a catch, but I don't see where it is.

Taxing a business looks like a weird thing to do: a business can only spend money on business-related stuff pretty much by definition.

In order for money to be spent on non-busines things, it should be paid out as a salary, dividends or something like that which we know how to tax pretty well.

I'm certainly missing something, but what?

[ip26]

Not an economist so I don't know the official reason. But a corporation can theoretically accumulate profits indefinitely without making a payout, while governments need stable yearly revenue.

Maybe more material from a public policy point of view is that we like to tax different things at different rates, to favor or disfavor spending on various things. Hard to tax a salary based on what the employer spent their money on.

[tonyedgecombe]

A corporation could accumulate although I expect shareholders would stop that fairly quickly.

You could still implement Pigovian taxes such as fuel or alcohol duties.

[petronio]

There's many valid reasons for accumulating profits, such as planning buyouts or expansions. That being said, sometimes it can be done for reasons such as waiting for a preferable tax regime. Due to that, some countries have a separate accumulated earnings tax that is similar to individual wealth taxes to disincentivize accumulating without a business purpose.