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by jandrese 2213 days ago
While a great idea in theory, said companies are adept at moving money around to avoid paying taxes. Is it unthinkable that a company would move its HQ down to some island nation to avoid several billion in taxes? I don't think so. And there will be endless arguments about how foreign companies that don't pay into that system are going to be more competitive.

One could maybe avoid the problem a bit by implementing a tariff on every import that calculates the man-hours put into a product and adds a fee based on how much UBI that would be if it were made by Americans, but that's hideously complex and still wouldn't help companies that want to export their products worldwide. Ultimately markets don't care about the general welfare of the people and are frequently at odds with schemes like this. Unfortunately we don't really have a better solution. Command economies don't work at scale.
2 comments
Avicebron 2213 days ago
It's not impossible that those companies would try, but it's not impossible that strict legal action could prevent it at least in theory. I think that if we just acknowledge markets don't care about the welfare of people than we have a commonly agreed upon problem. Should it be morally acceptable to put our hands up and say, luck of the draw, some will die deep in medical debt and others get to become horrendously wealthy. As a species I hope we have progressed enough to move past that base thinking.
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jandrese 2213 days ago
Strict legal action can't prevent them from being undercut by foreign competitors.
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Avicebron 2213 days ago
I'm not saying that there wouldn't have to be other changes to manufacturing practices, import and tariff practices, but I think the framework we go into the problem with. E.G. are people important or our markets important makes a difference in how someone comes up with a solution.
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nikanj 2213 days ago
Two can play at that game, and if the HQ is moved to a small island, the company can be hit with import tariffs. As long as the customers still remain in the US, the US can extract tax from the transactions.

Not saying they're willing to extract taxes, as we've seen time and again, but very much able.

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