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The reason for rising inequality in the States is very clear: offshoring and automation. Historically, the rest of the world had much lower wages while it was difficult to move US jobs to other countries for political and logistical reasons. Once that was solved, manufacturing jobs were gone. US population shifted from manufacturing to service. Now the service jobs are being outsourced and automated in turn. The real picture is a bit more complex of course but it does not change the logic.

The right approach to taxation would be to tax the exact cause of the problem: offshoring and automation. It can be done as a progressive per-employee Value Added Tax. The normal VAT is a fixed percentage on the difference between revenue and non-labor expenses. The new P-VAT would grow with the added value per US employee. For instance, if a pizzeria has added value of $50k per employee per year, the P-VAT could be zero. For the likes of Google and Apple with millions of dollars of added value per employee it could be 50% or more.

It would create an incentive to keep the jobs in the US. Also, it would be very hard to avoid if a company wants access to US market.