>then I'd go further and say the government should buy up the shares and take advantage of any dividends to (effectively) be a non-tax based revenue source.
Isn't that just a consumption/sales/value added tax with extra steps?
If it is any of those kinds of tax, then so are all divided payments; this is something a corporation could just decide not to pay one year because it wants the money for investing in future growth or whatever else is the usual reason is for not paying dividends to shareholders.