Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
I think the real issue is that taxing corporations is the wrong approach. Companies don't and really can't pay taxes. The burden of the tax always falls on some individual or group of individuals, not the company. When try and tax a company they can pass on the cost of that tax in one of 3 ways. They can pass it on to shareholders in the form of lower dividends. They can pass it on to customers in the form of higher prices, or they can pass it on to workers in the form of lower wages. Several CBO studies have show that it is workers who bear the primary burden of the tax. Which I think is probably the exact opposite outcome of what people who argue for corporate taxation want. However, it makes perfect sense why it is that way. The shareholders are never going to agree to pay the tax in the form of lower dividends. The company has limited ability to raise prices in many cases without losing customers, so the easiest way for them to pay the tax is to reduce the total wages that they pay out. Taxing corporations is nonsensical. Some individual is always going to end up paying the tax.