President Obama's Implicit Message To Taxpayers: 'I Own You'
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2016/04/10/president-obamas-implicit-message-to-taxpayers-i-own-you/#30438767751e
The original idea behind thirteen U.S. states was fairly simple. Since we’re all unique as individuals, the existence of different states was (and is) meant to maximize our ability to pursue our individual taxation bliss. Some might want an active government providing all manner of services, while others might want very little government. In choosing where to live Americans would be free to choose a tax system most suited to their needs.
On a federal level, U.S. taxation in its original form was very light. Figure there was no federal income tax until the early 20th century. This was by design. The federal government would have very few and very defined powers so that most legislative decisions could be made on a local level. Americans would again choose their legislative and taxation bliss; cities and states “laboratories of ideas” that citizens could exit if the ideas hatched within ever proved bad or taxation too onerous. Not only were taxes expected to be highest on a local or state level, the animating feature of this idea was once again about citizens being free to escape local government and taxation if either or both ever became too intrusive.
. . . .
Yet the U.S. was to a very high degree founded on the idea of tax avoidance; of citizens escaping legislators eager to plunder the wealth they had created. Fleeing an overbearing legislature “just to get out of paying taxes” is a defining feature of American life. Or at least it was. There’s nothing “insidious” about American tax avoidance, yet through his support of Treasury’s tax grab President Obama is communicating something rather ugly to corporations. He’s specifically telling U.S. corporations he owns them. Just as individual Americans can no longer escape a federal income tax bill such that they’re essentially trapped by their American citizenship, the same now applies to businesses. Should they pursue higher returns for shareholders through migration to lower-tax locales outside the U.S., the Obama administration will block them.
(Entire article is at the link. Zim.)
Mad Poet Strikes Again.
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