mornelithe said:
Ahh yes, hyperbole, that's a constructive literary device to be using here. Well played. |
That's not hyperbole, it's reductio ad absurdum. Baalzamon took the reasoning to the logical extreme.
Practically every other country taxes corporations for activity within their borders. If a company based in Australia makes money in Japan, then that money is taxed in Japan, and then returned to Australia, where it isn't then taxed again until it's spent, at which point the tax is taken from the company that it was then paid to, not the company that spent the money. It encourages companies to return their money and spend it in Australia, rather than keeping it offshore. If it's returned to Australia, it then returns to economic circulation in Australia, and is thus taxed as it circulates.
In America, if you're based in America, you get taxed on total profits. That means that money you made in other countries gets taxed in America after it's taxed in the other country. This discourages the repatriation of the money, and thus reduces America's economic strength, which means less tax being paid. As public corporations are legally obligated to make every effort to maximise profits for their shareholders within the bounds of the law, and that includes by legally minimising their taxes, they are practically required by law to offshore their profits as much as they can. This is also why those special periods where repatriation of offshored money is permitted without taxation happens so frequently - because these companies keeping their money offshore dampens the American economy, while permitting its repatriation boosts the economy.
