This idea has been kicking around in my head for a while, and I’m hoping some Lemmy geniuses can poke holes/ flesh it out with me.

Every person I’ve ever heard of works for and gets paid by some form of company. So instead of the company paying the workers and then those workers getting taxed, why not just tax it all to the corporations to begin with? Instead of hundreds of millions of individuals to think about, the IRS (in US) could just focus on a few million companies.

We the people democratically decide what we think is needed for a functioning society, and charge it to the corporations.

I’d say each company should be responsible for paying the same percentage of the bill as percentage of total “profits” they made. Like, if Apple makes 10% of all the combined profits of all the companies this quarter, they are responsible for paying 10% of the bill. Highest paid employee can make 10x what the lowest paid employee (including contracted and foreign workers) makes; more than that gets included in the calculation as part of the company’s “profits”. (So that CEO can still get paid absurd amounts of money, but the company will still pay taxes on most of it)

What if we created some sort of secure opinion/voting app where people go to cast their vote on whatever people think needs to be voted on. Should there be UBI? Should it be a token, living, or thriving wage? (Personally, I’d go with thriving and tie it to inflation) Single payer healthcare? All education paid for? Stop funding genocide? No more polluting the planet, or at least force companies to pay to clean up their own messes? When and where are companies allowed to market to us? Where should the threshold of agreement be to enact changes, 40% 50%+1 60%? Etc etc

Then we elect people who agree to simply enact what the people democratically agree on… And if the people don’t agree, they’ll stay away from it or leave it to the states. And hopefully someday we could build it out so that state and local governments work this way too.

I think we get bogged down on the 2 or 3 things we disagree on and allow that to mean we never get the things we DO agree on. Let’s get the things we agree on first, and then continue debating the things we disagree on.

Also I think this would be a long term plan. 12 years would give us 2 full election cycles here in the US and would give zoomers time to grow up, settle, and start to really vote (hopefully with this new system).

Anyway, like I said, let’s poke holes and figure out solutions. Thanks

  • degen@midwest.socialEnglish
    11·
    2 months ago

    Aside from the profit vs revenue delineation being pointed out, wouldn’t corporations likely account for taxes by offsetting wages? It would still be coming out of paychecks in effect.

    Edit: to expand, I’m not sure the flow of taxes is really the issue at hand. Especially here, we would be shifting taxation to the corporation, but it’s still tax on the fruits of laborers’, well, labor. I’m no economist, but I think the deeper issue is with the socialization of the workplace.

    • Wes4Humanity@lemm.eeOP
      1·
      2 months ago

      Well I only mentioned it as something to vote on, but personally I think a UBI set at a thriving wage (by area) would solve a lot of issues, and I’d hope enough people agreed once the boomers are gone. How much do you think a rich person would need to pay someone to clean their toilets if that person knows they have a thriving wage to fall back on? Or maybe some people absolutely love cleaning toilets and would do it cheap, idk.

      Like you say, it’s the fruits of our labor. We should get to decide how it’s divided up, but I think leaving some level of profit incentive is what most people want, so I would still include profit for people who don’t actually work, but do own the means of production. While I personally like the idea of socializing the work place, I think it might take a while to catch on… Or maybe people would immediately vote for that in the app?

      As for the for of taxes: All the wealth the laborers create gets sucked up by the companies. Either because they only pay a tiny fraction of the new wealth that’s created to workers, or because what they do give us we go spend right back with the companies, or because we get taxes and that money gets spent with the companies too. So all the wealth flows to the companies, and then to their shareholders. Since like 90% of all shares are owned by like 10% of the people, and those people don’t pay taxes (broadly speaking), all the wealth just keeps piling up on them. I’d say we need to close the loop. As wealth flows to the top, it is taxed and sent back to the bottom.