Every time I see a proposal to make corporations pay more taxes, I want to remind the people reading that proposal that taxing them is the least effective way to make a corporation socially responsible.
Corporations are legal fictions. They only exist because government allows for their existence as a tax shelter and as a shield for personal liability. The easiest way to make corporations socially responsible is to write that into corporate law.
Require that corporations spend a percentage of their energy on charitable actions. A percentage of their energy on research and development. Make them responsible citizens by law and not allow them to be the criminal gangs they are today.
I don’t object to corporations (or anyone else) being taxed; I’m simply observing that it’s the least efficient way of turning them into good citizens. If you change corporate law, the rest of the problem handles itself.
Postscript
For those people who think citizens can’t be taxed (yes I’m looking at you Mark) I have a few reading suggestions:
…my trip to discovering that the income tax is legal, and that it is simply misapplied. Poor people should be given money, not taxed. It really is that simple.
