Re: Hang on
I expect your main point hangs on that paper's identification of a link between increasing corporation tax and lower wage settlements, from which you deduce that the tax is in effect paid by a company's employees?
[Setting aside my skepticism about economic modelling...] The passing on of costs from one person (or legal entity with quasi-personhood, as in the case of a corporation) to another is just an inevitable part of our economic activities. For example, over the years, my modest increases in salary and the UK government's rather lower increases in tax band thresholds have come to mean that - come bonus time in the New Year - I'll be taxed at the higher rate (40 not 20%). For 2017 this means (say) that we won't be replacing the garden fence as well as my clapped-out old car. A local fencing company won't be getting an order. But the UK Treasury will be getting about £1.5K more.
From my POV, there is purpose and good sense in levying tax on corporations. They enjoy many legal privileges and huge benefits from publicly-funded goods, which enable firms to operate effectively, attract investment and to take risks in innovation and new products. I agree that such taxation should not be punitive or counter-productive (noting in passing that the USA has one of the highest rates...). Perhaps the paper you quote could also be used to make a case for allowances to be set against corporation tax, based on the number of employees it has in that jurisdiction?
Returning to the main issue under discussion, we have for the time being at least to acknowledge the existence of corporation tax and its part in funding national budgets, managed by democratically-elected governments. I would contend that, to allow firms _like_ Apple - those with the economic clout and the mobility afforded by the type of business that they're in - to escape most of their tax liabilities, is not just to allow unfair competitive advantage, or to further impoverish countries still recovering from the shocks of 2008/2009*, but also to relinquish an essential part of democracy.
* Can we agree that the price of bailouts and austerity measures is mostly being shouldered by ordinary citizens?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
