SENATE BILL: The Duke Corporate Tax Reform Act of 2013 (Amendment at Vote)

[President Tyrion]

Hm, do we have a GM analysis?

I'm not a fan of cutting corporate taxation, but there are perfectly reasonable times to cut taxes. Especially with the BIG, I'm not incredibly worried that workers will be disadvantaged.

In other words, if we can afford it, then I'd consider it.

[President Tyrion]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this, but I think this is a HUGE problem. Essentially, any income earned anywhere is taxable by the Atlasian government, but there's no check on the time period. Does that mean that immigrants would owe back taxes for the time before they immigrated?

[President Tyrion]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this, but I think this is a HUGE problem. Essentially, any income earned anywhere is taxable by the Atlasian government, but there's no check on the time period. Does that mean that immigrants would owe back taxes for the time before they immigrated?

This is only for corporate income. Immigrants pay personal income taxes. This bill only concerns corporate taxation.

Well, I'll introduce an amendment to clarify that.

The problem still kind of stands, though. This essentially means that ALL corporations worldwide would owe taxes to the Atlasian government. Let's say a corporation repatriates some services; in doing so, the corporation would owe back taxes for the services while they were expatriated. That's a major issue.

[President Tyrion]

We need to just clarify that only corporations incorporated in Atlasia are subject to it. To clarify.

I'll introduce the amendment once Maxwell's is through.

[President Tyrion]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Is this amendment acceptable? I'm not entirely sure about the language.

[President Tyrion]

Are there any good synonyms for the words corporation, corporate, or incorporated? Section 1, Clause 2 now has 8 mentions of those "corp" words in some form, and it's annoying the crap out of me (even though it's my fault to begin with).

[President Tyrion]

Corporate entity?

I guess, but it still has corporate in it.

Whatever, I'd rather have a good bill with silly language than a silly bill with good language.

[President Tyrion]

Yay, much better

[President Tyrion]

Duke's point causes me to object.

Well, as long as the wording is clear that we're not changing the tax code for the businesses, but just introducing all forms of income as taxable within the current structure of the tax code, then we'd be good to go.

[President Tyrion]

The amendment doesn't change rates, just renders them subject to the present tax code and if it is so in the code, then they shouldn't be taxed differently than what the present code stipulates.

That's what I thought, too.

[President Tyrion]

Housekeeping in Section 1, and removing a loophole from Section 2.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[President Tyrion]

I tried to clarify the capital gains section. I don't know if Duke meant "securities" or "security" in that section, but I changed it to the latter because I won't support the former. I would be willing to make investment into securities tax deferred, however.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[President Tyrion]

So, that means we're taxing things at the point of earning and upon repatriation? I could support doing away with one face of double taxation, in such a case.

[President Tyrion]

The way the current code is set up is we tax repatriated money after it has already been taxes by whatever overseas country it was earned in. Hence, why so many companies hoard money offshore. 80% of countries only tax corporate earnings on income earned within the country's borders.

What I want to do is allow us to tax income from anything earned within our borders but not money made and taxed overseas. We are just subjecting our companies to double taxation when they bring money back.

Doesn't that just incentivize corporations to work overseas? They can take advantage of a softer tax rate elsewhere and repatriate the income freely.

[President Tyrion]

The way the current code is set up is we tax repatriated money after it has already been taxes by whatever overseas country it was earned in. Hence, why so many companies hoard money offshore. 80% of countries only tax corporate earnings on income earned within the country's borders.

What I want to do is allow us to tax income from anything earned within our borders but not money made and taxed overseas. We are just subjecting our companies to double taxation when they bring money back.

Doesn't that just incentivize corporations to work overseas? They can take advantage of a softer tax rate elsewhere and repatriate the income freely.

No.

Under the system most of the industrialized world uses these days, you pay the rate rate in whichever country you make the sale in, so it doesn't matter where you incorporate.

If corp X makes $100 of sales in country A with a 15% rate, they pay 15% rate on $100 of sales and if they make $50 worth of sales in country Y with a 20% rate, they pay 20% of $50.

Right now, corp X would pay 15% on the $100 in country A and then pays an additional 25% on the $100 if they repatriate. This only hurts us given so few countries actually bring capital back to Atlasia.

Make sense?

Hm, I suppose if the expressed goal were to be to maximize capital onshoring, as opposed to tax revenue, that makes sense.

As for whether or not we should make that policy decision, I'll consider it

[President Tyrion]

Changing the wording slightly, so as to avoid the usage of loopholes

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[President Tyrion]

I would be fine with Spiral's amendment, but I am somewhat worried that we might be cutting into our tax base too much. With that said, our revenues are good right now, and our estimated current deficit doesn't phase me.

I'm also going to oppose TNF's tax hikes. I think they're too high, and I'd rather support Nix's more moderate tax structure.

[President Tyrion]

Nay

[President Tyrion]

Hm, well we might want to consider making the capital gains break proportional. The current wording would indicate that a dollar investment in one of those things would yield a complete corporate capital gains tax break, which would be a disaster.

[President Tyrion]

That's a step in the right direction, but that still doesn't solve the problem that company might make such an investment totaling one dollar to get such a break.

Perhaps we could add something like "provided the tax break does not exceed the value of the investment."

[President Tyrion]

Abstain for now

[President Tyrion]

Aye on Duke's amendment, if that is what we are voting on.

No, it's not. We're voting on Spiral's amendment to make the maximum tax break 5% instead of 3% and have it last for 7 years instead of 5.

[President Tyrion]

Abstain for now

Changing my vote to Nay for now.

[President Tyrion]

I think Shua's amendment is the right way to go and I made a mistake in introducing my amendment the way it was worded.

[President Tyrion]

The amendment at vote accidentally cuts out this phrase from the clause. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but it needs to be there:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

We should add it in after the fact, then.

AYE on the amendment at vote