Re: [tlug] Japan to Tax E-Content

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Darren Cook writes:

 > Increasing corporate income tax, on the other hand, satisfies all three
 > (people see corporations as distinct from them, so support taxes on
 > them). The only reason politicians wouldn't go for that option is if
 > they are being incentivized not too. ;-)

Corporate *income* tax is a loser for several reasons, not least that
it's unpopular with those who *finance* political campaigns ($2
checkoff and Obama's social media success notwithstanding).

VAT, on the other hand, *does* score high on all three.  The problem
for the U.S. is the U.S.'s balkanized tax system which makes switching
extremely difficult technically, and politically fraught[1] (and to some
extent the ease with which both personal and corporate income tax can
be evaded by the sufficiently well-off).

Why this hasn't been suggested for Japan is quite beyond me.  I
understand why it won't happen: it's damn hard for large companies to
avoid....  But you'd think somebody would have the cojones to mention
it in public.

 > P.S. Our resident economist professor is strangely quiet today!?!

Grades are due by midnight.  And I have a *lot* of math-hating
programming-illiterate students.  And there's a Unicode dicsussion
going on over on python-dev.

Footnotes: 
[1]  I doubt the good burghers of Scarsdale NY and Upper Arlington OH (hi
Josh & Jim!) would be happy having to petition the feds for school budgets.