Create a monopoly tax that incentivises large companies to "right size". E.g., if the company is larger than X and has captured a market (like google with search) then tax all revenue above a threshold percentage of the market. For example, the market is $100B and the company makes $90B revenue, then tax away everything above $40B in revenue. This may take away the incentive of a large company to take too much market share and may encourage them to enable competitors. The parameters (company_size, marketshare_percentage, tax rate, etc.) may be adjusted to maximize performance
cwkoss|4 years ago
I've always liked the idea of revenue-neutral progressive taxes on corporate revenue. Tax economy of scale.
Ex. Zero corporate taxes on the first 100k of revenue. For every order of magnitude above this revenue is taxed at ~1% more.
$1M in revunue -> 1%
$1B in revenue -> 4%
$100B in revenue -> 6%
Then reduce other corporate taxes to make it revenue neutral. In the most extreme case, the 1% figure or the curve could be tuned so that this is the only tax corporations pay.
This encourages companies to split: if your economy of scale isn't yielding enough to justify the tax, you could spin off multiple smaller companies that would each be more profitable. The capacity for corporations to do evil is directly proportional to concentration of power. Smaller companies won't be able to afford as many lobbyists, their threats to move their businesses will be less existential for municipalities and they'll get less-sweet sweetheart deals. Being "Too Big to Fail" is unsustainable and wasteful.
This would be a massive boon for competition. Small businesses would be easier to start. Businesses may choose to stop growing: if you're making a healthy profit, don't jeopardize your margin in a perpetual struggle to amass the most power, leaving room in the market for competitors to coexist and meaningfully compete on quality.