Much of the political debate regarding business policy occurs with differences attributable to the varying “languages” of interest groups and government's comparable functional role. The assumption is that all are working for the future interests of the United States of America. Considering this in addition to the analysis of the current competitive standing of the country illustrated in The Global Competitiveness Report, here are some ideas regarding the taxation and policy debate.
My blog post The United States and Global Competitiveness summarized the common categories for the very top tier countries of competitiveness and personal thoughts on the socio-economic development relationships. The derived conceptual taxation strategy includes these important competitive factors similarly identified in the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness report methodology structure. This proposal creation identifies categories for industry assignment and tax rate development considering: A) Utilization and depletion of resources factoring environmental costs of disaster cleanups and necessary government public safety regulatory concerns; B) derived Infrastructure impact benefits [“hard” costs of interstate maintenance, airport and air safety, national utilities system maintenance and upgrades; “soft” costs of institutional (education and legal) demands on human resources development and general government administration]; C) the American community social and economic development flexible funding for investment into future competitiveness; and D) Security and National Defense interests. The Rate would apply to all industry companies within the category.
Currently, the conceived industry category groups are:
Basic Factors Efficiencies
I. Natural Resources (Utilization and Depletion) III. Service Oriented
II. Infrastructure V. Other Pass-through (Income / Consumption)
Innovation
IV. Knowledge (Education) Based – [Science & Technology Advancement]
This approach incorporates many ideas from the taxation debate and social interest groups to tax industry with equivalent relative matching to the “tax” on global development. The factored “flat rate” for each category includes environmental and social impacts; patriotism for U.S. interests; contribution to U.S. future development while protecting the interest of generational contributions; and redefines the debate terminology with a perspective of all vested interests during times of budget and spending reductions.
