Communications of the ACM

How companies pay programmers when they move jobs and the related IP rights to offshore taxhavens.

Richard Threlkeld

This is a cogent, business grounded analysis. I believe the recommendation to end corporate taxation might work, but it would lead to creation of corporations to shelter income and then the mass of rules to prevent that.

I also believe something like the "fair tax" which provides as a substitute for all federal taxes a basic sales tax, would solve some of these problems.

I hope this article or a summary of it is presented to the decision makers in the federal executive and legislative branches.

Gio Wiederhold

If corporations do not pay tax, there is no reason anymore for corporations to have tax shelters.
Repatriation to the US and investing in the US will no longer be penalized.
However, businesses may still want to keep the IP rights offshore, so that earnings allocation can remain a mystery.

However, private individuals may now set up corporations to avoid taxes. But when any corporations issue dividends or capital gains those would be fully taxable income for the recipient. So having intermediate corporations would be more of a deferral scheme for individuals, and a bet whether future tax rates will be lower or higher.