Rethinking the taxation of (large) corporates

This article starts the process of rethinking the taxation of large, privately-held corporations. After outlining the impact of large, private corporations on the commons and the idea of “communal resources”, it explores what is meant by wealth and corporate wealth, and analyses the thinking on why corporations are taxed. This article argues that (i) legitimate justifications for taxing large private corporations are not limited to corporate income taxation; and (ii) justifications specific to a corporate income tax do not hold up to close inspection, particularly in relation to large private corporations. This article also seeds the idea that a levy on corporate expenditure could conceivably form the basis of an alternative approach to corporate taxation.