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• Corporate tax - a new paradigm is needed - I.: Income tax versus value-added tax

  26-47

  Laszlo Torok

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  Since the existence of the corporate tax institution, it has been a difficult task to determine the exact corporate tax base. As long as states are as large as possible, taxpayers, on the other hand, are interested in the smallest possible tax base. National and supranational rules for determining the tax base are changing with unrealistic frequency. It is almost impossible to enforce them, so conflicts between countries and between companies and tax administrations over corporate tax payable seem to be perpetuating. With the rise of trans- and multinational corporations, aggressive corporate tax planning and covert tax avoidance have also emerged. National governments are trying to prevent this with bilateral and multilateral treaties. Still, the verdicts of the recently revealed multi-billion euro/dollar corporate tax cases prove that they do not have a deterrent effect, meaning that the measures taken so far are far from sufficient to prevent them. In my research hypothesis, I argue that the corporate tax system's current form is unsustainable at both national and global levels due to its intricate design and manipulability and its high macro- and micro-level implicit costs. I will then propose a new value-added tax and tax rate to compensate for the loss of government revenue due to the abolition of corporate tax in an equivalent and essentially clear way. After that, I tested the proposed new type of tax based on the European Union countries' value-added data. Finally, I present the new global tax's territorial principle to replace corporate tax and its contribution to national public burden-bearing.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: C53, E62, H24, K34