Orethapedia

The country is consumed at the moment with the hit play on Broadway, Alexander Hamilton.  

Tax inversion, or corporate inversion, is a largely American term for the relocation of a corporation’s legal domicile to a lower-tax nation, or corporate haven, usually while retaining its material operations in its higher-tax country of original

Tax inversions are a form of tax avoidance, whereby corporations and individuals arrange their affairs to legally reduce their tax obligations. Unlike the law of most other developed nations, the U.S. Internal Revenue Code imposes income taxon the profits of American corporations’ foreign subsidiaries. This creates a strong incentive for American companies with large overseas markets to seek to ‘recharacterize‘ themselves as a foreign corporation.

In 1782, Hamilton had direct experience with taxation when he served as the Receiver of Continental Taxes  for New York. Later, as the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was responsible for establishing the national system of taxation, which previously did not exist under the Articles of Confederation. His study, analysis, and proposals are documented in such varied documents as the Federalist Papers, official state reports, and personal correspondence.

Here is just a selection of some of Hamilton’s quotes on the topic of taxation.

…[I]t should be remembered that it is impossible to devise any specific tax, that will operate equally on the whole community. It must be the province of the legislature to hold the scales with a judicious hand and ballance one by another. The rich must be made to pay for their luxuries; which is the only proper way of taxing their superior wealth.

-Alexander Hamilton, The Continentalist No. VI, July 4, 1782

How is it possible that a government half supplied and always necessitous, can fulfill the purposes of its institution, can provide for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of the commonwealth?

-Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 30, “Concerning the General Power of Taxation,” New York Packet, December 28, 1787

If the power of taxing is restricted, the consequence is, that on the breaking out of a war you must divert the funds appropriated to the payment of debts, to answer immediate exigencies. Thus, you violate your engagements [to pay off the debt] at the very time you increase the burthen of them.-

Alexander Hamilton, “Speech on the Senate of the United States” from the New York Ratification Convention (as recorded in G.P. Putnams Sons edition), June 27, 1788

As to taxes, they are evidently inseparable from government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine.

-Alexander Hamilton, Address to the Electors of the State of New York, 18

In contemporary times you want to think about th fact that if companies move from America jobs are lost. If jobs are lost there is no spending. If there is no spending you end up in an economic depression.

In lyrical words, Alexander Hamilton would rap this to companies that leave:

A new line of credit, a financial diuretic/ How do you not get it? If we’re aggressive and competitive/The union gets a boost. You’d rather give it a sedative?- Cabinet Battle #1

President Barack Obama on Tuesday called on Congress to end tax inversions, saying the Treasury Department’s latest move to curb the practice should be adopted.

“It sticks the rest of us with the tab and it makes hard-working Americans feel like the deck is stacked against them,” Obama said.

The Obama administration has taken various steps to deter inversions and has pushed tax reform initiatives. Monday’s policy puts a three-year limit on foreign companies adding U.S. assets to avoid ownership requirements for a later inversions deal.