This opening paragraph from a new article (paywall) by Reuven Avi-Yonah and Ariel Siman will surprise many people:
When the U.S. originally enacted its corporate tax in 1909, corporate tax returns were public. The rationale was that taxing corporations was a means of controlling their excessive power, and sunshine is the best disinfectant.
By the 1930s corporate lobbying had put an end to that. We've never had such a system, but the question is, why not?
Michael Meacher made a proposal for public corporation tax returns in a Private Member's Bill I wrote for him last year. It would be a powerful disinfectant, especially if that return was combined with country-by-country reporting.
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At the end of the 19th century, America, hardly socialist, was very concerned about corporate power and brought in legislation to curb it. Jefferson, himself had predicted these dangers. Nowadays as soon as anyone suggests this the misuse of words like ‘marxist’, ‘Stalinist’ come into play like a reversed Godwin’s law (as a blogger on this site has already suggested).