An Alternate Universe

In our world, it is hard to run a large corporation. You have to constantly keep your sales up and your costs down, all because the leeches at the big, bad government will tax you into oblivion. You have to always be watchful: Since you have to pay your taxes first, before you pay your employees, before you invest in R&D, before you pay the depreciation on your equipment, before you pay your subcontractors, before pay your CEO and your accountant, any loss of revenue will force you to cut jobs so that you don't end up short at the end of the year – debtor's prison is hell. If you are lucky, after taxes and then your expenses, you may have enough to put aside for a rainy day or to create a new job – because that's what corporations do: They take any money left over after taxes and then expenses and they hire, but that is becoming rarer and rarer...

I think often of an alternate universe where the tax laws are reversed. Where a company gets to pay its employees first, and deduct that from earnings, thus lowering their tax bill. Where they can also deduct the money they pay into their employee's pension, 401k retirements, and health care premiums. Where things like capital depreciation count against revenue before profit is calculated, where the CEO can be paid his/her worth with positive tax implications (shoot, let's overpay them and let the company lower their tax bill!); Where even modest amounts of R&D are allowed to be deducted before the taxable amount (and the tax liability) calculated.

I know: My alternate universe is completely untenable. It would set up a horrible conflict between the government and the investors, because once profit was calculated, an increase in the money going to one would be a decrease in the money going to the other. It would be unfortunate, too: Since as soon as investors get a reasonable amount of money together they hire someone to do something, and if there is nothing to do, they create a job out of thin-air, because employing people is what they do. Conversely, of course, once a government gets money from taxation it just sits on it, unproductively, never thinking about how to spend it, accumulating all those taxes so that Presidents can feel rich. If only the government would employ people with the money it collects, if only it would invest in things like roads and airports and parks and open space, if only it would ensure that everyone had access to health care so that the corporations could have healthy employees..

I wish I knew how to make a government do that. Perhaps it would, in my alternate universe.