Bloomberg reports on the latest proposal from Senator Warren (D-MA):
Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday unveiled details of a tax on lobbying that would cost some of the biggest U.S. corporations hundreds of millions of dollars.
Under her proposal, companies that spend between $500,000 and $1 million a year on lobbying would pay a 35% tax on their expenditures. The rate would increase to 60% for spending of more than $1 million, and to 75% above $5 million. …
“My new lobbying tax will make hiring armies of lobbyists significantly more expensive for the largest corporate influencers like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Boeing, and Comcast,” Warren wrote. “Sure, this may mean that some corporations and industry groups will choose to reduce their lobbying expenditures, raising less tax revenue down the road – but in that case, all the better.”
Her campaign said that if her tax had been in effect over the last 10 years, more than 1,600 corporations and lobbying groups would have had to pay about $10 billion in taxes.
It would certainly make “capturing” the agency regulating you a bit more expensive; however, your customers may end up paying for it, so I have to wonder if this proposal would be all that efficacious. And, one must wonder, would the corporations, by paying the tax, feel that they should gain something, since they’ve already “paid for it”?
However, for the Senator, and I do emphasize her position, if she does not win the Presidency in the next election, she retains her Senate seat and therefore could propose this tax, probably in concert with a Representative (since taxes must be initiated in the House, as I recall – although I’m having trouble verifying that).
And I have a morbid curiosity about how the companies would get around it.
[This post accidentally was made into a menu page a while back, and I just noticed now. -Hue]
