In November, 2017, President Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated House and Senate rammed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 through Congress. It became law on December 22, 2017.  

The law: 

• Ignored the stagnation of working-class wages and exacerbated inequality;
• Weakened revenues when the nation needed to raise more;
• Encouraged rampant tax avoidance and gaming that will undermine the integrity of the tax code;
• Left behind low- and moderate-income Americans—and in many ways hurt them.

For American corporations, however, the law was a godsend: 

• Cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent;
• Shifting toward a territorial tax system, where multinational corporations’ foreign profits go largely untaxed;
• Benefitting overwhelmingly wealthy shareholders and highly paid executives.

In 1513, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman who has been called the father of modern political science, published his best-known work: The Prince.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Among the issues he confronted was how to preserve liberty within a republic. And key to this was mediating the eternal struggle between the wealthy and the poor and middle class.

Machiavelli deeply distrusted the nobility because they stood above the law. He saw them as a major source of corruption because they could buy influence through patronage, favors or nepotism.

Successful political leaders must attain the support of the nobility or general populace. But since these groups have conflicting interests, the safest course is to choose the latter.  

Writes Machiavelli:

….He who becomes prince by help of the [wealthy] has greater difficulty in maintaining his power than he who is raised by the populace. He is surrounded by those who think themselves his equals, and is thus unable to direct or command as he pleases. 

But one who is raised to leadership by popular favor finds himself alone, and has no one, or very  ew, who   are not  ready  to  obey him. [And] it is impossible to satisfy the [wealthy] by fair dealing and without inflicting injury upon others, whereas it is very easy to satisfy the mass of the people in this way. 

Machiavelli warns that the general populace is more honest than the nobility–i-.e., wealthy. The wealthy seek to oppress, while the populace wants to simply avoid oppression.

A political leader cannot protect himself against a hostile population, owing to their numbers, but he can against the hostility of the great, as they are but few.

The worst that a prince has to expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned, but from hostile nobles he has to fear not only desertion but their active opposition. And as they are more far seeing and more cunning, they are always in time to save themselves and take sides with the one who they expect will conquer. 

One…who becomes prince by favor of the populace, must maintain its friendship, which he will find easy, the people asking nothing but not to be oppressed. 

But one who against the people’s wishes becomes prince by favor of the nobles, should above all endeavor to gain the favor of the people.  This will be easy for him if he protects them.  

In 2020, Tax Justice Network, which campaigns to abolish tax havens, commissioned a study of their effect on the world’s economy.

The study was entitled, “The State of Tax Justice 2020.” 

The research was carried out by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.  Among its findings: 

• Countries lose over $427 billion in tax each year to international corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion.
• More tax is lost to tax havens ever year due to corporate tax abuse by multinational corporations than by individuals.
• Multinational corporations short-change countries out of $245 billion in tax every year.
• People who move their wealth offshore short-change their governments out of $182 billion in taxes every year.
• Almost all responsibility for global tax losses falls on higher income countries.
• Higher income countries were responsible for 98 per cent of all the tax loss countries around the world lost.

The report recommended: 

• Governments should introduce an excess profit tax on large multinational corporations which have profited during the pandemic while local businesses were forced into lockdown.
• Digital tech giants claim to have our best interests at heart but have been short-changing us out of billions in tax for years.
• Governments should introduce a wealth tax to reign in the billions in tax lost to tax havens every year.
• Establish a UN tax convention that makes sure robust international tax standards are set in a transparent and democratic way.

Fortunately, Machiavelli has supplied timeless remedies to this increasingly dangerous situation:

• Assume evil among men—and most especially among those who possess the greatest concentration of wealth and power.
• Carefully monitor their activities—the way the FBI now regularly monitors those of the Mafia and major terrorist groups.
• This means using bugs, wiretaps and informants—and, above all, assuming that powerful men dedicated to their own greed will inevitably become criminals.
• Ruthlessly prosecute the treasonous crimes of the rich and powerful—and, upon their conviction, impose severe punishment.