Executive Summary of the attached pdf article (Tax Notes Federal, 164(7), 2019):
  1. I explain the persistent failure of attempts to remove tax-induced distortions of economic incentives. Its source is fundamental impossibility to objectively evaluate the tax base.
  2. This can be completely avoided in case of publicly traded corporations. The solution is taxing them in shares (to be promptly auctioned) rather than in cash.
  3. The method replaces corporate income tax by, in effect, charging i-rate interest on the deferred t-rate capital gains tax collected when shareholders sell appreciated stock.
  4. Further simplification extends this t*i tax to cost basis, too. It equivalently replaces that deferred taxes on capital gains and dividends. Those, shareholders can mimic precisely by diverting to i-rate bonds a fraction t of their stock investment: bonds interest compensates the tax extension to cost basis.
  5. In total the tax is to periodically take and auction t*i fraction of publicly traded shares held in private sector.
The system's main feature is that nothing companies and investors do can change their tax (fraction t*i of shares), so business decisions would be exactly the same as without taxes. No longer would taxes on dividends and capital gains impede capital flow, companies would forget the bewildering maze of tax laws, regulations, and precedents, and Congress would still collect the same revenue it now does.