“why would you want to de-facto penalize small-business for being small? “
I intend the REVERSE: businesses making little money would pay no tax at all. The larger & larger you get, the more you pay — progressively more. But you can offset those taxes by paying wages in the US.
“What would give them incentive to operate in the US, I think, would be an easy anyone-can-do-it flat-rate taxes with no exceptions/with-holdings. IOW, you wouldn’t need a law degree and an accounting degree to file taxes.”
Simplicity would be good, but complexity for the fortune 500 companies is not an issue, they already retain CPAs and lawyers.
For individuals and small firms, the only filing might be to check the box: I collected less than 2 million dollars in 2010.
...That’s EXACTLY what a flat-rate would do!
Example, income tax:
Let’s say the tax rate is 10% (for simplicity’s sake).
A small business makes $1000, so $1000*.10 = $100.
A large business makes $10 Million, so it pays $10M*.10 = $1 Million dollars.
This has the added advantage of being both uniform and simple, and therefore decrease the ‘loopholes’/exceptions to 0. Also, any tax-dodging would be MUCH easier to find. (The IRS could be VASTLY reduced in size... even to the point of disbanding the organization, probably all it’s operations could be taken over by the FBI).