 In a few minutes an interesting cure for controversial tax inversions by killing all corporate subsidies in return for ending corporate income tax Marketplace morning report is produced in association with the University of Southern, California There's news today the Obama administration is cracking down on what are called inversions the controversial maneuver of acquiring foreign companies to save U.S. Corporate tax Targeted other special loans that make these acquisitions possible This is seen as a stopgap approach President Obama and Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree that what's needed in the longer run is tax reform Yeah, that's a process that doesn't seem to be moving forward anytime soon that got federal budget watcher Stan Collins are doing the math on an unconventional solution Stan who used to work for both the House and Senate budget committees and tweets at the budget guy Has written a column entitled how to abolish the federal corporate income tax without increasing the deficit Stan Good morning, David. Good to talk you as always you got an interesting way of framing this issue First of all we get rid of the corporate tax right that would solve the inversions problem Well, sure because if you don't have to do anything like buying a foreign company to reduce your taxes Then there's no reason to have an inversion. You wouldn't have to do things Like buy Tim Hortons, for example, if you're Burger King to try to reduce your tax liability because it would already be zero So let's just get rid of it We get a lot of companies very happy with that level playing field keep the company tax headquarters in the United States But they'd be crying over at the Treasury because it would cost a lot of money to get rid of the corporate tax Corporate tax this year is expected to bring in about 350 billion dollars or so so eliminating it would put a big dent in the federal deficit and increase the debt Unless you do something else and that is unless you get rid of on the spending side of the budget All of the things the federal government does to support business big and small There are literally hundreds of billions of dollars on the spending side And my point is if you're gonna get rid of the tax side of the equation Let's look at the spending side as well. So you've placed this proposal on the table Unfortunately, you're no longer chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee You're a blogger on on these subjects, but have you gotten a reaction? I've gotten reactions from a variety of people I've had lobbyists basically scream at me. These are friends, but saying that I was threatening their livelihood I've had some economists types who have argued with me about the amount of federal support on the spending side But I've had a lot of people who have said, you know, it's not a bad idea It would really change the politics of federal taxation and basically politics in general in Washington pretty substantially many of the lobbyists in Washington go to fundraisers because they've got provisions on the federal support for Corporation side on taxes that they want to get rid of so if you got rid of that You'd probably have the biggest solution to election reform that you've ever had food for thought Stan Colander at Corvus MSL group Also is founder of a blog Capital gains in games in which he tracks the budget among other things Stan. Thank you. It's a pleasure as always By the way, I was just joking about Stan ever heading ways and means