How to Stop Tax Inversions with a Carbon Levy. Seriously

Two environmental economists propose that federal income from a carbon tax could help reboot the U.S. corporate tax code.   And a rebooted corporate tax code would then have the effect of reducing the cost of the carbon tax to GDP.

Lawrence Goulder, of Stanford University, and Marc Hafstead, of the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future, studied how three scenarios might affect GDP:  a lump-sum refund of U.S. carbon tax revenue to Americans; using the income to pay for personal income tax cuts; or using it to cut corporate income taxes.  The study looked at the potential impacts of a carbon tax of $10 per ton of carbon dioxide (or its heat-trapping equivalent from other greenhouse gases) that rises 5 percent a year, and is levied on industrial energy consumption.  The tax itself is the same in each case and all three are "revenue neutral," meaning that the money that comes in goes right back out the door for some other purpose:

The researchers found that the third option, cutting corporate taxes, reduces the cost of the carbon tax in GDP better than the other two.

How to Stop Tax Inversions with a Carbon Levy.  Seriously