>You've landed on one way the US government allows corporations- and wealthy individuals- to evade taxes.
>They pay NO US tax at all by keeping it outside.
>One dollar would be a HIGH tax rate under those conditions.
>
>Actually, that is not true and I know this from personal experience. Now, I am not a big corporation, but I DID live in England for almost 2 years and earned money because I was working there. I paid plenty of taxes, but I was paying them in England because that was where I lived. The US and England happen to have a tax treaty so that I did not have to pay taxes to both the US and England while I was not resident in the US. However, I had income in the US the first year that I lived in England and it was a nightmare trying to convince the IRS that my tax home was actually in England that year.
>
>When I moved back to the US, I was able to bring the income that I had earned in England back home with me and it was never taxed just because I brought it home - it had already been taxed in England where I earned it.
>
>Is there some reason that corporations should have their earnings taxed twice? Just curious....


I'm sure that's true in England since you saw it, but Ireland, India and several other countries have tax structures specifically designed to attract US tax evaders.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/14/apple-double-irish_n_5982814.html
Perhaps the most notorious examples were the spaghetti westerns made by Clint Eastwood and others during the 1970's to avoid US taxes.
Should corporate income be taxed twice?
That's complicated, but basically, if a US-based corporation reports earnings on its income statement and enjoys the substantial benefits of being domiciled in the US, those earnings should be taxed by the US.