"Years ago, of course, when we did ask businesses to pay taxes, a lot of them have sort of grinned and bore it, just like we do it as households because they really didn’t have any ability to move," says Dr. Walden, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

"But now of course in the world economy, a business, maybe not immediately but over time, they can look around the world and say, ‘Well, if we don’t like it here, if we don’t like the level of taxes, if we don’t like the quality of labor, we can simply pick up and move our operations.’

"And so governments are having to be more careful in this world economy with taxing businesses because again businesses have greater mobility.

"Countries in Europe, especially Western Europe, have really been finding out this the hard way. Their manufacturing companies have really been leaving, have been reducing their scale of operations, and a lot of people point their finger at the very high level business taxes there as a reason."