Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) floated a new proposal today aimed at requiring large corporations to pay higher taxes—the latest policy proposal she has released during her 2020 presidential campaign.

Under the proposal, companies would have to pay a 7 percent surtax on worldwide profits over $100 million. This tax would be on top of any other taxes the corporation has to pay would effectively raise the top rate on most S&P 500 and Russell 1000 companies from 21 percent to 28 percent.

Since President Trump's election in November 2016, equities have climbed more than 40 percent—and much of the gain is attributable to the cut in corporte taxes from 35 percent to 21 percent. Warren's proposal would take back half of the tax cut that the biggest companies received.

"It will make our biggest and most profitable corporations pay more and ensure that none of them can ever make billions and pay zero taxes again," Warren said in a self-published essay on Medium.

About 1,200 public companies would be subject to the tax, and the proposal would raise a little over $1 trillion in revenue over 10 years, according to an estimate from University of California, Berkeley economics professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

Warren said she also thinks that "loopholes" need to be closed in the existing corporate tax code, but that her new tax is necessary because "enormous companies with armies of lawyers and accountants will always try to exploit any deductions and exemptions that remain."

For instance, Amazon reported more than $10 billion in profits and paid zero federal corporate income taxes. Occidental Petroleum reported $4.1 billion in profits and paid zero federal corporate income taxes.

“In fact, year after year, some of the biggest corporations in the country make huge profits but pay zero federal corporate income taxes on those profits,” Warren said. "To raise the revenue we need — and ensure every corporation pays their fair share — we need a new kind of tax that big companies can’t get around," she said.

Warren has offered a number of newsworthy policy proposals since entering the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Her other proposals include a wealth tax for high-net-worth individuals and a proposal to provide universal access to child care.

Her proposal for a surtax on corporate profits comes as Democrats continue to attack Republicans' 2017 tax reform act, calling it a gift for the wealthy and corporations. Several Democratic presidential candidates have offered proposals aimed at making the very rich pay more in taxes.

While Warren and a number of Democrats have touted Nordic socialism as a model, not everyone thinks the comparison is sound.

In fact, Nordic countries long ago abolished their high personal and corporate taxes as unworkable and now find themselves among the top capitalist countries in the world, said historian and sociologist Rainer Zitelmann in his latest book The Power of Capitalism.

Today, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark rank among the 30 most capitalist countries in the world, according to the Heritage Foundation’s index of economic freedom.

Sweden, long heralded as the beacon of democratic socialism, actually began slashing its corporate and personal tax rate in 1990 in reaction to massive dissatisfaction among taxpayers and entrepreneurs like IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, who moved his company to Denmark and later to Switzerland in revolt, Zitelmann said.

Pushback against Sweden’s experiment with democratic socialism, high taxes and comprehensive welfare led to major tax reform in 1990 and 1991, when the country slashed corporate taxes from 57% to 30%. Income from stock shares was exempted from taxation, while capital gains tax was reduced to 12.5%.

Sweden’s top marginal income-tax rate was cut to 50%, a reduction by 24 to 27 percentage points for the majority of the workforce. The proportion of earners taxed at a marginal rate of over 50% dropped from over half of Sweden’s residents to only 17% paying income tax.

“Sweden’s ‘democratic socialism’ with high taxes, redistribution and high state regulation failed, and the young people who are today enthusiastic about the ideas of Bernie Sanders should draw lessons from the experiences of Sweden and other Nordic countries,” Zitelmann said.

Sweden’s reforms continued: In 2004, the estate tax with its top rate of 30% was scrapped entirely.

Sweden’s wealth tax was abolished retroactively in January 2007. The corporate tax rate continued to be reduced, getting cut from 30% to 26.3% in 2009 and to 22% in 2013. Sweden has also substantially cut property tax rates, Zitelmann said.