41–50 of 122 posts
MS does the same, though they have to buy off statesmen to get away with it: http://boingboing.net/2010/04/23/microsoft-wins-its-1.html
Why does Doctorow think its improbable that Gates Sr hasn't discussed this with his son?
Judge Learned Hand: "Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for…
That may be true, but the simple fact is that it's a lot easier for a large corporation to minimize its taxes than it is for a small business or individual. For example, a company like apple can afford to pay 10 people full time to move around money and assets in order to minimize taxes. Those people will save Apple far more than it costs to employ them. A 5 person company not only can't match that effort, but if the…
Joe average 9-5 worker doesn't create jobs, or employ hundreds or thousands of people, and he does get tax breaks for certain things in his everyday life (dependants, mortgage payments, whatever) - a large corporation occupies a completely different place in the economy, and can indeed take advantage of different things.
(joe average 9-5 worker, even if a staff of 10 tax wizards helpded him out, wouldn't be able to save much on his income tax legally - because his financial situation is simple)
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Not true, the top 5% of earners in the US pay more than 50% of the taxes, and the top 10% pay almost 3/4ths of the taxes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States#T...
Yeah, but they make more than 50% and more than 3/4 of the income, respectively. Richer people pay lower taxes as a percentage of their income than the middle class. Much lower. It'd be lower even if they did it all by the book and didn't hire expensive accountants and use offshore accounts, tax havens and all of that. Once you add that stuff in it's significantly lower. It's a bug, not a feature. Meanwhile, presumab…
EDIT: That doesn't mean I think the system is perfect or that people don't cheat, or that the wealthy are somehow innocent - money is power, and those with more money will exert more influence on how to keep more of it - that's natural.
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Yeah, but they make more than 50% and more than 3/4 of the income, respectively. Richer people pay lower taxes as a percentage of their income than the middle class. Much lower. It'd be lower even if they did it all by the book and didn't hire expensive accountants and use offshore accounts, tax havens and all of that. Once you add that stuff in it's significantly lower. It's a bug, not a feature. Meanwhile, presumab…
Taking a wealthy friend as an example, and watching how many jobs he's created, how many charities he's created, and how many lives he's changed - plus the sheer raw numbers of dollars he paid in taxes on top of all that - I don't really care if the percentage is less than mine. I didn't create 500 jobs or donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to real-life charities every year. EDIT: That doesn't mean I think the s…
Good for him. Seriously. But if he doesn't feel obligated to pay back towards that society then he's either missing something inside or fell victim to a convienent ideology that told him it's good to be selfish.
Whatever happened to noblesse oblige?
Not to mention, of the millionaires I've met, most aren't entrepreneurs and didn't create any jobs, they just worked in finance.
EDIT: To add: If your friend has those millions and likes the society he earned it in, it's probably worth him paying back into it purely as an investment. If we actually funded infrastructure and education in this country, we might see better returns from them.
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Not true, the top 5% of earners in the US pay more than 50% of the taxes, and the top 10% pay almost 3/4ths of the taxes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States#T...
Yeah, but they make more than 50% and more than 3/4 of the income, respectively. Richer people pay lower taxes as a percentage of their income than the middle class. Much lower. It'd be lower even if they did it all by the book and didn't hire expensive accountants and use offshore accounts, tax havens and all of that. Once you add that stuff in it's significantly lower. It's a bug, not a feature. Meanwhile, presumab…
While "the rich" might pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes, it's just flat-out false that the middle class pay "most of the taxes." Whether this should or shouldn't be the case is a discussion for another day.
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Your example is just an economy of scale. The same could be said of engineering support infrastructure.
The difference being the tax situation is created by laws, and engineering is governed by reality. The laws shouldn't create a situation where big, slow-moving corporations get huge built-in advantages over smaller, more innovative companies (I know apple is more innovative than many big companies but stay with me here). Particularly, they shouldn't be getting those advantages by paying a bunch of blood-sucking lawye…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taking a wealthy friend as an example, and watching how many jobs he's created, how many charities he's created, and how many lives he's changed - plus the sheer raw numbers of dollars he paid in taxes on top of all that - I don't really care if the percentage is less than mine. I didn't create 500 jobs or donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to real-life charities every year. EDIT: That doesn't mean I think the s…
Yeah, and he did all of that because we have a society that enabled him to do it. Good for him. Seriously. But if he doesn't feel obligated to pay back towards that society then he's either missing something inside or fell victim to a convienent ideology that told him it's good to be selfish. Whatever happened to noblesse oblige? Not to mention, of the millionaires I've met, most aren't entrepreneurs and didn't creat…
Your argument is essentially that we have a duty to pay as much tax as possible. But this is predicated on the belief that paying taxes is the best way to benefit society with your resources. Obviously, this is a long-standing debate that we won't solve here, but I would argue that the government is a terrible, terrible steward of resources, and I'd much rather have the money in the hands of "the rich", who seem far more likely to invest it and create jobs and institutions that better society. And yes, enrich themselves along the way. I'm fine with that. A rising tide floats all boats.
Again, I find it humorous that people who get all worked up over someone minimizing their tax liability through tax avoidance (completely legal) seem really interested in raising tax revenue, as long as it's someone else's money. None of them are sending donation checks to the IRS, which seems the height of hypocrisy. You have shit you don't need and someone else needs shit you have, so why not donate the money and let the IRS help those poor folks out? If you truly believe the government is the best way to allocate limited resources, why wouldn't you do this?
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well, the state is bankrupt. partly because companies that embody its dreams are not chipping in with the bills.
I can see both sides of it. These companies do provide jobs (income taxes) to people who can then buy homes (property taxes) and consume local goods & services (sales taxes, creation of more jobs, etc) but it's really unfortunate the tax system seems to be setup to put the biggest burden on individuals and small businesses that can't find creative ways out of paying taxes. There should probably be some sort of minimu…
If individual income tax were eliminated, while it sounds good, it would be one less thing for people to get riled up about and take an interest in politics.
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Not true, the top 5% of earners in the US pay more than 50% of the taxes, and the top 10% pay almost 3/4ths of the taxes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States#T...
Yeah, but they make more than 50% and more than 3/4 of the income, respectively. Richer people pay lower taxes as a percentage of their income than the middle class. Much lower. It'd be lower even if they did it all by the book and didn't hire expensive accountants and use offshore accounts, tax havens and all of that. Once you add that stuff in it's significantly lower. It's a bug, not a feature. Meanwhile, presumab…
No, the linked Wikipedia page says:
the top 5% with gross income of $137,056 or more pay 57.1% (earning 33.4%)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference being the tax situation is created by laws, and engineering is governed by reality. The laws shouldn't create a situation where big, slow-moving corporations get huge built-in advantages over smaller, more innovative companies (I know apple is more innovative than many big companies but stay with me here). Particularly, they shouldn't be getting those advantages by paying a bunch of blood-sucking lawye…
You mean smaller businesses that create fewer jobs?
Go check out bls.gov.