501–510 of 537 posts
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I would not consider taxes to be “punitive.” Taxes aren’t punishment. They are much more like a membership fee.
A mandatory membership fee.
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Source?
There is no source because there is no legal imperative for corporations to maximize shareholder value anywhere in the United States. It's a myth. Shareholder primacy is a theory -- though it's really more of an ideology -- that executives/board members can believe in, but it is by no means required by law[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule
>A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end. The discretion of directors is to be exercised in the choice of means to attain that end, and does not extend to a change in the end itself, to the reduction of profits, or to the non-distribution of profits among stockholders in order to devote them to other purposes...
It's not the only interpretation however
>Dodge is often misread or mistaught as setting a legal rule of shareholder wealth maximization. This was not and is not the law. Shareholder wealth maximization is a standard of conduct for officers and directors, not a legal mandate. The business judgment rule [which was also upheld in this decision] protects many decisions that deviate from this standard. This is one reading of Dodge. If this is all the case is about, however, it isn't that interesting.
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Corporations have a legal obligation to their shareholders to maximize their profits. If they did something as negligent as paying taxes they didn't have to pay, and that none of their competitors pay, they'd be opening themselves up to a lawsuit from shareholders. Laws are weird.
Source?
>A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end. The discretion of directors is to be exercised in the choice of means to attain that end, and does not extend to a change in the end itself, to the reduction of profits, or to the non-distribution of profits among stockholders in order to devote them to other purposes...
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Well, if it's simply returned to the shareholders, then the shareholders will invest it. Economy wide it makes no difference, the money will be invested
> then the shareholders will invest it. Or use it for consumption. And that consumption or those investments are not necessarily in the US. Where do you think that money is now? It's not like it is stored as dollar bills in some warehouse abroad. The 'repatriation' they are talking about is purely an accounting/tax fiction. If you look at Apple's yearly report [1], on page 49, it details how its cash and equivalents…
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Well, if it's simply returned to the shareholders, then the shareholders will invest it. Economy wide it makes no difference, the money will be invested
What makes you think they’ll invest it in the US? Rich person/fund X will get a larger dividend than before, and they’ll invest in the same way as before. It’s not like this money is somehow earmarked. If giving more money to the rich were the solution to America’s problems, it would have worked by now.
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Unless the press release is from Google and disguised as a blog entry. Then HN loves it as gospel.
Overgeneralizations about HN are my weak spot! Actually Scott and I bumped three Google submissions off the HN front page this afternoon for that very reason. The goals here are substance and variety. To be fair, some of those blog posts are substantive articles, while others just read like corporate press releases, and the same is true on apple.com. It's strange how some users get indignant about certain bigcorps in…
While you may push back on some, almost daily I see content from Google taking up one of their products where if It wss on a Microsoft or Oracle site for example submission would never see the light of day.
Google just hides their press releases in blog posts.
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I agree that that’s what people seem to think. But if the corporate taxes get too high, wouldn’t you think that at some point, business owners start saying “screw it, I want to be a W-2 worker,” which obviously would put downward pressure on employee wages? Conversely, now that the tax reform bill created all these tax advantages for passthrough income, isn’t it obvious more people are going to be starting businesses…
Why would the business owners wanting to be W-2 workers cause downward pressure on employee wages?
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A mandatory membership fee.
It's not mandatory, you're free to move to Somalia and renounce your citizenship if you don't like having a government.
- I’m not free to move anywhere I wasn’t invited nor is anyone paying my trip there.
All in all, death and taxes as they say.
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AT&T claimed that it paid the bonus to 200k employees https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/20/tax-reform-reaction-att-is-g... They have a total of about 250k employees worldwide: https://www.att.com/Common/about_us/pdf/att_btn.pdf . Pretty sure there 80% of their workforce are not district supervisors and store managers. Comcast said it paid the bonus to 100k employees "that are eligible and not in executive roles". > So I'm…
I’m pretty sure AT&T and Comcast don’t employ many min wage workers, especially not like Walmart does, if any at all. > Comcast said it paid the bonus to 100k employees "that are eligible and not in executive roles". But neither did they say they were making min wage. And then ... > Good news, I think I found them! You aren’t making a valid inference here, it honestly feels like something Trump would claim.
AT&T has a lot of door-to-door people: technicians, sales "consultants". Also people in call centers. Those are a lot closer to minimum wage than what you are implying - that only managers and big wigs got those bonuses.
> You aren’t making a valid inference here
The claim was you couldn't be happy for them because basically only managers got those. I did some legwork and found that it's probably not true. You were looking for a reason to cheer and be happy for them, so I found one.
> it honestly feels like something Trump would claim.
I usually prefer a conversational style with exclamation points and allegories. But I think you're not in the mood for that. Sorry, I should be more formal perhaps.
Also not sure why we are talking about Trump?. But since you brought him up (invoked the Devil's name!). Do you think he is responsible for these tax cuts and the bonuses or it is mostly a charade?
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The part you're not taking into consideration is that all of this will be paid for with cuts to Social Security and Medicare for people not already receiving benefits. So if you're still in your wage-earning years, that $4k tax cut (which others have rightly pointed out only lasts 10 years) will cost you tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars a year in retirement. It's extremely short-sighted to look at just…
I'm curious why I've never heard a politician go with the argument that a tax cut today will ruin your social security benefits tomorrow. Why do they not make the argument that a tax increase would be more beneficial for your future?