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Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

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Re: Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

#71

Post by alwaysthrowaway »

okreallywtf wrote: post #50
rayiner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate tax raises relatively little revenue, and most Western European countries don’t rely on it much because its easier to tax individuals. If we don’t want to be getting more in debt we should raise taxes on middle class people to the level of say Germany. In a state like California, our taxes on rich people and corporations are already about as high as in Germany, its our taxes on people making sub-200k that r…

That may be true (I haven't checked), but my guess is that germany (and most other western nations) offer a lot more government services for that level of tax. Taxing the middle class here the same as say, norway doesn't make sense unless you offer the same services. My half-decent insurance plan is one of my biggest monthly expenses and I'm lucky that it doesn't impact me too much. Many other "middle-class" people a…

You understate how shocking the situation is:

"The U.S. spends more public money on healthcare per capita than Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, France, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. In fact, each year the U.S. government spends $4,197 per person, while the OECD median spend is $3,677."

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-spends-more-public-money-o...

Re: Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

#73

Post by okreallywtf »

skrowl wrote: post #24
aphextron wrote: post #10

>Effective tax rate 11% Absolutely obscene. Literally their entire Net Income increase from $5.4b to $9.4b is due to a tax cut from 20%. We will be paying for this Republican tax policy for the rest of our lives.

Maybe check Amazon's tax rate before "this Republican tax policy" went into effect prior to blaming low corporate tax rates on one party. If you think lobbyist-driven tax policy in America is ONLY done by Republicans, you should probably expand your reading beyond CNN / WashPo. You're right that the federal government that creates the tax policy is for sale, but it's not just the Republicans.

OP might be exaggerating, but they are not talking about who lobbies, they are talking about the politicians who pass the bills and implement the tax cuts. In that they are right. In the house, 191 democrats voted against the tax overhaul, 0 voted for it. 227 republicans voted for it, 12 against it [0]. The senate was much the same [1].

You can say what you want, but this is a republican tax bill no matter who it benefits. It was supposed to benefit the rich, and thats what it does (I'm sure if it was possible to isolate by party they would have done so). It won't discriminate in who it hurts in the long run either (the middle class and the poor, like usual). The wealthy are going to take 90% of whatever economic gains result, they won't end up in schools or in communities, again like usual. Unemployment is already low and cant go much lower without even more illegal immigrants and wages will probably continue on their current trajectory and we'll be arguing for the next decade about who is to blame. My guess is some hidden variable will be scapegoated to explain why it didn't work.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/19/us/politics/t... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/19/us/politics/t...

Re: Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

#74

Post by tdb7893 »

l1ambda wrote: post #35
aphextron wrote: post #10

>Effective tax rate 11% Absolutely obscene. Literally their entire Net Income increase from $5.4b to $9.4b is due to a tax cut from 20%. We will be paying for this Republican tax policy for the rest of our lives.

The US corporate tax rate is now more in line with the OECD average: https://taxfoundation.org/us-corporate-income-tax-more-compe...

I skimmed it and didn't see it compare effective tax rates. This article is very useful analysis but it misses a large part of the context once you start talking about actual amounts paid in taxes

Re: Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

#76

Post by ocdtrekkie »

alberth wrote: post #11

Their efficiency is impressive. On an annualized basis, they are doing ~$120B. They have ~85k employees. That means they are generating ~1.5M Revenue Per Employee. That's crazy

Google has billions of users and has thrown out everything that doesn't scale, like support or customer service. A lot of support and content moderation is done by volunteers (there's a certain hilarity to the way the world's most valuable corporation recruits unpaid labor as if it's some sort of charity) in Google Local Guides or Google Help Center type stuff.

Also, the "cost per employee" can look artificially higher because they contract out so many of the support positions they do have. I think "employees" mostly constitute management, marketing, and engineers?

Re: Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

#77

Post by Diederich »

chrischen wrote: post #60
aphextron wrote: post #10

>Effective tax rate 11% Absolutely obscene. Literally their entire Net Income increase from $5.4b to $9.4b is due to a tax cut from 20%. We will be paying for this Republican tax policy for the rest of our lives.

I don’t get the whole issue with low coporate taxes. I get why people should be taxed so as to reduce consumption and increase production, but a coporation is not a person, so why hinder their ability to further productivity and economic output? It’s redirecting money earned that could be used to further economic activity and redirecting it to the hands of some highly corruptable bureaucrat in public office given the…

I get your argument, but consider this.

Corporations generate activity that taxes support, such as the use of roads. That's really what it comes down to I think.

> or else government would be even more beholden to coporations instead of citizens

This is a real problem...perhaps one of the biggest problems we face, and I really don't have any reasonable ideas on how to fix it.

Re: Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

#78

Post by dindumuffin »

aphextron wrote: post #29
skrowl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe check Amazon's tax rate before "this Republican tax policy" went into effect prior to blaming low corporate tax rates on one party. If you think lobbyist-driven tax policy in America is ONLY done by Republicans, you should probably expand your reading beyond CNN / WashPo. You're right that the federal government that creates the tax policy is for sale, but it's not just the Republicans.

It's not just corporate rates. Doubling the standard deduction is the most reckless thing that has ever been done to our federal tax code for individuals. The fact that I am going to pay an effective 15% this year on a $100k salary is absolutely insane.

How can you have a 15% effective tax rate yet benefit from the standard deduction?

Your taxable income after the standard deduction is $88,000 after which your state plus federal tax rate is applied to.

To have an effect tax rate of 15% on $100,000 you would have to pay only $15,000 in taxes on $88,000 of taxable income.

That would mean your state plus federal tax rate is 15000/88000 = 17%, which does not exist anywhere in the United States.

You are lying.

Re: Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

#79

Post by eganist »

pg_bot wrote: post #67
aphextron wrote: post #10

>Effective tax rate 11% Absolutely obscene. Literally their entire Net Income increase from $5.4b to $9.4b is due to a tax cut from 20%. We will be paying for this Republican tax policy for the rest of our lives.

I know it's politically unpopular, but most economists across the political spectrum believe that corporate taxes should be eliminated entirely.[0] It's more effective to tax people directly as the corporate tax is extremely volatile and it takes away money that could be productively reinvested. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/18/156928675/epis...

Or, rather than give corporations the option of reinvesting liquidity, we can incentivize reinvestment by taxing the crap out of corporations.

I don't understand how the "tax cuts grow reinvestment" argument sways people. Investments into the business are deductible as expenses, meaning doing the exact opposite of a tax cut will actually drive reinvestment far more effectively. Cutting taxes allows for stakeholders to withdraw profits with much less of an incentive to reinvest.

Want to drive up the velocity of capital? Cut personal taxes especially on lower bands since people in these bands are more likely to spend that money on essentials and personal luxuries to make life better. Increased spending -- be it at the corporate level on growth, hiring, and research, or at the personal level on necessities and occasional luxuries -- keeps the economic engine going.

Re: Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]

#80

Post by robryan »

chrischen wrote: post #60
aphextron wrote: post #10

>Effective tax rate 11% Absolutely obscene. Literally their entire Net Income increase from $5.4b to $9.4b is due to a tax cut from 20%. We will be paying for this Republican tax policy for the rest of our lives.

I don’t get the whole issue with low coporate taxes. I get why people should be taxed so as to reduce consumption and increase production, but a coporation is not a person, so why hinder their ability to further productivity and economic output? It’s redirecting money earned that could be used to further economic activity and redirecting it to the hands of some highly corruptable bureaucrat in public office given the…

Regardless of the theoretical efficiency the US will be taking less in corporate taxes and we will have to wait and see if economic output increases enough to make up for it with other taxes.
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