Since this post has 37 points i presume the link is loading for some people? Any hints on how i get it to work?
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...
Getting a 404 for that too.
Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
231–240 of 512 posts
Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean acting as a paid representative on someone else's behalf to stand before a government official? Isn't that what lawyers do?
What are you trying to say with that?
I'm saying that "airing grievances" "for money" has prior art. I'm a busy person, and the opinion stated says that it should be illegal for me to hire a person to represent my views before, say, a congressperson. Or it should be illegal to hire a person more eloquent than myself to state my case; a professional, as it were. We hire lawyers because navigating the law is difficult. Should we not also be allowed to hire professionals as we take part in the making of those same laws?
Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
>it should be illegal for you to air your grievances to elected officials? Doing it for money - yes, that should be illegal.
You mean acting as a paid representative on someone else's behalf to stand before a government official? Isn't that what lawyers do?
Isn't that what politicians do?
Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#234Populist clickbait headline is clickbait. I'm sure Netflix paid tons in employer contributions to employee income taxes, social security taxes, etc. They probably paid a bunch in sales taxes where they made purchases. Property taxes for data centers, office buildings, etc. So there are many more taxes that everyone pays beyond the income tax. As others have pointed out, the tax code is immensely complex, but you prob…
> Simplifying the tax code, regulations, and laws removes the opportunity for well-funded operations to exploit the existing complexity.
I think most people would agree with this statement, but the devil is in the details. Republicans have been trying to accomplish this type of tax reform for decades, but even with control over both houses and the executive branch, they couldn't overcome the influence of special interests. The question isn't whether a simplified tax code is beneficial -- it's how we get from point A to point B that is contentious.
Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean acting as a paid representative on someone else's behalf to stand before a government official? Isn't that what lawyers do?
Isn't that what politicians do?
It was initially where I was going to go with this, but as I thought through the argument the recursion caused a stack overflow in my brain.
Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EFF is at least partially a lobbying group, do you think they're salesmen? Lobbying is just people talking to the government.
Though there is a distinction between corporate lobbying and e.g. the EFF: corporations lobby for their own interests, the EFF does it for everyone. Besides that, if company lobbying did not exist, the EFF wouldnt exist because there would be no one to work against. The EFF was specificly founded to defend the peoples interests against corporations.
You need to be more pedantic. The EFF is a 501(c)(3) organization, and that's a type of corporation.
If you want to outlaw lobbying by for-profit corporations, then they'll just create subsidiary lobbying organizations. The NRA is a 501(c)(4), which is also a tax exempt non-profit designation, and realistically it serves primarily as a lobbying group for gun manufacturers.
Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law. If a company is dumping waste into a lake and it is not against the law to do so, it is then wrong to get mad at the company? What if this is the behavior of all companies in the area? They all need to dump waste in the lake in order to remain competitive. Is it wrong to become outraged at…
Well, “wrong” is subjective, but it’s certainly pointless to get mad at such a company. Companies are amoral, and they are emergent behavior that is a product of a particular political, economic, and cultural situation. It’s a bit like getting outraged at a tree for falling on your house.
Human beings are also an emergent behavior that are a product of complex biological processes and their environment. Is it pointless to become outraged at a person?
Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#238I assume this has something to do with the massive amount of debt that fuels Netflix original programming. That being said, our entire tax system is regressive, for both businesses and individuals, when it comes to dealing with it's complexity. A small or medium size business does not have the legal or accounting capability to navigate the tax code as successfully as a company like Netflix can. Similarly, even a high…
Regressive? The top 1% of earners paid the highest tax rate of 27.1%. The bottom 50% had an average tax rate of 3.5%.[1] [1] https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-20...
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Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#239This seems to be a good place for my own take on taxes... 1. Abolish corporate income tax. 2. Tax capital gains (and dividends) as ordinary income. The corporate income tax is absurd. It doesn't generate a lot of revenue, but it has a bazillion highly specific loopholes, supporting a whole cottage industry of lobbyists and accountants. It's an unfair advantage to large corporations that can afford the tax-cutting pow…
This has problems with Capital Gains being equally easy to evade for the wealthy (look at Mitt's $100M IRA[0] or the stepped up basis in estates] and many equity holders being in tax-free jurisdictions.
Eliminating the corporate tax would supercharge equity prices and since many corps don't pay dividends any more, it would be a very long time before any of the tax revenue is realized.
You're better off just taxing revenue based on company size if your goal is to collect reasonable amount of income and to limit the chicanery that goes along with corporate tax planning.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-campaign-romney-ira/h...
Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that simple. Companies lobby to keep, even coerce, laws that benefit them and allow these sorts of things to happen. What is the common person, or collection of persons, supposed to do when they are against that kind of force? I believe one way is to actually be involved in politics and get into the seats that govern and make the laws. But it's easier said than done.
It is that simple (in the sense of the parent's post): you need to know the specifics of why they were paying no taxes. If, as in the comment, they were carrying over losses, then there's nothing really objectionable. You lost $10 million last year. You profited $10 million this year. Over a reasonable horizon, you weren't profitable. Did they get a specific exemption against the public interest that no one else got?…
> If, as in the comment, they were carrying over losses, then there's nothing really objectionable
I find that objectionable.