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Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

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Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#311

Post by smacktoward »

undecisive wrote: post #204
AlexB138 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. That, and enact term limits for Congress. That will fix even more. When you think there are simple answers to big problems it's generally because you don't actually understand the problem. How would you outlaw lobbyists? Setting aside the fact that it would be unconstitutional, do you think it should be illegal for you to air your grievances to elec…

Aside from the fact that many countries have ways of limiting lobbyist influence through law, a simple but dramatic way would be to say: 0. Lobbying is a right, but one that can only be exercised by individual citizens, not corporations. 1. Anyone who wishes to "lobby" congressional candidates or congresspersons must register their financial interests 2. Make it illegal to directly accept money for lobbying services…

> 1. Anyone who wishes to "lobby" congressional candidates or congresspersons must register their financial interests

Under the terms of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, anyone who spends 20% or more of their work time lobbying the Federal government already has to register themselves, and disclose both the clients they lobby on behalf of and any expenses they incur as part of their lobbying activities. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_Disclosure_Act_of_199... for more information.)

Many states also have similar laws in place regarding lobbying of state officials, though obviously the details will vary depending on what state you're in.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#312

Post by atmosx »

m-p-3 wrote: post #21
atmosx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where you able to read the post? I'm getting a DB connection error, guessing there's no cache.

I sent the article URL to Pocket, they seem to have it cached in their system. I made a copy of that through 2read, here's the IPFS cached copy https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmWAz8WZsufXPJFCWaneCt4QsvxiYumUQjZgpt2...

Great, thanks

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#313

Post by saosebastiao »

otachack wrote: post #46
driverdan wrote: post #34

Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that? Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

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.

The big problem is the corporate tax itself. It's incredibly hard to tax corporations fairly and efficiently, and as a result the corporate tax code is way more complex than any practical citizen could ever understand. It's hard enough for tax accountants and lawyers that have dedicated their entire profession to understanding it.

The whole reason we have a corporate tax is because we feel rich people need to be taxed more, but the association between corporation and rich person is fuzzy at best. More nefariously, you are taxing pools of organizational and financial capital as opposed to individuals...which means that their ability to fight the tax code is amplified with pooled resources. It's regulatory capture waiting to happen.

The better option would be to dump the corporate tax entirely, and have all capital gains and dividends taxed as income. I know it can't be that simple because they're not the same as income, but working out those details would be a hell of a lot easier than trying to figure out how to get corporations to repatriate income after their international tax arbitrage schemes.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#314

Post by x220 »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #190
frebord wrote: post #136

Can someone explain to me why businesses pay any tax at all. It makes no sense to me that we want to restrict the flow of money through a business. Maybe we could tax cash holdings of a company, but why would you tax any income that ultimately goes to expansion, shareholders, employees? People see these "tax evading" corporations as so evil, but why? Do they really even remotely understand what is going on? I suspect…

Income that goes towards expansion (read op-ex like salaries, or cap-ex like infrastructure) is not taxed, it is "tax deductible". Income that doesn't go towards economic activity (salaries, expansion) but goes back to profit does get taxed - mostly because dividends and capital gains are so much harder to tax for the ultra-rich due to loopholes on offshore tax residence, inheritance tax uplifts, trusts/foundations.…

>Tax evasion is evil morally because every dollar they don't pay, others have to pay

You mean the government makes others pay (unless the government just wants to go into debt, as it usually does).

>give back to the society that enabled the profit

Most government expenditure (see: military spending unnecessary for national defense) does jack shit for your economic productivity.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#315

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #293
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An average worker has few job-related expenses.

A lot of workers need a vehicle (or season pass on public transport), need a different location for their dwelling - both of these amount to a pretty hefty addition to a workers costs.

Commuting is deductible - up to a certain extent: https://www.theharrisongrouponline.com/services/section-132-...

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#316

Post by pbhjpbhj »

lmilcin wrote: post #299
driverdan wrote: post #34

Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that? Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

More than that, public companies have obligation to maximise profits for their shareholders as long as they are following the letter of law. There is not much choice here, they can't pay even if they wanted unless they can show this is somehow in shareholders' best interest.

>public companies have obligation to maximise profits for their shareholders //

They're not. Not in EU or USA at least.

So, not they aren't under any obligation to be shitty to the public by diminishing tax paid in the countries they operate in.

Anyone posting an attempted contradiction should cite the relevant laws making it a legal requirement for companies to maximise profits [above any [other] moral consideration].

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#318

Post by scottlegrand2 »

SilasX wrote: post #189
otachack wrote: post #46

Earlier 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?…

I would be great with corporations deducting all the business losses they wish if only I had similar freedom deducting all of my business losses rather than an elaborate tax code that forces me to resort to tricks like tax-loss harvesting.

Or TLDR: don't take away rights like this from corporations, give those same rights to individuals.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#319

Post by int_19h »

throwaway190102 wrote: post #310
PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Over a reasonable horizon, you weren't profitable. The average worker isn't allowed to do that even when they lose money in a given year. Why is it so naturally assumed to be acceptable for a business to do it? Maybe the time is to just remove the loopholes in general from both business and personal income taxes.

Individual workers are allowed to do this. In the form of deductions for various types of expenses such as medical and various other deductions. But it means something different to make a wage and to make a profit. There are definitely loopholes to close in our busted tax system, I agree with that 100%. While we are at it we should eliminate all subsidies for various types of carved out businesses from oil to corn. B…

> But it means something different to make a wage and to make a profit.

Why? Other than "because our tax law says so"?

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#320

Post by harryh »

mikeash wrote: post #285
SilasX wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but, in fairness, the personal income tax contains exactly this brain damage. If I make $100k in one year and then $10k the next, I pay 19% of it in income taxes, even though I averaged $55k/year which should mean paying 14.6% of it in taxes. (Using figures for a single filer from the 2019 brackets; assuming away the person deduction for simplicity.) https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/federal-income-tax-br…

Even worse, individuals pay taxes on revenue, not profit, aside from a very narrow set of deductible expenses.

That's not worse.

Humans all have basically the same expense structure so taxing revenue makes sense. Corporations from different industries have wildly different expense structures so taxing on revenue would be nonsensical: you would end up undertaxing high profit industries like tech or pharma and massively overtaxing low profit industries like retail.

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