Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 222 posts

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#61

Post by Mirioron »

Spivak wrote: post #45
Mirioron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if every city and town has their own tax that's different in some way? Then what? Or alternatively, could Netflix ban all residents of Chicago?

1. Businesses have to incorporate the local tax code to any area they provide services in. Same as any brick-and-mortar business right now. 2. It becomes burdensome for businesses to comply so they ask the federal government to occupy the field and standardize. I don't really know why people expect businesses that deliver their products digitally to be treated differently from everyone else.

But we're talking about online businesses here. This isn't isolated to the US. We're talking about complying with the requirements and taxation of any city in the world. There is no federal government to address there.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#62

Post by closeparen »

sseagull wrote: post #57
closeparen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$75k income, increasing at 1% a year, saving 15% each year, investing at 7% average returns over a 40 year career would give you $101k in retirement. That doesn’t seem unreasonable.

Your calculations are a bit off, since even $75k * 0.15 * 40 = $450k (ie, not taking into account salary increases or returns). Also, $75k is a lot more that most people make. From what I can find, that would be ~85th percentile of personal income, or around the 60th percentile of household income. Edit: Some representative (although a bit outdated) sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United…

101k a year in income, more than $2m in total balance.

Chicago police officers make $65k within 18 months [0]. If $75k is a high estimate, it’s not by a ton. Government competes for professional/managerial/educated employees as well.

[0] https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/August-2...

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#63

Post by Mirioron »

boulos wrote: post #42
Mirioron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if every city and town has their own tax that's different in some way? Then what? Or alternatively, could Netflix ban all residents of Chicago?

Yes, Netflix chooses to serve Chicagoans, and if they’d prefer not to, they can. There have been a few “make the customers angry, so they write to their representatives” attempts throughout history, but I doubt a 99 cent tax for Netflix is enough to risk it. As a related thing, look at Spotify vs Apple on the App Store. That 30% is material.

But I don't think this is actually possible in the EU in the long term. They want to do away with companies only serving digital services to some EU member states, but legislation still applies per country. What if the rest of the world decides that this stuff is great for taxation as well? Then you won't be dealing with the tax code of an American city, you'll be dealing with the tax code of a city in some small country.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#64

Post by lotsofpulp »

rrrrreeeee wrote: post #44
lotsofpulp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you ensure the funds are invested properly, and not in a nephew's real estate development project? How do you ensure the correct assumptions are used in calculating how much to contribute into the fund in the first place? You can adjust mortality tables and investment return assumptions to make the benefits seem cheaper than they are. The government can even choose to forego making their understated contributi…

The employer isn't liable for the pension at all. Neither is the employee. All they do is pay into the fund. Instead, there is an entirely separate legal entity (the pension fund) that controls and distributes the assets. The fund releases reports regularly on the health of the fund. The contribution calculations are usually included in those reports. The investments by pension funds are usually in long term infrastr…

That is not how taxpayer funded pensions in US work. What you describe is the equivalent of the employee purchasing an annuity from an insurance company. What the US has is a politician today offering benefits 30 years from now, which may or may not be funded with contributions and investment returns from a pension fund, but at the end of the day the employee always has a lien on the tax revenue if pension funds are short.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#65

Post by lr4444lr »

scarface74 wrote: post #37
gfodor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling or cutting the pensions of retired public service workers (many of whom who risked their lives to protect the public) would, beyond the ethical questions, eliminate the credibility of the city's promises to those who sign up for such jobs and hence would likely greatly reduce the quantity and quality of recruits.

The whole idea of policemen “risking their lives” is not statistically accurate. Only 144 policemen died in the line of duty in the entire United States last year ( https://www.npr.org/2018/12/27/680410169/more-police-officer... ) The Chicago police department isn’t exactly what most people would call “quality”.

What about injuries, and the fact that they are forced to retire once their physical fitness wanes?

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#66

Post by lotsofpulp »

echelon wrote: post #43
Shivetya wrote: post #14

Chicago is in the hole for nearly thirty billion dollars. They have been floating the idea of a ten billion dollar bond with the debt structured in a way which lets current politicians escape the fallout from its payment and not having to raise property taxes. The state of Illinois is not well off either with debts estimated at the low of one hundred thirty billion to two hundred fifty billion. An Illinois proposal j…

Could they raise more money by locally legalizing more "sins" and heavily taxing them? Something of a cross between Las Vegas and Colorado could pull in a lot of revenue.

They already do, via video game gambling in bars:

https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article230192814.html

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#67

Post by rat9988 »

scarface74 wrote: post #37
gfodor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling or cutting the pensions of retired public service workers (many of whom who risked their lives to protect the public) would, beyond the ethical questions, eliminate the credibility of the city's promises to those who sign up for such jobs and hence would likely greatly reduce the quantity and quality of recruits.

The whole idea of policemen “risking their lives” is not statistically accurate. Only 144 policemen died in the line of duty in the entire United States last year ( https://www.npr.org/2018/12/27/680410169/more-police-officer... ) The Chicago police department isn’t exactly what most people would call “quality”.

Only 144? I guess it's a matter of perception, but I'm pretty sure way less software developers died for their job.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#68

Post by lr4444lr »

writepub wrote: post #19

Basic question: what is the legal basis for cities to tax something? I understand physical goods sold within a city benefited from infrastructure and security the city government offers, and agree to a tax on them. But digital goods and services? The city already taxes internet connectivity, property tax, ... Taxing digital goods further is just double taxation, with no benefit provided in return by the city to the c…

They derive their right to tax as recognized entities from the states wherein they are incorporated. There is no limit to what they can tax according to their charter, as long as no higher jurisdiction forbids it.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#69

Post by scarface74 »

lr4444lr wrote: post #65
scarface74 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole idea of policemen “risking their lives” is not statistically accurate. Only 144 policemen died in the line of duty in the entire United States last year ( https://www.npr.org/2018/12/27/680410169/more-police-officer... ) The Chicago police department isn’t exactly what most people would call “quality”.

What about injuries, and the fact that they are forced to retire once their physical fitness wanes?

Here are numbers from the CDC:

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/upd-2-12-18.html

But as far as retiring when your fitness wanes. How is that any different than any other job that requires manual labor?

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#70

Post by thrower123 »

boulos wrote: post #41
shittyadmin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't reside there, you're not liable to abide by their laws. I run a small US company, I don't have to comply with GDPR for example. Same applies here. I don't see why any company would implement this, perhaps appeasing regulators at the federal level.

I assume you mean well, but it’s not about your residence (or for businesses the place where they are incorporated) but rather where you do business. Just because I’m in California doesn’t mean I can do business in the EU without complying with their laws. Same goes for Chicago. You’re not required to do business there, but they can fine you for non-compliance if you are doing business. Note: all of this is in refere…

Are you actually doing business in those places, if people from there just go to your site that is hosted in your home jurisdiction? I'm not sure that it logically follows.

Obviously, governments interpret the situation in the way that accrues them maximal power and brings the most activity into their purview.

Post reply on HN