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Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

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Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#81

Post by moorhosj »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24
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.

I would think quality recruits are already avoiding Illinois in general due to the future share of tax revenues that will need to be diverted to pay for prior years' labor, meaning less resources for today and the future's quality of life.

On the flip side, Chicago pays their teachers, police and fire fighters pretty good annual salaries. I imagine that outweighs their analysis of future benefits as a share of tax revenue.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#82

Post by writepub »

lr4444lr wrote: post #68
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.

That's way too broad and not how it ought to be.

THIS is why you see rich cities like San Francisco and Chicago preaching ever higher taxes, while simultaneously providing worse services for it's citizens.

There's a feedback loop missing where there are actual consequences to the city council when quality of service isn't delivered, but instead, city politicians indulge in emotionally appealing demagoguery, further increase taxes, line their pockets and continue to not deliver

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#83

Post by kristianc »

rrrrreeeee wrote: post #31
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…

Do the employees and employers not pay into a separate fund that cannot be touched? I fail to see how it's the fault of the pensioners. It's absolutely archaic if the future taxpayers have to pay for a retirees pension. In Canada we have pension funds that are separately funded entities that are payed into over an employee's career.

> In Canada we have pension funds that are separately funded entities that are payed into over an employee's career.

Speaking for the UK, ‘national insurance’ is a direct transfer from young to old.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#84

Post by moorhosj »

writepub wrote: post #7
Zak wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says it's a response to a reduction in sales tax collected, so it would seem the goal is to collect revenue. A prohibition on raising the price seems unlikely; that's not usually the case with other things that act like sales taxes.

It's always amusing that no one talks about more efficient ways to use revenues, than blindly increasing tax, when it comes to the government. Has ANY government service become any better, over time while taxes have constantly risen?

Aren’t lots more government services digitized now versus 20 years ago? Lots of forms and records you needed to be in-person to access are now available online. Many cities have open data programs where they make large data sets freely available via API or query. In Chicago, my local library and school have improve programming options over the past 10 years. Those are a few examples.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#85

Post by throwawaymath »

scarface74 wrote: post #80
throwawaymath wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you consider the idea that police officers risk their lives to be statistically inaccurate? According to the United States Department of Justice, there are approximately 1,100,000 police officers in the entire country[1]. If 144 police officers died last year, a given police officer has (assuming uniformity) slightly greater than a 0.01% chance of dying each year. In other words one out of every 10,000 officer…

From another post, that doesn’t rank being a police in the top 15 most dangerous occupations. https://www.ajc.com/news/world/these-are-the-deadliest-jobs-...

Okay, but it is listed in the top 20. What you're citing doesn't seem to support your thesis; in fact, it appears to refute it. With that in mind, and considering the foregoing back of the napkin math I presented, I'm still not following how police officers don't endanger their lives.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#86

Post by throwawaymath »

aswanson wrote: post #40
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”.

It's not even in the top 10 most dangerous occupations: https://www.ajc.com/news/world/these-are-the-deadliest-jobs-...

It strikes me as a bit disingenuous to say it's not even in the top 10 when it's number 18, according to that list. At that point we're talking about a difference of degree, not category. If anything your citation supports the idea that police officers endanger their lives.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#87

Post by scarface74 »

throwawaymath wrote: post #86
aswanson wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even in the top 10 most dangerous occupations: https://www.ajc.com/news/world/these-are-the-deadliest-jobs-...

It strikes me as a bit disingenuous to say it's not even in the top 10 when it's number 18, according to that list. At that point we're talking about a difference of degree, not category. If anything your citation supports the idea that police officers endanger their lives.

It would be disingenuous if he said “it wasn’t in the top 10” when it was #11. #18 is nowhere near the top 10.

Even a garbage collector is three times more likely to die on the job than a police officer.

https://qz.com/410585/garbage-collectors-are-more-likely-to-...

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#88

Post by scarface74 »

throwawaymath wrote: post #85
scarface74 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From another post, that doesn’t rank being a police in the top 15 most dangerous occupations. https://www.ajc.com/news/world/these-are-the-deadliest-jobs-...

Okay, but it is listed in the top 20. What you're citing doesn't seem to support your thesis; in fact, it appears to refute it. With that in mind, and considering the foregoing back of the napkin math I presented, I'm still not following how police officers don't endanger their lives.

About a third less than garbage collectors....

https://qz.com/410585/garbage-collectors-are-more-likely-to-...

Does that mean we should pay garbage collectors more in hazard pay than police?

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#89

Post by throwawaymath »

scarface74 wrote: post #88
throwawaymath wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but it is listed in the top 20. What you're citing doesn't seem to support your thesis; in fact, it appears to refute it. With that in mind, and considering the foregoing back of the napkin math I presented, I'm still not following how police officers don't endanger their lives.

About a third less than garbage collectors.... https://qz.com/410585/garbage-collectors-are-more-likely-to-... Does that mean we should pay garbage collectors more in hazard pay than police?

Statistically speaking, yes, if your compensation model pays commensurate with risk. But I'm not sure I see how that's relevant to the discussion at hand.

You started by saying that the claim that police officers risk their lives is statistically inaccurate, with a citation. I countered that citation with one of my own and a calculation showing they do risk their lives. Now you are talking about garbage collectors and their exposure to risk being greater than that of police officers.

That doesn't really counter my point about police officers' lives being exposed to risk, because I never made a claim that police officers are exposed to more risk than garbage collectors. Likewise I'm not forwarding a normative point about whether or not people should be paid commensurate with the amount of risk they encounter in their professional work. I am making the narrow, positive point which is that, objectively speaking, police officers are exposed to risk (and this is borne out by statistics).

I'm not in a position to make a normative claim about whether or not (or how much, in an absolute sense) we should compensate people more for risking their lives. I'm not sure if you were expecting me to say that garbage collectors shouldn't be paid more than police officers in hazard pay. But if we are assuming a system that pays commensurate with risk, then I'm happy to agree it would be internally consistent to pay garbage collectors more than police officers in hazard pay, sure.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#90

Post by throwawaymath »

scarface74 wrote: post #87
throwawaymath wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It strikes me as a bit disingenuous to say it's not even in the top 10 when it's number 18, according to that list. At that point we're talking about a difference of degree, not category. If anything your citation supports the idea that police officers endanger their lives.

It would be disingenuous if he said “it wasn’t in the top 10” when it was #11. #18 is nowhere near the top 10. Even a garbage collector is three times more likely to die on the job than a police officer. https://qz.com/410585/garbage-collectors-are-more-likely-to-...

18 is quite close to 10, in an absolute sense. The context of that citation is a claim that it's statistically inaccurate to say police officers risk their lives. That claim is demonstrably not borne out by statistics. Out of the universe of available professional work, being a police officer is #18 in risk. It's a rather small consolation that they're not eight jobs higher up the chain in terms of risk, considering there is essentially no chance of e.g. my monitor killing me as I sit at my desk.

A valid takeaway from the cited list is that being a police officer isn't literally the most dangerous thing you can do for work. An invalid takeaway is that being a police officer isn't dangerous.

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