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Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

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Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#101

Post by sokoloff »

cljs-js-eval wrote: post #91
rrrrreeeee wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's archaic and should be changed, but the way the system works in the U.S. is pretty well known to its citizens, which makes it at least partially the fault of the pensioners. I live in Chicago and every retired schoolteacher and police officer I meet knows full well that they're making an exceptional amount of money in retirement. It's usually part of why they took the job.

IMO, it's no more the pensioners' fault than any other voter. If they're a resident eligible to vote, it's partly their fault. It's not their fault for accepting a job offer with certain terms broadly available.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#102

Post by Ntrails »

throwawaymath wrote: post #89
scarface74 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

To say someone "does not risk their life" is meaningless really. What OP probably means is "not risking their lives to an exceptional degree". Born out by a comparison to jobs that might otherwise be classed as lower risk

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#103

Post by mindslight »

bscphil wrote: post #98
mindslight wrote: post #34

Maybe instead of putting on a show in court, Netflix et al should simply stop asking people for their physical addresses ? I mean, that is the underlying vulnerability that will allow this push to succeed. We were so excited for the promise of the Internet to overturn all this legacy bullshit. Then the legacy bullshitters got here, built a bunch of proprietary services on top of HTTP, marketed them as progress, and a…

>Maybe instead of putting on a show in court, Netflix et al should simply stop asking people for their physical addresses? I mean, that is the underlying vulnerability that will allow this push to succeed. That's an interesting point. There are internet services that don't require an address to pay for something. What are their legal obligations, if any, with respect to local taxes? I assume quite a few local laws do…

Legally, government can keep grinding at the courts until they convince some judge to write a justification for the practice - look at what happened to the Bill of Rights. The legal system assumes its own omnipotence, rather than limiting its own scope and excusing itself.

So those limits end up being defined by what is actually practical to enforce. Which is why the technical environment ends up being quite important, and the web 2.0 surveillance industry is ultimately the enemy of Free people - it is vaccination for the state [0]. If Chicago ended up failing here, we could chuckle at the corrupt politicians making nonsensical laws and then quickly forget. But rather, success means that other municipalities will be looking to get on this gravy train.

Then, even if there is eventual pushback where online services start explicitly forgoing obtaining users' addresses, there will be enough money behind it to fund that grinding at the courts. Eventually it will be declared that doing business and not obtaining the identity of your customer is illegal, presuming an intent to evade all of these "duly enacted" backwoods laws.

[0] FWIW Bitcoin is in the same class, as it negligently lacks the standard property of untraceability.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#104

Post by GreaterFool »

throwawaymath wrote: post #90
scarface74 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How close 18 is to 10 in absolute sense has zero meaning. So does saying "10 most dangerous jobs" without quoting actual numbers. What if job 11 is 100x more safe than job 10? What if job 18 is 100000x more safe than job 10?

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#105

Post by jdavis703 »

burlesona wrote: post #5

This stuff makes sense for cities, it’s just frustrating how much more difficult it makes it to operate a “mom and pop” software business. The complexity of potentially complying with hundreds of state and municipal governments - not where you are located but where online purchases originate - is a pretty significant deterrent to setting up a small side business. Imagine if every food truck had to pay taxes based not…

This just opens up space for a business to calculate these fees as part of a SaaS offering. For example Avalara already has a product that can calculate the thousands of different sales taxes that exist in the US. The internet opens up a huge market to mom and pop software companies, I don’t see why we need any special tax cuts or holes for us.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#106

Post by rocqua »

dev_dull wrote: post #73
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.

They were promised something by the city that couldn’t be delivered to them. There’s no other way out. Is there a difference in Silicon Valley workers being promised future stock if they just forgo their paycheck for a little while longer? The Difference of courses that taxpayers don’t foot the difference.

Differences between silicon valley stock and city pensions are

1) stock options are a known volatile thing rather than a government backed guarantee.

2) Missed Stock options are much easier to compensate for financially than a pension. If you miss stock options, you are still part of the wage pool. If you miss a pension that is much harder. After all, the point of a pension is to take care of people who are 'worn out'. Hence, there is much less of a fall-back system for missed pensions.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#107

Post by egypturnash »

mindslight wrote: post #34

Maybe instead of putting on a show in court, Netflix et al should simply stop asking people for their physical addresses ? I mean, that is the underlying vulnerability that will allow this push to succeed. We were so excited for the promise of the Internet to overturn all this legacy bullshit. Then the legacy bullshitters got here, built a bunch of proprietary services on top of HTTP, marketed them as progress, and a…

Netflix: We don't know where any of our customers are, sorry Chicago!

Chicago: Okay fine we talked to all the local ISPs and you're no longer accessible in our city. Have a nice day.

or

Chicago: We didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday guys, have you heard of this thing called GeoIP services?

Besides, I'm sure Netflix is bound by all kinds of territory-based licensing to need people's addresses. Like if Foobar Productions did a deal with someone else for exclusive digital rights to Austria and Australia but is letting Netflix license their show for streaming everywhere else, Netflix needs to be able to not show it to the Austr(al)ians.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#108

Post by RhodesianHunter »

prepend wrote: post #51
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 don’t think the fix is removing pensions from old people, but rather drastically reforming pensions for future retirees entering the workforce now. Cutting pensions now would be like cutting someone’s salary and would likely lead to skilled people quitting.

So cut compensation for current already underpaid employees to shore up retirement for the people who voted for the politicians who caused this?

That doesn't taste right to me.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#109

Post by Hydraulix989 »

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”.

Have you spoken to any police officers lately about their jobs? My next-door neighbor in my hometown was a state policeman who had guns and knives pulled on him several times in his career (during ordinary traffic stops, no less). If you're a cop working in a high-crime area, you're going to be dealing with the worst of society on a daily basis. I'm very thankful that my computer can't sporadically decide to physically attack me while I'm at work.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#110

Post by lr4444lr »

scarface74 wrote: post #69
lr4444lr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You're correct, it's not different. A lot of those jobs (construction, plumbing / steam-fitting, railworkers, auto plant workers) are unionized too.
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