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

201–210 of 222 posts

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#201

Post by malandrew »

SilasX wrote: post #100
whack wrote: post #23

Instead of trying to tax purely digital activities, why not just raise the income/property taxes on the people who live or work in your city? This would be a lot less regressive, and would prevent people from getting around it just by changing their credit card billing address. Not to mention the beauracratic nightmare of requiring SaaS companies to keep track of every customer's physical address and local tax regula…

Because raising progressive taxes that are already high make it likely you’ll trigger a death spiral where high earners flee, raising the taxes you need to levy on the rest, etc.

Yup. I would argue that that death spiral is a feature not a bug. Governments will do every thing they can to hide the extent of their taxation by nickel and diming its citizens, testing the limits of how much can be raised before people flee.

If people could see the some total of the various taxes they pay, they'd be shocked. I'd love it if Stripe or other payment processors started reporting taxes to credit card companies so we could see the total sales and other taxes we paid across all transactions on top of our income taxes.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#202

Post by codedokode »

sgregnt wrote: post #192
cljs-js-eval wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's how socialism works: you spend someone's else money.

That's how any government works I think.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#203

Post by toomuchtodo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #199
toomuchtodo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What boggles my mind is that bond rating agencies rate Illinois debt at any rating that allows continued borrowing when it is so obvious how bad and deep the financial hole is. Disclaimer: actively seeking ways to short Illinois/Chicago.

They are rating the chances of default. The bond purchasers will be paid, one way or another. Privatize the parking meters (like Chicago already did), the roads, the water utilities, etc. It's the people who live there that will pay for the deficit via increased taxes and fewer services.

So why are property values not reflecting this? Irrational market?

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#204

Post by cdfky »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #203
lotsofpulp wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are rating the chances of default. The bond purchasers will be paid, one way or another. Privatize the parking meters (like Chicago already did), the roads, the water utilities, etc. It's the people who live there that will pay for the deficit via increased taxes and fewer services.

So why are property values not reflecting this? Irrational market?

All markets are irrational. It will take time

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#205

Post by phonon »

closeparen wrote: post #54
phonon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, who earns $75k a year for 40 years? 40 years ago that person probably started off below $15k/year. (In 1979 average household income was $19,553) https://www.multpl.com/us-average-income/table/by-year

The calculation includes inflation. $20k in 1979 is $70k today. It’s also the classic tradeoff of government work: lower salary than you could get in the private market, but retirement equivalent to a higher salary than you could get. Compelling only if you are sufficiently long term oriented.

I ran a few scenarios--your numbers are not correct.

Start at age 20, making $15,000/y, increasing 5% per year. (Salary at retirement over $100k/y)

Assume annual savings rate of 15%

8% return

Retire at 60.

I get around a million dollars saved at age 60 (i.e. today). Not enough to buy an annuity that pays out over $100,000/y. Off by a factor of 2 or so, I think.

And starting salary 40 years ago was probably under 15k, 8% consistent compounded returns are really good, the other retirement benefits besides the pension etc.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#206

Post by gfodor »

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-...

The danger involved for fire and police is highly dependent upon geography and role/rank.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#207

Post by gfodor »

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-...

Being a police officer in a suburb where there is no crime does not belong in the same analysis as being a police officer in a crime filled area. Being a parking compliance officer and an undercover drug enforcement agent also have wildly different risk exposure. To compare these various jobs similarly from a risk assessment point of view by bucketing them under "police officers" is ridiculous.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#208

Post by jonathankoren »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #198
jonathankoren wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that’s not how responsibility works. They may be the beneficiaries of a broken system, but they aren’t necessarily — and certainly not solely — the ones that broke it. Just phase them out and switch to 401ks. It’s absurd that such a large portion of government budgets are retirement accounts.

The problem when you say “just phase them out” is what to do with the trillions in outstanding obligations. For example, pension benefits are protected by the Illinois state constitution. You can imagine the process you’d need to construct and execute to fix pensions in Illinois, Cook County, and Chicago’s cases. The unwinding is the terribly difficult part because the can keeps getting kicked down the road due to a…

There's a finite time that benefits are paid out. At most, it's the maximum lifetime of the retired worker or their spouse. At some point, the workers and their spouses will be dead. They're beneficiaries do not, nor have they ever gotten a pension.

You simply stop giving new workers pensions, and you offer buyouts to the existing workers. None of this is fast, nor did I say it was. Even if you did it today, we're talking probably at least another 50 years before the last pension is paid out. Meanwhile, You're still dealing with the problems of running a pension plan, but at least you're on a path to divest from them.

This strategy is basically what every old company with pensions is doing. The problem here, is that governments don't do it, in large part due to the unions. I don't blame the unions for insisting on pensions, they're a good deal if you've got one But the fact is they're unsustainable. Unlike a company, the government is never going to go out of business, it's just going to become a retirement plan with a police force.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#209

Post by [deleted] »

GreaterFool wrote: post #104
throwawaymath wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#210

Post by jonathankoren »

Spooky23 wrote: post #132
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?

No. Garbagemen should have life and disability insurance. Police and fire employees tend to live shorter lives due to specific conditions related their occupation. It’s apples and oranges.

When killed in duty, it's most often due to a traffic accident. [0] Garbage men die when their own truck runs over them.[1] Additionally, trash collectors get a lot more repetitive stress injuries. The cause of death for garbage men is just as intrinsic, to their job. It's just that the sanitation workers' union isn't as politically popular.

As for firefighters, it's literally no more deadly than being a painter (8.9 fatal injuries per 100k). They're both climbing tall ladders with one hand. It may not be romantic to say that, but that's the actuarial science.

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

[1] https://consumer.healthday.com/encyclopedia/work-and-health-...

Post reply on HN