391–400 of 423 posts
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Laws of physics are discovered by human experiment. Economics are defined by humans. They’re taught to each other by humans. It’s all wrapped in how we treat each other at scale. Separating the two is impossible except as a semantics game.
They're separable by experimental verification. The laws of physics are multiple orders of magnitude more accurate than the laws of economics, and the physicists are certain that at least one of their models is wrong. Try getting an admission like that out of an economist!
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Hum... I suggest you take a look on how taxes on profit work. That's literally a tax on value added.
The definition of "value added" is price minus costs, aka profit. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueadded.asp
I am still confused as to why companies have to pay tax at all? If every single employee including owners already pay income tax, and IVA/GST/purchase taxes, property taxes, xyz additional personal taxes levied by respective governments, why then on top of all that make companies pay tax, doesn't that just detract from people wanting to start companies and/or seek countries with the least taxes/best loopholes? Discla…
Why in the world do you think a company shouldn't pay for taxes on profit? If that were true everyone would just incorporate and no one would have to pay taxes.
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> For private ones, the shares would be auctioned publicly. No company could be held privately in perpetuity. Taking ownership away is very different from taxing ownership.
Fundamentally it is not any different. In the current model, either the company can afford to pay taxes by cash without issuing new stock, or then it does not and needs to issue new stock, thus diluting current ownership. In my model, either company can afford to buy back the stock from the auction thus keeping the company completely private, or then it does not, thus diluting current ownership. (I personally would e…
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> I am still confused as to why companies have to pay tax at all? Because that's how we decided to build our societies. Money flows up very easily but doesn't flow down anywhere as fast, that's why we tax companies and people. The sole purpose of a company is to make as much money as possible. Laws are there to make sure they do it safely (ie. don't send 12 years old kids to the mine, don't make employees work 7 days…
How's this for an argument against corporate taxation: Corporations receive money from customers, and distribute to employees (salaries) and investors. It's just simple arithmetic. How does a tax on corporations impact these three stakeholders? It seems unlikely the burden falls entirely on investors. So should we burden these customers and employees with taxes? If the real goal is to tax the rich, why not tax invest…
Vague idea: The government can compulsorily acquire the domestic domiciled assets of any company for 50? 100? times that company's declared taxable income with some appropriate average over the previous 5 years. You earn nothing taxable here? Great for your tax bill but now you can worry about the capital loss and loss of control of trademarks & patents domestically. Better to declare the profit and pay the tax like…
There are legitimate reasons for a valuable company to make little to no profits. Namely re-investment in growth. Your proposal would make it impossible for businesses to spend todays profits on growth for tomorrow, and would thereby dramatically slow economic growth.
Business expenses are tax deductable. Investment is not.
Yes I'm completely aware that this is one of Amazon's stated defences for tax dodging. Tax dodging is their core competency. I hate that.
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Or do like Europe is finally starting: just tax revenue. They can suppress their 'profit' whichever way they want, they can't suppress their revenue in a given country. The digital services tax is imposed at a rate of 3% on the gross revenues derived from digital activities of which French “users” are deemed to play a major role in value creation. The law not only affects digital companies but, more generally, digita…
> Or do like Europe is finally starting: just tax revenue. That rapidly turns into a disaster of consolidations and monopolies. You don't want that. Think about the difference between big company $BIG selling you the consumer a million Widgets for 10^9 currency units, versus 26 small companies $a..$z each selling to the next in a long supply chain which results in a million Widgets. In revenue taxation, big company $…
In short the market/regulatory environment should support disaggregated business as a first class citizen, mergers and vertical integration as a very second-class construct. To the tune of if you merge, you must maintain 3 sets of accounts. The original accounts separately, and a combined set. You must gain more capability or utility to create value for the public as the combined company than by being separate. The capacity to measure the utility amplification being facilitated through the extra set of books. As more companies are bought and merged, the audit workloads would increase very quickly. Failure to make a good case for why you should continue to run as a merged company kicks in an orderly spin-off of the previous acquisition to get operated by someone else. M&A's should not be one and done. This greatly complicates hostile takeovers, makes the business model by which large entrenched entities buy out and kill up and coming competitors, at best, a stalling tactic, but more often a worthless waste of time to the perpetrating company as much as it is to the public.
If you let M&A's have their cake (the capital assets of another company) while giving them the option to cut fat without insisting that they "compensate" the public for the decrease in competition, only one side will ever benefit, and it won't be the public.
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Thanks. What I love about the comments you make is twofold: - You clearly differentiate between opinion, observation and fact. - You don't try to find an easy answer. Thanks. Comments like these make me come back and read on HN.
My hobby [1] is helping people think clearly about media bias and filter bubbles, so I'm glad to hear that my comments come across as rational and balanced! 1: http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com