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Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

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Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is always brought up but it isn't double taxation, the individual is paying income tax and that has nothing to do with the corporation tax.

The government takes tax from the same amount of money twice. How is that not well described by the term "double taxation"?

Money is not taxed [1], transactions are taxed.

[1] At least, not yet. Elizabeth Warren would like it to be.

Edited for formatting

Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#222
post #37

This is crazy how economy is tilted in favour of these big corporations. If you are a worker, it is not uncommon to pay over 40% of tax and if you work on your own small business you can pay even more and have very little left to reinvest. Then you have progressive tax that is preventing you from saving much - if you want to save for a deposit to buy a house, spend time on education and getting a better job, you'll g…

In pretty much every western European country your tax rates can easily hit 60%+ (like the 100k 60% cliff in the UK). The budgets of these governments are all largely funded on the backs of middle class income tax - 40% of all receipts in the UK, plus another 10-15% from VAT - compared to a lowly 9% from corporation tax [1]. You have to wonder how the economy can ever evolve given everything is geared towards suppres…

Nearly every European country has yet to recover to pre-2000 crash market levels. Western Europe's economy has yet yo fully integrate with the 21st century.

Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#223

Netflix recorded a worldwide income tax accounting expense of about 13.7% last year ($438M on $3.2B of Net Income). It also paid cash taxes of $292M (cash taxes differ from accounting taxes because of timing issues - just like revenue is not the same as cash-in). A lot of growing companies have US taxes that are quite low because they lose money for a long time while they're investing in growth. When they finally bec…

> A lot of growing companies have US taxes that are quite low because they lose money for a long time while they're investing in growth. When they finally become profitable, they're allowed to roll forward those losses (within limits) to offset their profits. Human beings cannot do the equivalent. Spend the entirety of your 20s making very little money because you are investing in growth and then make $800k as an ort…

Individual humans don’t employ large groups of people and don’t move forward the economy like a company does.

I don’t understand why we want to equate rules for companies to rules for individuals? People say “it’s not fair”?

Who’s going to employ people? The government can’t produce your salary, companies do that.

Btw, many countries should regulate companies more IMO, but that’s not to say companies shouldn’t be encouraged to grow and prosper.

Of course companies and individuals should have different rules and of course tax should be one of them. Help companies start and grow and salaries will be paid to people.

Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is always brought up but it isn't double taxation, the individual is paying income tax and that has nothing to do with the corporation tax.

The government takes tax from the same amount of money twice. How is that not well described by the term "double taxation"?

The entire concept of "double taxation" is BS. All money is taxed multiple times as it moves around.

If I get paid a wage, my employer pays payroll tax, then I pay income tax. Then when I buy something with it, I pay sales tax. Then the company I bought it from pays payroll tax on it when they pay it out to an employee, then the employee pays income tax on it. Then they pay sales tax when they buy something with it, and so on.

Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#225

Netflix paid no dividend right? And Netflix has not (so far) run a share buy back. So they're either sitting on the excess cash, or they've spent it making more programs. In either case this is exactly what the current tax code is designed to incentivise. Businesses should invest. That's the whole point of taxing profits not net income...

If they're using their profits for purchases or hiring folks for new shows, the "tax" comes out of the sales tax and the income tax. I mean, this isn't as mustache twirling as people are making it out to be. The tax code is not that messed up. It has problems yes, but being pissed at a company that's reinvesting their income and not showing a profit is like complaining that the guy/gal that's been running for years won a race. It's not like the tax code is reserved only for a select few. It applies to all Americans. Play the game.

Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#226

I don't really have an issue with this. 1% tax is more than sufficient to run this country. The first step to a balanced budget is to stop impulse spending on dumb stuff. My only gripe is I'm not allowed to pay a 1% tax, as I should be.

> The first step to a balanced budget is to stop impulse spending on dumb stuff. The problem is that 'dumb stuff' is different for everyone when it comes to country level expenditures.

This is a decent point in favor of generally decentralized government. More local decisions, fewer federal decisions.

Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#227
post #50

-> President Biden so far has not proposed to do away with these tax breaks, but he has proposed a second-best solution—requiring corporations to pay a minimum tax equal to 15 percent of profits they report to shareholders and to the public if this is less than what they pay under regular corporate tax rules. This would be a big improvement because it would finally require all corporations to contribute at least some…

how so?

The word "less" doesn't seem right in this context... Did they mean more?

Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of growing companies have US taxes that are quite low because they lose money for a long time while they're investing in growth. When they finally become profitable, they're allowed to roll forward those losses (within limits) to offset their profits. Human beings cannot do the equivalent. Spend the entirety of your 20s making very little money because you are investing in growth and then make $800k as an ort…

Individual humans don’t employ large groups of people and don’t move forward the economy like a company does. I don’t understand why we want to equate rules for companies to rules for individuals? People say “it’s not fair”? Who’s going to employ people? The government can’t produce your salary, companies do that. Btw, many countries should regulate companies more IMO, but that’s not to say companies shouldn’t be enc…

Why not let people employ each other where they are instead of importing grandpa’s beliefs about how money is produced?

It’s the workers doing that produce the real value, not a rich person holding capital they’ll only spend on us if we capitulate.

Why do we need the age old tale of a shared ephemeral store like religion and fiat finance when we see those things become monopolized and gamed by the previous generation every time?

We need to believe one old person is literally worth 100x the average person?

Who does that benefit?

Re: Netflix Made Record Profits in 2020, Paid a Tax Rate of Less Than 1 Percent

#230

This is crazy how economy is tilted in favour of these big corporations. If you are a worker, it is not uncommon to pay over 40% of tax and if you work on your own small business you can pay even more and have very little left to reinvest. Then you have progressive tax that is preventing you from saving much - if you want to save for a deposit to buy a house, spend time on education and getting a better job, you'll g…

If you have a company, you can do this as well. This isn't unique to big corporations. This is why I went from sole proprietor -> llc -> s-corp. It took one successful year for me to figure this out. If you don't want to spend your income on taxes then reinvest into your business or donate to charities.
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