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

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

#401

Post by harperlee » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #400

crispyambulance wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? If you strictly and only tax consumption and property, you will have large segments of the population living hand-to-mouth, trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and and hard labor in a hole that requires super-human or generational effort to get out of. Meanwhile, those who started with a leg up will continue to accelerate their net-worth. There are people who "make money" by "having money" and under your r…

Still, why tax profits? Why not tax net worth? Why not revenue? Humans get taxed on their "revenue" (income).

Humans can deduct things so they are taxed at their profits. It's just that rules are not straightforward and what counts as a deductible expense is not the same for both. So you are aiming at the wrong level for a critique. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26698446

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

#402

Post by harperlee » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #289

listenallyall wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It would be perfectly fine for corporations to pay comically low taxes No it wouldn't

I am just trying to highlight the fact that corporations have a double advantage: Low-to-no taxes + oversized political influence. It would be an almost level playing field if they had only ONE of those advantages.

To me, it seems that discussing about corporations vs. individuals is the wrong kind of discussion to have. At the end corporations are groups of individuals, and whenever someone argues about unfairness of different treatment, there's an implicit "and that's bad because some individuals end up on a better position than others" that, I think, should be talked more explicitly.

At the end of the day, a corporation is an instrument, and its wealth is the wealth of some individuals. Corporations are instruments to coordinate wealth creation, so perhaps the issue is how/whether rich people are profiting too much from "The System" we have in place, be it through an excessive command of corporations (which are allowed certain things) or through other means. I mean, if wealth inequality among individuals were close to nil, then it would not be too polemic to raise taxes if we need more public budget, or lower them if we need to push the economy forward - the issue when taxes need to increase or decrease is where do you cut / take.

So perhaps we're focusing our analysis on optimizing the wrong thing.

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

#403

Post by webinvest » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 12:48 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #400

crispyambulance wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? If you strictly and only tax consumption and property, you will have large segments of the population living hand-to-mouth, trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and and hard labor in a hole that requires super-human or generational effort to get out of. Meanwhile, those who started with a leg up will continue to accelerate their net-worth. There are people who "make money" by "having money" and under your r…

Still, why tax profits? Why not tax net worth? Why not revenue? Humans get taxed on their "revenue" (income).

Net worth taxes exist in a small number of places in Europe. It appears to be unpopular because it causes people to hide their assets and invest in assets that are harder to place a value on. Some places just have a property tax instead.

Revenue is taxed in many places; it’s called sales tax. Profit is also taxed. It is called an income tax / corporate tax.

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

#404

Post by owenversteeg » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #376

owenversteeg wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very curious to see HN's perspective on Biden's plan to scrap the LTCG tax (aka tax it the same as income.) On the one hand, it would be a fairly clean way to tax the wealthy (basically nobody poor has LTCGs.) On the other hand, it disincentivizes long term investing. It'd also cost a lot of people here a lot of money, so I imagine that would make it at least mildly unpopular.

> I'd be very curious to see HN's perspective on Biden's plan to scrap the LTCG tax (aka tax it the same as income.) That’s not Biden’s plan. Biden’s plan is to limit the tax preference for capital gains by setting the top rate for LTCG equal to the top rate he has proposed for income taxes, with the top LTCG rate kicking in at $1 million+, while the same rate for normal income would at ~$400K. > On the other hand, i…

Thank you for the clarification! Somehow I didn't see that detail in an article I read about Biden's plans.

And yes, I generally agree with your last paragraph. But that said, it is worth noting that taxes on normal income do discourage people from making money. (I'm not saying this to support a reduction in income tax, just as an interesting note.) So I think it is worthwhile to consider incentives. For example, income at x%, short term cap gains at x+10% and long term cap gains at x-5%.

Of course, if you really want to go all the way regarding fairness and incentives, you'll tend towards entirely different systems (Georgism, for example)