361–370 of 431 posts
Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 8…
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Yes and no. Ireland may seem materially better off than they were before, but they've effectively been recolonized. Putting aside matters of tax evasion, these corporations aren't sticking to just employing labor. They're also politically influential. The rapid shift in Irish cultural norms in recent years is jaw-dropping.
Tax evasion should be prosecuted, but I believe most of the time I read about these companies and taxes, it's about tax avoidance, such as the source article for this thread.
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Disagree. Why would you arbitrarily pay the IRS money if you didn't owe them anything. It would put himself in a weaker competitive position against his competitors and for what benefit? I completely disagree with you. The move should be to change the system.
You pay them because your argument is “i should be paying more”. It’s hard to take someone seriously when they say they should pay more tax, have every opportunity to pay more tax, yet choose not to pay more tax.
What you are saying is he should make a donation to the US government.
> In 2019, Uber claimed $4.5 billion in global operating losses (excluding the US and China) for tax purposes – in reality, it brought in $5.8 billion in operating revenue This sentence makes me feel like the article author does not understand the difference between profit and revenue. The wording makes it seem like there is something nefarious about being a loss making company. Uber's global 2020 revenue was 11 bill…
Sure, but tax breaks themselves are often fixed. Buying stock options is a great example of where you might end up with a fixed tax break. Buy 1000 options at your strike price ex: $1, pay tax on their current estimated value (say the value is estimated at $100, you pay tax on (100 - 1) * 1000 = $99,000 of "value" that you gained, probably about 20k). 2 years later: Boom, company goes out of business. That stock valu…
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Sure, but if you pay yourself a very nice income and realize very many nice incomes in capital gains, then you're still coming out way ahead.
You do realize that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than regular income? Doing this only makes you pay more taxes.
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The core claim above is that ultimately the foundation is a lip service activity to preserve wealth. If a hundred billionaire pays out 1 billion dollars in philanthropy via the foundation, but earns 10 billion tax free then they are doing quite well. It's a trivial matter to write the terms of the foundation such that yourself/successors can draw permanent income via "board" positions, advisory roles, or other means.
How would that work exactly? Genuine question, I've never understood how donating saves on taxes, you have to pay at some point to access the money, no?
First you buy stock in your selected list of companies. Next you pledge suitable sums of money to charity programmes. Then you use your power and influence in ensuring said companies get all the big contracts. Your foundation is funding these programmes of course, so you can influence whom they partner with. The stocks of those companies shoot up and you profit. The funding is effectively more of a strategic investment than a donation. The tax savings are just a bonus.
Think about why Gates, who is in the philanthropy business, fought so hard to ensure Oxford don't put out their vaccine in the public domain? Oxford wanted to do so but Gates stepped in "suggesting" they partner with a well known entity like AstraZeneca instead. Of course, when you are a benefactor to an orgranisation, your suggestions tend to do more than just suggestions. AstraZeneca's terms were that they get exclusive IP and licensing rights and you know the rest.
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This is right. Corporate taxes just create a tax evasion industry. If there were no corporate tax then shareholder profits would be higher. It's be simpler to tax the shareholders and an individual is unlikely to have an army of lawyers doing their taxes
When corporate tax is zero and corporations don't hire tax specialists because nobody audits them, individuals don't need an army of specialists to hide most of their income and expenditure in a corporation, and basically anyone that isn't an entry-level employee can do it...
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I'll put it a different way. Most people don't see issues with that, they see issues with shit legislation. You want an effective method? Provide a negative incentive to correct that. Its far more effective to do that. Talking about how we should get them to change their morality may give us the feel goods, but that's about all it'll do.
But why would you want the law to change if you don't have a problem with what they're doing? Honestly I don't think you're right about what "most people" think. I can't remember ever seeing a protest about the tax code, but there was a global social movement about vilifying immoral corporations. And frankly I think it's more effective. If you try to argue about tax policy, it's easy for a well-educated opponent to k…
And more effective? Has the railing about this since the 90s changed anything there?
Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 8…
Capital gains taxes fall under income taxes. Spending money on lobbyists is not corruption. Is the ACLU corrupting Congress through its lobbying?
Yes. Just because what something has as a goal may seem like a net positive doesn't mean the means it uses to get to that goal are.
The ACLU, like any lobbying, is using financial resources to influence democratic government policy disproportionately based on the financial resources it can acquire. The ACLU shouldn't need to exist but it's an interesting example to bring up.
Lobbying (part of the process of transferring wealth into power by influencing or creating policy that creates more or solidifies that wealth) shouldn't be permitted to exist. However in competitive environments, ultimately, ethics go out the window.
If you're constrained by ethics and your opponent isn't, you're working at a disadvantage in most environments. Rules have to exist to enforce those ethics in such environment and prevent such necessary compromises from being on the table. If we didn't have groups lobbying against individual rights and liberties we shouldn't need groups lobbying to protect individuals rights and liberty.
Both, IMHO, are signs of an unhealthy democracy. Let's eliminate lobbying.