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This is a PR piece for politicians, yellow-journalism for uneducated people. Lots of adjacent color cultivating reader biases and eliding basic economics and accounting. But thumbs up, great journalism! Reminds me of how the same US pols that fundamentally drive infrastructure policy with the tax code chided companies for “not paying taxes” based on the very incentives they had designed.
Part of the 'avoiding taxes' equation here was giving the government (or setting aside) ~$600 million dollars to pay for oil spill related problems. So I mean she did avoid paying income tax, but only by giving up $600 million dollars to the government (which flowed back to her personal taxes to offset any income).
Part of the 'giving up $600 million dollars' equation here was creating an environmental disaster. I don't understand the relevance of your point.
Read that again but slowly and out loud.
Income is Revenue (any money you take in) minus Expenditure (any money you put out).
If you take in $100 and pay out $600, how much Income do you have?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does this include fighting to keep an oil well leaking?
The climate comments here are virtue signaling. Like it or not it was completely legal. There is a price for everything, including human lives. Lose a limb? Eye? There’s a price for it all, even a oil spill. Whether it’s enough is an entirely different conversation.
Pretty sure that's the exact point that people are lamenting.
If they put half the effort into investigating topics hidden in the shadows, i bet they would find Ghislaine-level revelations that would really make society better off.
Instead they choose -like with this article- to coat the morality of accounting (in this case, expenses) behind some kind of nefarious activity, when in reality accounting rules are amoral because they are the same for everyone.
But saying "the activity was inmoral, spilling oil is horrible, and the fine was too small!! " is not clickbaity enough it seems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Part of the 'giving up $600 million dollars' equation here was creating an environmental disaster. I don't understand the relevance of your point.
Income Tax. Read that again but slowly and out loud. Income is Revenue (any money you take in) minus Expenditure (any money you put out). If you take in $100 and pay out $600, how much Income do you have?
> It may be surprising that the costs of cleaning up an environmental disaster are tax-deductible. But such write-offs are legal, qualifying as “ordinary and necessary” business expenses. By contrast, fines and penalties are not deductible. Oil giant BP was able to deduct most of the settlement it reached with the government over the Deepwater Horizon spill because much of it went to address the environmental calamity, rather than to penalties for wrongdoing.
You have offered no argument on one of the central questions at play, and are just condescendingly stating mechanisms that are already stated within the article, which crucially, also contains an actual argument and justification.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
His point is that fines are tax deductible. It's logical from an accountant point of view, but indeed absurd from a human point of view.
Is it absurd from a human point of view? 'Tax deductible' means lowering your taxable income because you incurred certain expenses. It's not just a free tax write off.
It's unfortunate that propublica puts out in depth research.... over incendiary clickbaity content. If they put half the effort into investigating topics hidden in the shadows, i bet they would find Ghislaine-level revelations that would really make society better off. Instead they choose -like with this article- to coat the morality of accounting (in this case, expenses) behind some kind of nefarious activity, when…
When is the last time you avoided 600M in taxes on your personal income, due to business “expenses” (fines)?
It's unfortunate that propublica puts out in depth research.... over incendiary clickbaity content. If they put half the effort into investigating topics hidden in the shadows, i bet they would find Ghislaine-level revelations that would really make society better off. Instead they choose -like with this article- to coat the morality of accounting (in this case, expenses) behind some kind of nefarious activity, when…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Income Tax. Read that again but slowly and out loud. Income is Revenue (any money you take in) minus Expenditure (any money you put out). If you take in $100 and pay out $600, how much Income do you have?
Have you read the article slowly, out loud, or otherwise? > It may be surprising that the costs of cleaning up an environmental disaster are tax-deductible. But such write-offs are legal, qualifying as “ordinary and necessary” business expenses. By contrast, fines and penalties are not deductible. Oil giant BP was able to deduct most of the settlement it reached with the government over the Deepwater Horizon spill be…
If you go spill a bunch of oil, you'll get a fine (a punishment) and you will have to do your best to fix the damage (as much as it can be fixed).
That cleanup is not a fine. It's distinct and separate. It is not the punishment.
Cleanup is also not a determinate amount. There is no inspector you can fly out who can eyeball the damage and give you any meaningful estimate. It's done when it is done and it costs what it costs.
That makes cleanup an expense, therefore diminishing income.
If you think the fines should be higher then that's great. You can totally charge them more fines, and they can't treat that punishment as an expense.
You can't however start weaponizing tax code against people you don't like. You can't use the cleanup as a second punishment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can frequently avoid paying taxes, but only at the cost of paying more money than your taxes would have been. It is usually preferable to pay the taxes instead.
I think everyone, including the writer of the article, understands the mechanism at play. The point is that you can't justify something by just stating the mechanism. The article already states very clearly what is going on. > That’s in significant measure because she was able to transform money her company was compelled to spend cleaning up the oil spill into a perfectly legal nine-figure tax write-off for herself.…
That is the most interesting aspect of these articles. They are optimised for the title, not the content. Ignore the oil spill: if you lose $100m, you won't pay tax on that..."Billionaire pays no tax" is a better headline than "Billionaire loses lots of money". If you think that a wealth tax is a good idea, fine just say that...don't bother with the article. But the reason most journalists don't write about wealth taxes is because they lack the actual knowledge to understand why we don't have wealth taxes, they just write misleading bullshit about income taxes instead.
This isn't just splitting hairs either. There is enough real information on inequality in the US (this is something that most journalists are very clever about...this is an article about inequality because journalists know that the target audience will interpret it that way). You don't need the bullshit articles. These articles misinform the public, they don't need to be written.