Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#131

Post by thebooktocome » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 10:53 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #116

rada wrote: post #90

Whoa, the article is ageist, and proud of it. Though this program is geared toward people of all ages, young people are the best suited to maximize its advantages. Older generations tend to have families and other financial obligations, making it more difficult for them to transition into the roles of entrepreneurs. I am married with a young child, and my salary covers all of my family's expenses, so my husband doesn…

I read those statements as demographic, not judgemental. A median 40-something does indeed tend to have a family, more financial obligations, a more expensive lifestyle, etc... Those are just presented as facts, and while I don't have the statistics handy they jive pretty well with my 39-year-old intuition. Nothing is saying entrepreneurship is impossible for the middle-aged, just that it's harder.

While I agree that the statements are not judgemental, I disagree that they are not so merely because they are presented as facts. It's entirely possible to present facts in a light that makes them ageist (or X-ist, for some value of X).

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#132

Post by temphn » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #128

temphn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's by no means cheaper. It used to be free to leave. Now they expropriate 50% of your net worth. Massive shift in US policy. Used to be hard to enter the US. When they make it hard to leave , that is a terrible sign. Legal Background: www.mwe.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/publications.nldetail/object_id/3892307d-1b8e-4636-ba2b-f58609256689.cfm Color commentary: www.davidtanzer.com/david_tanzer_articles.asp?article=exit+…

Er....no. It was not free before; section 877 of the Internal Revenue Code was amended in 2004, and even before that reflected the assumption that any expatriation from the US was for purposes of tax avoidance. All US income for 10 years after expatriation was subject to US income tax for 10 years, and if you spent more than 30 days of any given year within the US, you were treated as a resident and liable for full U…

By your own admission you are not a tax lawyer. Perhaps this is why you are conflating two different things, income and assets.

  All US income for 10 years after expatriation was subject 
  to US income tax for 10 years

Yes, and that was bad enough, but what is new is this:

  they take progressive amounts on *assets* above the 
  inflation-indexed $600k exemption up to a top rate of 35% 
  (same as the estate tax). The 50% thing is a special case 
  for future deferred income from a US asset; you pay 30% up 
  front and 30% on distribution, which comes out at 51%

That is a tax on assets in addition to income. Assets. Meaning everything you've built up to this point, not just your continuing revenue streams while overseas. An asset tax for expatriation is a new development in American history.

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#133

Post by thebooktocome » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 11:01 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #120

anamax wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's something I've long heard and failed to grok. Where do you think that the money to pay unemployment comes from?

Sorry, it was the cognitive dissonance of being required to pay someone who was terminated for the purpose of not having to pay them. I'd like to hire people for some long term work, but cumulative BS like this makes me not bother.

You just pass the cost on to your employee. Hire them for X/(1 + expected tax rate) instead of X.

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#134

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 11:31 PM UTC

temphn wrote: post #132

anigbrowl wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er....no. It was not free before; section 877 of the Internal Revenue Code was amended in 2004, and even before that reflected the assumption that any expatriation from the US was for purposes of tax avoidance. All US income for 10 years after expatriation was subject to US income tax for 10 years, and if you spent more than 30 days of any given year within the US, you were treated as a resident and liable for full U…

By your own admission you are not a tax lawyer. Perhaps this is why you are conflating two different things, income and assets. All US income for 10 years after expatriation was subject to US income tax for 10 years Yes, and that was bad enough, but what is new is this: they take progressive amounts on *assets* above the inflation-indexed $600k exemption up to a top rate of 35% (same as the estate tax). The 50% thing…

Then maybe you should have made that clear in your original post, rather than claiming that expatriation was 'free,' as if there were no costs at all. If you read the IRS instructions a little more carefully (or peruse the more detailed treatment at http://www.irs.gov/publications/p519/ch04.html#en_US_publink...) you'll see that liquidation or exchange of any US assets, including property, were booked as gains prior to 2008.

For the majority of people (ie: not multi-millionaires) it has become easier and cheaper to take up citizenship elsewhere than it used to be. The worldwide taxation approach of the IRS is an anomaly, but a long-standing one rather than some recent innovation. You have yet to show that the increase in voluntary expatriation is correlated with high earnings, much less caused by them.

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#135

Post by temphn » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 11:45 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #134

temphn wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your own admission you are not a tax lawyer. Perhaps this is why you are conflating two different things, income and assets. All US income for 10 years after expatriation was subject to US income tax for 10 years Yes, and that was bad enough, but what is new is this: they take progressive amounts on *assets* above the inflation-indexed $600k exemption up to a top rate of 35% (same as the estate tax). The 50% thing…

Then maybe you should have made that clear in your original post, rather than claiming that expatriation was 'free,' as if there were no costs at all . If you read the IRS instructions a little more carefully (or peruse the more detailed treatment at http://www.irs.gov/publications/p519/ch04.html#en_US_publink... ) you'll see that liquidation or exchange of any US assets, including property, were booked as gains prio…

> You have yet to show that the increase in voluntary expatriation is correlated with high earnings, much less caused by them.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1983238,00.htm...

  While a small number of Americans hand in their passports 
  each year for political reasons, the new surge in 
  permanent expatriations is mainly because of taxes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/us/26expat.html

  Amid mounting frustration over taxation and banking 
  problems, small but growing numbers of overseas Americans 
  are taking the weighty step of renouncing their  
  citizenship.

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/06/13/are-taxes-causing-the...

  The IRS doesn’t tell us why people expatriate, or who they 
  are or where they go. Lawyers say most are wealthy 
  Americans who have expatriated to all manner of countries.

EDIT: Look, I'm as put off by deeply nested arguments as the next person. My empirical points are primarily two fold. One, the new exit tax is both substantial and yet also just the beginning. Two, many are seeing the writing on the wall and trying to get out while the tax is "only" 51% of assets.

Given the discussion in the United States about raising taxes on the successful* to balance the budget, do you really think this is an irrational decision on their part? Or that it is irrational to infer that this is part of their decision-making process, especially given copious media reports to this effect?

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#136

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Sep 13, 2011, 12:14 AM UTC

temphn wrote: post #135

anigbrowl wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe you should have made that clear in your original post, rather than claiming that expatriation was 'free,' as if there were no costs at all . If you read the IRS instructions a little more carefully (or peruse the more detailed treatment at http://www.irs.gov/publications/p519/ch04.html#en_US_publink... ) you'll see that liquidation or exchange of any US assets, including property, were booked as gains prio…

> You have yet to show that the increase in voluntary expatriation is correlated with high earnings, much less caused by them. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1983238,00.htm... While a small number of Americans hand in their passports each year for political reasons, the new surge in permanent expatriations is mainly because of taxes. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/us/26expat.html Amid mounting frust…

Hardly conclusive. From the same WSJ article: Other attorneys who specialize in helping the Americans expatriate say the reason is that the IRS is cracking down on overseas bank accounts and offshore income. There is a population of U.S. citizens who live overseas and may never have paid U.S. taxes on their non-U.S. earnings and non-U.S. accounts. Now that the IRS is enforcing the rules, with criminal penalties for scofflaws, the overseas residents would prefer to expatriate rather than pay. ...and a great many of the comments (by people who have actually left, as opposed to people venting their spleen) say the paperwork is more onerous than the taxes.

The Time article contains several factual errors, such as ignoring the fact that most countries have tax treaties with the US which prevent double taxation, and stating that the allowable visiting period for US expatriates is 90 days rather than 120 (which is 90 more than what it used to be- perhaps sloppy copyediting is to blame). The NYT article quotes one person who has been abroad 20 years and renounced citizenship after 10, which must logically have been back in 2000 or 2001. I fail to see how this provides any insight into current behavior. It strikes me as somewhat telling that both stories use the example of people living in Switzerland, a country famous for banking privacy, and somewhat infamous for acting as a tax shelter. I'm not sure that typifies the expatriate experience at all.

Not that I don't think taxes are an entirely irrelevant factor, mind. This paper offers a rather more plausible explanation, albeit a dry one: that low-tax entrepots with high standards of living risk becoming unaffordable for US residents unless consumption taxes can be offset against income, and recommending repeal of taxing on citizenship rather than residency (which I support, incidentally). http://www.aca.ch/joomla/images/pdfs/taxnotes.pdf

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#137

Post by SkyMarshal » Tue, Sep 13, 2011, 12:35 AM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #67

jeremymcanally wrote: post #7

The ignorance displayed in the comments on that article is scary. It's quite obvious a lot of people have never been in the position to actually need this sort of aid before, so it's easy to knock everyone using it as "an illegal" or "lazy." Of course people will abuse this, too, just like they abuse the unemployment insurance we have now. But to me, the net positives that come out of this will outweigh the (probably…

I've long stopped reading comments on news sites specifically because they are obviously overrun by trolls. The problem is the trolls are winning as I can see by some comments I see on facebook by people who believe the bullshit. But sites like this ( http://literallyunbelievable.org/ ) also make me loose faith in humanity sometimes

Oh if only they were all just trolls, out to take the piss out of the entire Internet. Unfortunately, the majority of them aren't.

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#138

Post by westicle » Tue, Sep 13, 2011, 12:46 AM UTC

roc wrote: post #104

clarkevans wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between McJob and software development. If someone doesn't handle N customers, fails to show up on time, or has several documented customer relationship issues: it is clear cut. You have to give the employee several opportunities, etc. If you have an equivalent recipe for a marginally performing software developer that doesn't cost more to implement than just paying the unemployment : I'd lov…

> "There's a big difference between McJob and software development." Yes and no. The basics are the same: you need to document responsibilities, goals and performance. Document performance that doesn't meet the goals. Document some sort of plan by which you try to help the underperforming employee meet their goals and then document their continuing performance. Is it potentially cheaper to just pay a modest severance…

Not to mention fairer on the employee.

Not everyone is a self-starter or "rockstar". Failing to document clear responsibilities and goals and then measure performance against those goals shortchanges you and them.

This may be an unpopular sentiment around HN circles, but just expecting every employee to "get it" and not having a consistent process to deal with underperformance (which can have many different and often addressable causes) is a crappy way to treat employees in my view.

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#139

Post by bermanoid » Tue, Sep 13, 2011, 12:59 AM UTC

fredBuddemeyer wrote: post #6

genius. who needs voluntary transactions live venture capital or angels, what have they ever done? instead lets take money from everyone (if they don't like it we can lock them in a cage) and then give it to others who we decide are worthy.

Compared to all the thousands of ways in which the government tends to find to waste taxpayer money with near-zero chance of it helping anybody, I just can't seem to be so offended by this one.

If you hate the idea of taxation or stimulus, that's fine, you're certainly not alone, and I'd even agree with a lot of your arguments. But do you really think this is such a poor attempt at it, compared to the other things governments tend to try? As far as I can tell, this is aimed at allowing people that would have been on the dole anyways to spend their time doing something productive in an entrepreneurial capacity rather than sitting on their asses and deliberately not working so that they don't lose unemployment benefits.

Personally, I'd take even a half-baked attempt at spurring entrepreneurialism over monetary fiddling, another round of tax cuts for the rich, or a $50 check in the mail, any day of the week. At least this has a small chance of incentivizing innovation, which is known to help the economy in the long term, as opposed to most of the other options which mostly rely on wishful thinking...

Re: Obama's job aid plan - $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance for entrepreneurship

#140

Post by pythoning » Tue, Sep 13, 2011, 1:09 AM UTC

This article does not mention that in order to qualify for unemployment insurance you have to have worked for a certain period of time and then been laid off.

This program will not help a college graduate (or dropout) that wants to start a business right away.

It's a great program, but unemployment should be expanded to include people who are first time entrepreneurs that have never had a job and been laid off.