Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The 99 percent

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 162 posts

Re: The 99 percent

#21

Post by harryh »

mynameishere wrote: post #15
guimarin wrote: post #2

Five points for the OWS guys. 1. Transparency. We need to see where every dollar of the US federal gov't is spent. It needs to be on the internet, and it needs to be easily accessable. An exception can be made for classified spending in specific, but not so categorically (IE we spend X on classified stuff). Additionally, just like there is a Surgeon's General Warning on cigarette packages, there needs to be a link on…

end loopholes that allow companies like exxon to pay no federal taxes Corporate taxes are idiotic. They should tax them at zero and replace the lost revenue with a new upper-margin tax. Reasons: 1. Corporate taxes are effectively a sales tax. 2. Corporations, unlike individuals, can hire armies of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists to get around the taxes. 3. Those same professionals are more often deployed by large…

Dear god yes. The army of people out there that seem to think that more corporate taxes will somehow mean that people won't have to pay taxes amazes me.

Like Romney said “Corporations are people, my friend."

Re: The 99 percent

#22

Post by harryh »

guimarin wrote: post #20
mynameishere wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

end loopholes that allow companies like exxon to pay no federal taxes Corporate taxes are idiotic. They should tax them at zero and replace the lost revenue with a new upper-margin tax. Reasons: 1. Corporate taxes are effectively a sales tax. 2. Corporations, unlike individuals, can hire armies of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists to get around the taxes. 3. Those same professionals are more often deployed by large…

You cannot replace a corporate tax with a personal tax, all persons will simply become corporations.

There are already laws against that that are very strictly enforced. Try incorporating yourself and deducting the cost of your mortgage or car payment and see how long it will take for you to end up in tax court.

Re: The 99 percent

#23

Post by MatthewPhillips »

guimarin wrote: post #4
russell wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. I'm not so sure about the effectiveness of the tax on financial instruments. I think it might be more effective to require reserves to be held by the issuer, maybe a few percent They are already required in some cases. A bank is required to to hold a percentage of deposits as capital. An insurance company is required to hold reserves against losses. At the time of the crash there was something like $60 trillion in…

The point of the tax is not to regulate the derivatives market. There are valid reasons for derivatives, and arbitrarily imposing a reserve requirement on a class of instruments that is ever changing and by definition, represents different alpha and beta is a bad idea. The point of the tax is to mitigate HFT strategies. In my view they don't add anything to the system when considered from the point of view of 'why' s…

You say high frequency trading is bad, others say shorting is bad, and when you try to regulate what is a "valid strategy", all you are doing is injuring the entire market. I can't invest soundly when not all viewpoints are reflected in the price. I'd rather just invest privately.

Re: The 99 percent

#24

Post by guimarin »

guimarin wrote: post #20
mynameishere wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

end loopholes that allow companies like exxon to pay no federal taxes Corporate taxes are idiotic. They should tax them at zero and replace the lost revenue with a new upper-margin tax. Reasons: 1. Corporate taxes are effectively a sales tax. 2. Corporations, unlike individuals, can hire armies of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists to get around the taxes. 3. Those same professionals are more often deployed by large…

You cannot replace a corporate tax with a personal tax, all persons will simply become corporations.

When people bring up this argument, I feel like I'm screaming in a room full of people and everyone is ignoring me.

You cannot make it easy for people and corporations to be interchangeable and then have differing tax rates for each. They MUST have the SAME rate.

eg. I 'own' all my rental properties through LLCs which are themselves 'owned' by a corporation of which I am the sole benefactor. Travel? expensed. Living in my house for free? No problem, house owned by LLC, rent waived by my own corporation. Any living expense whatsoever? No problem, benefits of running/owning the corporation. What then is the point of being an individual on your tax return? Oh yes, I pay my fair share on my income of $1 per year.

Honestly, sometimes I think people like you who bring up these arguments are completely uneducated.

Re: The 99 percent

#25

Post by wccrawford »

ericdykstra wrote: post #13
guimarin wrote: post #2

Five points for the OWS guys. 1. Transparency. We need to see where every dollar of the US federal gov't is spent. It needs to be on the internet, and it needs to be easily accessable. An exception can be made for classified spending in specific, but not so categorically (IE we spend X on classified stuff). Additionally, just like there is a Surgeon's General Warning on cigarette packages, there needs to be a link on…

Any candidates that actually pushed for these things would instantly get my vote. Too bad pretty much every candidate is a politician, which by definition means they oppose #1.

Except that one candidate.

Re: The 99 percent

#26

Post by majika »

mynameishere wrote: post #15
guimarin wrote: post #2

Five points for the OWS guys. 1. Transparency. We need to see where every dollar of the US federal gov't is spent. It needs to be on the internet, and it needs to be easily accessable. An exception can be made for classified spending in specific, but not so categorically (IE we spend X on classified stuff). Additionally, just like there is a Surgeon's General Warning on cigarette packages, there needs to be a link on…

end loopholes that allow companies like exxon to pay no federal taxes Corporate taxes are idiotic. They should tax them at zero and replace the lost revenue with a new upper-margin tax. Reasons: 1. Corporate taxes are effectively a sales tax. 2. Corporations, unlike individuals, can hire armies of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists to get around the taxes. 3. Those same professionals are more often deployed by large…

You make a good case.

However, I think it's important to acknowledge that corporate taxes are useful for providing an incentive for corporations to do something a certain way. That is, they can avoid the tax if they change their behaviour. (see: equal-opportunities employment, regional commercialisation incentives, emissions control, recycling, etc)

Re: The 99 percent

#27

Post by igorlev »

guimarin wrote: post #2

Five points for the OWS guys. 1. Transparency. We need to see where every dollar of the US federal gov't is spent. It needs to be on the internet, and it needs to be easily accessable. An exception can be made for classified spending in specific, but not so categorically (IE we spend X on classified stuff). Additionally, just like there is a Surgeon's General Warning on cigarette packages, there needs to be a link on…

3. Something similar is actually already the case in areas like Hong Kong and other commonwealth states. It's called a stamp tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_tax#Hong_Kong) Might be an issue in the US for obvious reasons :)

Re: The 99 percent

#28

Post by harryh »

guimarin wrote: post #24
guimarin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot replace a corporate tax with a personal tax, all persons will simply become corporations.

When people bring up this argument, I feel like I'm screaming in a room full of people and everyone is ignoring me. You cannot make it easy for people and corporations to be interchangeable and then have differing tax rates for each. They MUST have the SAME rate. eg. I 'own' all my rental properties through LLCs which are themselves 'owned' by a corporation of which I am the sole benefactor. Travel? expensed. Living…

If you are actually doing what you describe then you are breaking the law and will eventually be caught and hit with a gigantic bill for back taxes plus a hefty fine.

Re: The 99 percent

#29

Post by anigbrowl »

mynameishere wrote: post #15
guimarin wrote: post #2

Five points for the OWS guys. 1. Transparency. We need to see where every dollar of the US federal gov't is spent. It needs to be on the internet, and it needs to be easily accessable. An exception can be made for classified spending in specific, but not so categorically (IE we spend X on classified stuff). Additionally, just like there is a Surgeon's General Warning on cigarette packages, there needs to be a link on…

end loopholes that allow companies like exxon to pay no federal taxes Corporate taxes are idiotic. They should tax them at zero and replace the lost revenue with a new upper-margin tax. Reasons: 1. Corporate taxes are effectively a sales tax. 2. Corporations, unlike individuals, can hire armies of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists to get around the taxes. 3. Those same professionals are more often deployed by large…

Your first point contradicts your second one. If they could be passed onto customers so easily, corporations wouldn't spend money on avoiding them, the cost of which also has to be passed onto customers. In reality, the fraction of corporate taxes passed on to the customer is inversely proportional to the elasticity of demand for the good.

Re: The 99 percent

#30

Post by cperciva »

mynameishere wrote: post #15
guimarin wrote: post #2

Five points for the OWS guys. 1. Transparency. We need to see where every dollar of the US federal gov't is spent. It needs to be on the internet, and it needs to be easily accessable. An exception can be made for classified spending in specific, but not so categorically (IE we spend X on classified stuff). Additionally, just like there is a Surgeon's General Warning on cigarette packages, there needs to be a link on…

end loopholes that allow companies like exxon to pay no federal taxes Corporate taxes are idiotic. They should tax them at zero and replace the lost revenue with a new upper-margin tax. Reasons: 1. Corporate taxes are effectively a sales tax. 2. Corporations, unlike individuals, can hire armies of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists to get around the taxes. 3. Those same professionals are more often deployed by large…

Eliminating corporate taxes isn't exactly what you want: It would turn corporations into tax shelters, allowing investments to compound at a faster rate. (You'd be effectively giving everybody an unlimited Roth IRA.)

What you really want is an integrated tax system like Canada and many other countries have: Corporations pay income taxes, but when they pay out their profits as dividends, the individuals receiving those dividends pay tax on their share of the corporation's pre-tax income, but get a tax credit equal to the amount of taxes the corporation paid. (Sounds complicated? It is -- but it works.)

As a side benefit, this fixes the "Buffett pays less tax" problem, since the taxes paid on corporate taxes (in the end, once they've been paid out as dividends) are based on the same progressive system of increasing marginal rates as any other income.

Post reply on HN