How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#41

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 12:47 PM UTC

kjandersen wrote: post #21

koolba wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no such thing as “reasonable taxation” because it’s a subjective concept. It’s no better than saying “ the rich are not paying their fair share ”. Say you’re settling the tab for big dinner at a restaurant, if your rich friend pays for the steak he ordered, is that his fair share? If there’s 100 of you and he pays for 1/100 of the check, is that his fair share? What if he pays for half the tab, is that enough…

(I wrote this comment as a _reaction_ to yours -- it turned out not to be a _response_ to it, so I apologise if I seem to put words in your mouth.) I have this idea rummaging about that I have never quite seen articulated in these discussions. The earnings of "rich friends" are often seen as a singular, isolated achievement, and fairness is then discussed as relative to that: "they earned it, so is it fair to take X%…

[deleted]

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#42

Post by mcny » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 12:50 PM UTC

pravus wrote: post #19

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not sure that extra money would actually mean anything In an ideal democracy it would. Its yet again misrepresented interests. And as an extend to my side note: The decades long shift of interest representation went from the public to the private sphere. The distrust in goverment may be justified, but its no counter argument, because the means of democratic participation is the only viable tool we have left. FU…

> Democracies cannot fail, only the people in it do. I think this is false if only because the premise of Democracy is so poorly defined. What are we voting on? Why? Who is "we"? Am I allowed to call a vote to strip you of your property? Am I allowed to call a vote to tell you what to eat? Am I allowed to call a vote to tell what to do or where to go? Why or why not? We have laws today that do all of these things. Wh…

I believe I read some article how in Switzerland, a particularly insufferable woman applied for citizenship and the people voted no.

I have no ax to grind in this story, I just thought it was pertinent given your questions.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/sw...

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#43

Post by brigadier132 » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

dools wrote: post #10

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #2

As a side note: One of the primary reasons of how the rich get richer and how public services (our society) degrade is, that we stopped taxing them. For decades now. Imho, its a shift of the represented interests in policies. We should stop pondering enshitification or greedflation an start seeing it as a systemic issue, that we can observe everywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Commodification#In_Marxist_th...

The bigger problem is a fear of public spending because of perceived incompetence. The stigma comes from a time when only governments had run big bureaucratic systems. Now we can see there is little difference between public and private bureaucracies except for a lack of oversight on the latter. Still the stigma remains and all public spending is filtered through a profit making entity.

Can you actually give examples of competent public spending? The military is considered one of the competent parts of the US government and the amount of waste is staggering.

On any given night 4000 people are sleeping on San Francisco's streets and the government can't solve that with a $636 million a year budget?

The US spends more per student than any other nation and somehow we have worse educational outcomes?

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#44

Post by zo1 » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 12:54 PM UTC

fifticon wrote: post #27

dools wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger problem is a fear of public spending because of perceived incompetence. The stigma comes from a time when only governments had run big bureaucratic systems. Now we can see there is little difference between public and private bureaucracies except for a lack of oversight on the latter. Still the stigma remains and all public spending is filtered through a profit making entity.

I see a lot of propaganda expended on convincing the voting public of this "public incompentence", almost as if someone is paying to maintain this status quo.

It's all marketing at the end of the day.

But tbf, after a decade of a many public sector projects, I have first-hand seen really incompetent and wasteful actions on huge scales. Perhaps there should he a whistle blower program for reporting such things?

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#45

Post by PrimeMcFly » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 12:56 PM UTC

taxinaut wrote: post #37

PrimeMcFly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s no such thing as “reasonable taxation” because it’s a subjective concept. I disagree. There are models of economics that can project taxation rates that will have better outcomes for society. It's far from being primarily subjective.

That’s just you defining reasonable though. Others (few) would say any taxation at all is unreasonable. Still others (plenty more) would say taxes should apply at the same rate to all people to be reasonable. You’re saying “taxes should have a good societal outcome to be reasonable”. Yours is the best in my opinion but it’s still subjective.

> That’s just you defining reasonable though.

I would say it is reasonable, period, per the dictionary definition. People can redefine words as they like, it doesn't mean anything.

It's not subjective when we are using objective standards and theory to produce a result with the goal of objectively leading to better quality of life for everyone.

If the only subjectivity that comes in is because people can define reasonable I don't think that makes it subjective at all.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#46

Post by nobodyandproud » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 12:57 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #30

koolba wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no such thing as “reasonable taxation” because it’s a subjective concept. It’s no better than saying “ the rich are not paying their fair share ”. Say you’re settling the tab for big dinner at a restaurant, if your rich friend pays for the steak he ordered, is that his fair share? If there’s 100 of you and he pays for 1/100 of the check, is that his fair share? What if he pays for half the tab, is that enough…

Rich friends used to settle the whole tab , no questions asked. Generosity was a value . A rich friend arguing over the details of a tab is just an asshole.

There are many assholes.

Also, many are generous to their peers and social circles but malicious anyone they consider beneath them and on the “outside”.

I saw this firsthand in my workplace (after hours)—a company that heavily promotes diversity, etc.—and it left me distraught for a few weeks.

These assholes are the hardest to spot.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#47

Post by natelegler » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 12:57 PM UTC

the-lazy-guy wrote: post #40

jmyeet wrote: post #24

Private foundations are really a massive scam on the public purse so whenever you hear about the Gates Foundation and the like, remember it's just a tax dodge, nothing more. The way the rules work, a private foundation has to spend 5% of its capital on its intended purpose. Thing is, that 5% can include "administration" costs like paying salaries and benefits for the family. They really need to raise this to 10%, min…

I had a brief look at Gates Foundation spending and it does not look like tax dodge to me: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/financials/annual-repo... It spent about 10% of its endowment for charity last year.

Yeah because the Gates Foundation is going to come right out on their website and say that they are a tax dodge...

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#48

Post by dhbradshaw » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 12:58 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #43

dools wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger problem is a fear of public spending because of perceived incompetence. The stigma comes from a time when only governments had run big bureaucratic systems. Now we can see there is little difference between public and private bureaucracies except for a lack of oversight on the latter. Still the stigma remains and all public spending is filtered through a profit making entity.

Can you actually give examples of competent public spending? The military is considered one of the competent parts of the US government and the amount of waste is staggering. On any given night 4000 people are sleeping on San Francisco's streets and the government can't solve that with a $636 million a year budget? The US spends more per student than any other nation and somehow we have worse educational outcomes?

Libraries, roads, firefighters, police, utilities, national parks, local parks.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#49

Post by brigadier132 » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 1:02 PM UTC

dhbradshaw wrote: post #48

brigadier132 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you actually give examples of competent public spending? The military is considered one of the competent parts of the US government and the amount of waste is staggering. On any given night 4000 people are sleeping on San Francisco's streets and the government can't solve that with a $636 million a year budget? The US spends more per student than any other nation and somehow we have worse educational outcomes?

Libraries, roads, firefighters, police, utilities, national parks, local parks.

Taxes don't pay for utilities, I can't personally use libraries anymore because they've become defacto homeless shelters, the police suck.

So now we are left with firefighters, national parks and local parks which I guess are not good targets for power hungry and incompetent politicians.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#50

Post by afavour » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 1:02 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #43

dools wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger problem is a fear of public spending because of perceived incompetence. The stigma comes from a time when only governments had run big bureaucratic systems. Now we can see there is little difference between public and private bureaucracies except for a lack of oversight on the latter. Still the stigma remains and all public spending is filtered through a profit making entity.

Can you actually give examples of competent public spending? The military is considered one of the competent parts of the US government and the amount of waste is staggering. On any given night 4000 people are sleeping on San Francisco's streets and the government can't solve that with a $636 million a year budget? The US spends more per student than any other nation and somehow we have worse educational outcomes?

Think about how important roads are to just about every facet of keeping the country running.

I also think the relevant question here is “compared to what?”. The built in assumption is that the public sector is extremely wasteful compared to private but large private companies are also extraordinarily wasteful. Think of the amount of money Meta pisses away every year on frivolous stuff that goes nowhere.