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

How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 284 posts

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

#111

Post by brigadier132 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #103
brigadier132 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it implies that there's some entity out there that's actually good at spending money No, this is the weird framing. As if the money has to go to some entity other than the individual that earned it. The government is taking money from individuals for their supposed benefit.

Why take your property taxes to educate our nation's children when you don't even have children? Am I unfairly framing your argument? Society (that's us) want things for society and it turns out they cost money. We would love to pay for these things with razor-like efficiency but we live in an imperfect world. (The "waste" however still goes into someone's wallet and can be in turn spent at a local restaurant or on g…

> Why take your property taxes to educate our nation's children when you don't even have children? Am I unfairly framing your argument?

I don't have property. The whole thing that set this entire discussion off was the parent poster that stated everyone that implied the government was wasteful was a paid shill by billionaires.

> The only real issue I see is how we balance the tax burden in a fair and equitable way that also benefits society

Yeah this post is about some billionaire dodging taxes. Billionaires are the obvious scapegoat but the fact is tax increases on billionaires are not enough to fund the multi trillion dollar ambitions of the government. The real tax base of our society is generated by the middle and upper middle class and they will be the ones that will bear the largest brunt of tax increases.

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

#112

Post by JKCalhoun »

koolba wrote: post #9
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US people have been brainwashed to think reasonable taxation is 'socialism' - something they need to have a religious objection to even if they don't know what it is.

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…

> It’s no better than saying “the rich are not paying their fair share”.

We (the people) want certain services of the government we elect — services that cost money.

If you tax the rich less, the poor and working class will therefore have to carry a larger burden. That seems pretty straightforward.

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

camgunz wrote: post #107
brigadier132 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it implies that there's some entity out there that's actually good at spending money No, this is the weird framing. As if the money has to go to some entity other than the individual that earned it. The government is taking money from individuals for their supposed benefit.

The government is the people. Time and time again people vote for services even if it means higher taxes (especially on the rich and on corporations). This is because some things don't really work if they're only funded by individuals. For example, none of the infrastructure investments in the IRA, the Medicare block grants in the ACA, etc. Do you have good examples to the contrary, like not one-offs but large, compl…

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by hliyan »

It has been my observation that it is not that only people of unscrupulous character become wealthy, but wealth tends to make you progressively more unscrupulous, i.e. not care about anything but yourself and your family unless you are legally compelled to do so.

In my mind, I've come to call this relative wealth toxicity. We all know of power toxicity (power corrupts). I think wealth has a similar effect on human psychology. The "relative" part is because a modern-day middle class person is, in absolute terms, is wealthier than a medieval lord, but do not behave like one. It is the relative power and the rarified social status that wealth brings, that results in the toxicity.

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

#115

Post by mistermann »

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.

Presumably the Russians have included it in the agenda of their 10 million++ person troll farm, the TRUE source of all negative rumours about Western nations (the Canadian government and journalists dismiss all sorts of things as being "factually" only Russian trolls, and the majority of the (online) public absolutely loves it!

Look at Japan, across the board, as just one example, now look at the US - you genuinely think there isn't substantial incompetence and corruption here?

Watch out for propaganda, it comes in many forms, from a variety of sources. One of those is your own consciousness.*

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

#117

Post by JKCalhoun »

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.

Further, my rich friend just made enough on his/her investments to cover the entire meal before we were even seated at the table, ha ha.

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

#118

Post by [deleted] »

t43562 wrote: post #34
markdown wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it reasonable for society, through taxes, to take more than half of what you earn? So long as you have more than enough to live on, absolutely. If you make a billion dollars, then the govt taking 501 million is the absolute minimum that should be expected. Better they take 999 million and leave you the million dollars, as you don't need more than that to survive. Further, the only reason you made a billion was f…

The point of people being wealthy is that they get to take risks based on their judgement and we hope that benefits everyone. Without a reward nobody will take risks. Governments don't take political risks so you cannot expect them to be the sole chance takers in the economy. What we obviously don't want is people who find a way to dump risk on everyone else so that they cannot fail. Not paying a living wage is a way…

[deleted]

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

#119

Post by brigadier132 »

camgunz wrote: post #107
brigadier132 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it implies that there's some entity out there that's actually good at spending money No, this is the weird framing. As if the money has to go to some entity other than the individual that earned it. The government is taking money from individuals for their supposed benefit.

The government is the people. Time and time again people vote for services even if it means higher taxes (especially on the rich and on corporations). This is because some things don't really work if they're only funded by individuals. For example, none of the infrastructure investments in the IRA, the Medicare block grants in the ACA, etc. Do you have good examples to the contrary, like not one-offs but large, compl…

> The government is the people

The government is the majority.

> Time and time again people vote for services even if it means higher taxes (especially on the rich and on corporations). This is because some things don't really work if they're only funded by individuals.

Uh, I have a simpler explanation. People vote for things that are good for themselves and come up with contrived arguments for why that's moral.

> To turn your point around, can you point to any large nation with low taxes and good outcomes?

This is overly simplistic.

> Do you have good examples to the contrary, like not one-offs but large, complex societies working via voluntary contribution alone?

Have I advocated for this?

> Is your argument that corporate services would outperform government services?

I have not made that argument once. I've made the argument that government spending is wasteful. Unsurprisingly the government choosing private corporations to execute government services is also wasteful.

It seems you think I'm a libertarian because I don't like giving my money away?

> complex societies working via voluntary contribution alone?

I'm glad you think society is complex, so do I. Can you give examples of large completely centralized successful societies?

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

#120

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

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.

The reduction in upper rate marginal taxes and the narrative about government incompetence were both promulgated by the same people. They are not distinct.

The reality is that all human organizations - government, for-profit, not-for-profit - suffer from incompetence, corruption and inefficiency.

The story that the right likes to tell us is that because there is (typically) a choice of companies (and that they are subject to competition with each other), it doesn't matter (as much) if a company suffers from these things, because you can "go elsewhere".

Vertical integration in so many business sectors, along with corporate mergers and the waning of antitrust really does give lie to this, in my opinion.

For example, all US cell phone companies are shit, they all have shitty websites, shitty customer service, shitty rates, idiot salespeople ... moving from T-Mobile to Verizon because the former screwed something up solves absolutely nothing.

Post reply on HN