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

The Massachusetts Software Tax

fastcolabs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 201 posts

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#131

Post by anigbrowl »

cinquemb wrote: post #42
kmfrk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago is also boned in the future: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/chicago-sees-pension... . EDIT: Alternatively http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/21642911-418/city-defi... . Keep in mind that Detroit had loaned money from other states that aren't likely to get it back.

Do states and cities release data like this for the public to see (kind of like open gov api's in csv/json/xml)? I wonder how many more cities/states are taking loan money from other cities/states and are facing the gaping holes in their budgets? It would be pretty cool to throw something together and put it up on github.

Yes, but because everyone wants their local government to be independent from big bad state and federal governments there's almost no consistency in the format or publication requirements.

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#132

Post by GabrielF00 »

brokenmusic wrote: post #117
marvin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are free to go off-grid and live in the woods, free from the shackles of taxed services like roads, police protection and tap water. If you still make enough money to pay tax, you'll still technically be breaking the law - but I doubt anyone is going to come into the forest to put you in jail. So in practice you'll be free and clear. You could also go to a nation in sub-Saharan Africa where there is in effect no…

Surely no private company can ever come up with such technological marvel as taps and tubes and water in them.

Private companies are beholden to private interests. Government is beholden to the public at large. Sure, a private company could design the infrastructure behind the municipal water system, but are they going to design it and price it and service it in a way that serves everyone or are they going to design it so that they maximize profit even at the cost of, say, making it really hard for poor people to get running water? If Comcast ran the water system they'd make basic service very expensive for poor people, they'd constantly try to upcharge you (you'd pay the same price for hot and cold water taps as you would for the triple-play bundle of hot water, cold water, and carbonated water) and they'd return the profits back to the shareholders rather than investing them in improving their infrastructure.

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#133

Post by dalke »

rayiner wrote: post #107
dalke wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, yes, "nature red in tooth and claw" and all that. Social Darwinism went out of fashion about 60 years ago. In part because its philosophical underpinnings had little to do with Darwin or evolution. For example, an alternate view is that taxes are part of kin selection, in that those people who pay more taxes end up with a social system which is better at raising successful children who continue that culture and…

Its not social Darwinism, which is a wholly distinct set of beliefs. Its actual Darwinism, or the recognition of the fact that in the state of nature killing is morally neutral and arguably virtuous (e.g. being an apex predator).

Social Darwinism is a misreading of Darwinism to draw the conclusion you just stated, as applied to interactions within the human species.

For example, "murder" is nearly always defined within the context of human-human interactions, but "apex predator" is usually thought of on the species level, as in "humans are apex predators" not "David Hasselhoff is an apex predator." It's disingenuous for you to change contexts like that.

Darwin discussed the idea of kin selection, and how it applies to sterile honey bees. Why should a sterile bee support the group when it passes on (in modern terms) none of its own genes to its children?

Under your thesis, why don't those bees take the 'virtuous' route and attack the other bees, eat the honey, and otherwise destroy the colony? What's in it for them to not do that?

I am not so reductionist as to say that human actions can be mapped directly to kin selection, but I think it's an important factor. We also have cultural biases which have an influential effect. It's generally easier to have a civilization where you aren't worried all the time that people might murder you or your family, so energy that might otherwise go into protection and defense can be used for other things.

If you disregard the reasons for why a killing might not good for an organism, then you disregard a vital understanding of Darwinism.

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#134

Post by techiferous »

crazygringo wrote: post #58

I can't find the link to the previous HN thread about this (and Google isn't helping), but someone had posted that the whole point of this tax was to essentially close a loophole where normal software sales are taxed, but a consulting firm who makes a tiny tweak and sells the software under "consulting services" because they "install a solution" for the client, doesn't charge sales tax. So if that's accurate, it make…

The motivation of the law is to raise revenue for transportation, not close a legal loophole.

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#135

Post by cinquemb »

redthrowaway wrote: post #106
rwl wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, you're trolling here, and if I could downvote you for it, I would; but since I can't, let me try to raise the level of discussion: > I would prefer to pay for services I use I invite you, sometime, to think about which services you really use, and try to figure out how much it would cost to purchase each of them if you were doing so on your own. Don't forget: police protection, fire protection, military protectio…

He's not trolling, it's just a kneejerk libertarian comment. There's a strong thread among the more vehement economic libertarians of taxation being theft enforced by the government's monopoly on force. It's a bit silly, but it's also a sincerely held belief.

I would say it is a bit silly to throw that argument around as a blanket statement, but there are plenty of cases where people have been sent to jail for not paying up (who probably wouldn't associate with what people refer to as "libertarian").

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#136

Post by brokenmusic »

GabrielF00 wrote: post #132
brokenmusic wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely no private company can ever come up with such technological marvel as taps and tubes and water in them.

Private companies are beholden to private interests. Government is beholden to the public at large. Sure, a private company could design the infrastructure behind the municipal water system, but are they going to design it and price it and service it in a way that serves everyone or are they going to design it so that they maximize profit even at the cost of, say, making it really hard for poor people to get running…

You can only vote once in 4 years. I, on the other hand, can stop paying any private company at any point in time if I believe a company hurts me or other members of the society. I don't see how that situation makes a company less accountable.

In practice, private companies don't need to maximize profits at the expense of poor. In Russia, for example, ISPs are competing hard against each other and internet is dirt cheap, you could have a 30mbps connection for around $7/mo. No regulation.

But suppose you're right. Suppose companies would maximize profit and the way to do it would be by not providing service to poor people. It doesn't make it okay to steal money (in the form of taxes) from me. Ask me nicely and give me a REAL option to not pay, and I may as well pay even more than required. But IRS are not nice people. They make people's lives difficult at the slightest hint of tax evasion.

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#137

Post by cinquemb »

anigbrowl wrote: post #131
cinquemb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do states and cities release data like this for the public to see (kind of like open gov api's in csv/json/xml)? I wonder how many more cities/states are taking loan money from other cities/states and are facing the gaping holes in their budgets? It would be pretty cool to throw something together and put it up on github.

Yes, but because everyone wants their local government to be independent from big bad state and federal governments there's almost no consistency in the format or publication requirements.

Right, so everyone in this case are local bureaucrats who are partially employed by big bad state and federal governments through handouts from taxation and monetary inflation, who don't want to show if the emperor of their local debt obligations aren't wearing any clothes (possibly because of what recognition of misallocation of resources/labor entails), because the public is not demanding it from them today?

There's gotta be money in opening this can of worms up, right?

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#138

Post by dmarusic16 »

cinquemb wrote: post #32
rayiner wrote: post #18

Unfortunately Mass. has unfunded pension liabilities exceeding $20 billion (not including municipalities), and unfunded health care liabilities exceeding $45 billion (including municipalities. At the same time, states will have to deal with the new normal, which is lower economic growth indefinitely and lower returns on invested assets. As a result, states will ratchet up taxes to cover their increasingly untenable b…

Unfortunately Mass. has unfunded pension liabilities exceeding $20 billion (not including municipalities), and unfunded health care liabilities exceeding $45 billion (including municipalities. At the same time, states will have to deal with the new normal, which is lower economic growth indefinitely and lower returns on invested assets. Is there any place where one can read about this/ any place where one can see dat…

The Economist had a great article on this the other week: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21582282-pension...

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#139

Post by rwl »

anonymoushn wrote: post #129
rwl wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, you're trolling here, and if I could downvote you for it, I would; but since I can't, let me try to raise the level of discussion: > I would prefer to pay for services I use I invite you, sometime, to think about which services you really use, and try to figure out how much it would cost to purchase each of them if you were doing so on your own. Don't forget: police protection, fire protection, military protectio…

Let's check out the federal budget! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_categor... 19.63% for generational theft, which I pay into but will never see a penny of. 18.74% chiefly for killing brown people on the other side of the planet, generally people who were not a threat to the U.S. 16.13% for programs that are like basic income except that they create awful incentives, are vulnerable to fraud, and…

This is exactly the same rhetorical fallacy that thecodeore made, and that I think is damaging and dishonest to propagate. Which government do you live under that subjects you to an "annual mugging"? Do you really not see a relevant difference between taxation and being forced to give up your money at gunpoint?

We can agree that some of the actual budget allocations of our governments are not ideal. That's not the point. (See what I said in response to yummyfajitas elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6196119) The point is that taxation is not theft, and characterizing it as such unhelpfully distracts from the real and difficult problems of self-government.

Re: The Massachusetts Software Tax

#140

Post by lmm »

thecodeore wrote: post #73
mjn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sort of how I feel about U.S. taxes in general. I paid somewhat lower taxes in the U.S. than Denmark, but it felt like I got a ton less service. Despite paying taxes, there was no public healthcare, even public university charged thousands of dollars in tuition, transit wasn't great, unemployment insurance was relatively poor, public services like libraries were overcrowded, housing assistance had a 10-year wa…

I would prefer to pay for services I use then to have the money stolen from me by force while people pretend it is moral because it is called "taxes"

No-one's doing any pretending. Your morality may differ from other people's, but that doesn't mean theirs is insincere.
Post reply on HN