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Telegram Isn't for Sale

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Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#141

Post by thriftwy »

Vinnl wrote: post #51
ekianjo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Besides, it’s not about just me: the whole point of taxes is that it gives options to everyone, not just those lucky enough to be born to wealthy parents. Then how does this thinking fit with the reality of taxes increasing everywhere, year after year? Does that mean that services are getting better? Because you know, it's actually the opposite. It's getting worse: more and more illiteracy in schools, inflation of…

> Does that mean that services are getting better? One part of it is that there's more of it: more elderly people that require and receive care.

Being 32, I fail to understand how it benefits my bottom line.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#142

Post by nickik »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #33
nickik wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a total BS argument. Nobody ever payed these taxes. Its far more accurate to look at what part of the GDP the government is spending. That number was the further back you go.

I'm citing my sources. You could at least show me the courtesy of doing the same.

I'm not saying the 90% number did not exist. My point is that overall government was lower then. What part of that are you not understanding?

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#143

Post by baybal2 »

baybal2 wrote: post #102
eps wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a source for the first claim? Second would've been a red flag if the Russian gvmnt would've been routinely blocking other chat systems.

>Got a source for the first claim? Here: https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/pavel-durov-sued-senior-...

In the very end of the article, there are photos of the Telegraph LLC, the company behind Telegram, just a floor below the currently government owned VKontakte

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#144

Post by mrwong »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #119
JoshTriplett wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You really should stop and think what you get from the state before you criticise what the state takes from you. And when you're done doing so, and decide that it's not a good deal for the money, then you're told to do it again, and again, until you get the "right" answer the person patronizingly telling you to do so expects. It's reasonable to have a discussion about the most reasonable, efficient, and appropriate…

History shows us that privatization always ends up being more expensive for the average person, while still providing lower-quality service than the old public system.

Example please? By that line of thinking the Soviet Union must have had the best and cheapest service and products. Also Venezuela should be a total Dream right now without empty stores, starving children, no murder rampage.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#145

Post by shalmanese »

slazaro wrote: post #111
samat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have opted for user convinience on this matter. Fully searchable history of all communication synced on all your devices. A nightmare for a dissident attacked by state, but convinience 90% of the population should not be stripped of.

Is it technically impossible to have end to end encryption with full history, even synced? As long as you have the decryption key, you could have synced encrypted history, the best of both worlds, right?

It's not technically impossible but it is tricky. Signal hasn't figured it out yet but a university research group has a fork of Signal that claims to support it in a privacy preserving way but it hasn't undergone a thorough security audit.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#146

Post by mrwong »

WA wrote: post #21
mrwong wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax burden in Germany for middleclass is at around 70%. Beeing a software engineer in germany means that you code 8months for the government and 4months for yourself. The western governments introduced more and more “hidden” taxes. So just looking at income tax is not fair. Just because he advocates for lower taxes doesn’t mean he want anarchy.

70%? How do you come up with that? It's roughly 40.5% for most middle class people. If your salary is 4,000€ per month, you get wired 2,380€ to your bank account. Income tax, social security contributions, retirement contributions etc. already deducted. You could add 19% VAT for all purchases on your tax burden, but that's not 70%.

Like I said its hidden. E.g. my employe pays around 90k for me of which I only see 78k then they apply Tax, pension, healthcare, mandatory unemployment insurance etc, Im left with around 40k. Then i go and spend it and it again gets taxed with 19%. Many products have beeryax, coffetax etc. higest is petrol tax which is 70%. So If i spend 200€ on petrol an month, 70% is tax. I could go on and on. like I said those tax are hidden.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#147

Post by germanier »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #130
germanier wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly what I said above: The Roman Catholic church is a single world-wide entity and if you become member in one country your rights and duties carry over to Germany if you move here. > but answer questions about your upbringing truthfully Whether or not you answer questions truthfully has no impact on taxation. You might get around paying it if you lie but you are still liable for the tax. > same penalties an…

> Mit der Aufnahme der persönlichen Daten bei der Behörde werden die Betreffenden u.a. nach ihrem Religionsstatus gefragt. Die Frage der Verwaltungsbeamten lautet nicht etwa: „Sind Sie Mitglied der „Körperschaft des Öffentlichen Rechts Katholische Kirche Deutschland“? Das wäre korrekt. Auf diese Frage würden sie zutreffend mit Nein antworten, denn sie wurden in ihrem Heimatland getauft und nicht in Deutschland. > Der…

Sorry, that page is a complete misinterpretation of the actual laws. This question is only of declaratory nature of already established facts and has no influence on the actual taxation status (if it ever becomes a court case that is thoroughly examined). You do not become a member of a religious entity by answering a question there (the state has no power at all to decide to admitting new members) – mistakes made while filling the form are always curable. It's the same thing as with marriage status on the same form: You do not simply become married by answering a question there wrongly nor can you claim tax benefits by doing so.

There is no difference between the "Körperschaft des Öffentlichen Rechts Katholische Kirche Deutschland" and the worldwide catholic church. That's a single entity.

(I say that as a non-religious person that never has been a member of a religious entity. If a community decides to tax its members they should be free to.)

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#148

Post by candiodari »

Maarten88 wrote: post #128
pavlov wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't pretend to know anything about the Belgian tax code or labor laws. But this strikes me as odd way to do the math: > $1 -> First, because yearly the employer has to pay you for 13.92 months, not 12 (end of year bonus thing), we take that out. That's 14% (but you get 20 days 1.5 times paid holidays, and an end of year bonus, which is taxed at a higher rate, but you do get that) Why are you subtracting 14% from…

Another bug in the calculation is the VAT. Apple will recover most (probably even all) of it on the purchase side of their balance.

1) this is from the perspective of the employee. Since Apple does what everyone does, they add 21% to the purchase price, therefore the employee buying the final product does bear this cost.

2) what you're saying might be true, but it shouldn't. And it certainly isn't true for non-multinational businesses. They (should) pay 21% on their (revenue - COGS). Of course Apple fakes this (like FB, GOOG, XOM, ...) by including "intellectual property from Apple Bahamas" as a resource all their products are "made from", and it "somehow" eats up all of the profit they would normally have to pay VAT on. But this is tax avoidance/abuse, and not the normal case. Frankly, this should be illegal, but that's impossible due to international treaties.

So perhaps you could say that since Apple is a big multinational it is a bad example as that makes it much more complex. But it doesn't change how taxes work for everyday purchases.

Make it "a locally made can of beer" and none of this applies at all.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#149

Post by eps »

baybal2 wrote: post #143
baybal2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Got a source for the first claim? Here: https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/pavel-durov-sued-senior-...

In the very end of the article, there are photos of the Telegraph LLC, the company behind Telegram, just a floor below the currently government owned VKontakte

Re: servers - there are several paragraphs in the middle detailing Telegram's DC move to London. So your server farm claim is still unconfirmed.

Re: the office - from what I gather, they maintain a shell company in Russia that sits in the former Telegram office. The photo merely shows that they may have a large office space, which may have been inherited by this company from their VK split for all we know. I really can't tell from this post if they do any development in their Moscow office.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#150

Post by KozmoNau7 »

mrwong wrote: post #144
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History shows us that privatization always ends up being more expensive for the average person, while still providing lower-quality service than the old public system.

Example please? By that line of thinking the Soviet Union must have had the best and cheapest service and products. Also Venezuela should be a total Dream right now without empty stores, starving children, no murder rampage.

I did not in any way imply that a strict top-controlled planned economy system like in the USSR was better. I also did not imply that the current state of chaos in Venezuela is preferable (and that happened due to a bone-headed reliance on a single big export product, which completely collapsed when global oil prices crashed).

I'll amend my statement to "privatization of a functional public system, ostensibly to provide better/cheaper service".

Examples from my own backyard include the Danish State Railways, Ørsted (previously DONG), TDC (previously TeleDanmark, which was previously KTAS, JTAS and Fynsk Telefon) and others.

Were they perfect? No, there was a lot of waste and mismanagement of resources. But as investors came in and demanded rationalization and austerity measures in the name of Holy Profit, customer service and general quality plummeted.

The current state of ISPs/telcos in the US is another good example of privatization gone bad.

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