Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons • Hacker News Board

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#201

Post by whitej125 » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:22 AM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #185

vmception wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the stock goes back up by the end of January so you’d be even, you are way behind there are ETFs created for the sole purpose of circumventing this, by providing exposure to the same asset or market forces the wash sale regulation has amendment aimed at preventing this by prohibiting trades of "substantially similar securities", but I don't think it passes muster or has any teeth. you report all the trades to t…

direct indexing helps with this as well --- own thousands of individual stocks that collectively act as an index, and trade in some losers for their similar competitors every time you have to realize gains But it's not exactly the case you could pull this off with, say, Tesla, unless there's some ETF that's 99% TSLA (is there?)

I direct index... but I don't tax-loss-harvest the index which is what your are describing here (just noting that you can direct index and not do TLH if you want to).

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#202

Post by supernova87a » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:22 AM UTC

It's called tariff engineering for a reason.

Columbia will add an extra pocket below the waistline on a women's shirt so it gets classified as a utility/work garment and they can price it 10% cheaper. https://www.marketplace.org/2019/05/29/theres-a-reason-your-...

Converse will line the rim/bottom of a shoe with felt so it can be classified as a slipper. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-is-why-your-c...

Canon will choose to make an insufficiently sized heatsink on its DSLR so that in video mode it has to shut down after 20 minutes so it can be classified as a camera and not a video recorder. https://www.cined.com/canon-eos-r5-heatsink-mod-improves-rec...

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#203

Post by magicalhippo » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:22 AM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #114

danielfoster wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is on the Internet.

I guess it's not that "infamous," then, is it?

Perhaps the wrong choice of word, English is my second language after all. But it's quite well known in the food importing industry here AFAIK, and most seem to recognize it's exceptionally silly. But it's cheaper...

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#204

Post by rlafranchi » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:25 AM UTC

geocrasher wrote: post #5

This reminds me of the Subaru BRAT in the early '80s. There was a 25% tarrif on imported pickups. So Subaru added two plastic jump seats in the back of the BRAT, even making them face backwards. No seat belts as I recall just handles. They weren't even really intended to be used. They were just cheap plastic. But they served the purpose of making the vehicle a four-seater car instead of a pickup, with only a 2.5% tar…

If anyone has the desire to see one in person, the Subaru dealership in Longmont, CO has a BRAT in their showroom.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#205

Post by sudosysgen » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:27 AM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #202

It's called tariff engineering for a reason. Columbia will add an extra pocket below the waistline on a women's shirt so it gets classified as a utility/work garment and they can price it 10% cheaper. https://www.marketplace.org/2019/05/29/theres-a-reason-your-... Converse will line the rim/bottom of a shoe with felt so it can be classified as a slipper. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-is-why-your-c...…

>Canon will choose to make an insufficiently sized heatsink on its DSLR so that in video mode it has to shut down after 20 minutes so it can be classified as a camera and not a video recorder.

The camera will record indefinitely in 4K line-skipping mode, so that's not actually the reason they didn't put the heatsink on.

That reason is either incompetence or market segmentation.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#206

Post by lazide » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:29 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #87

fredoralive wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that the issue was that Ford, the importer, changed the class of vehicle between import and being sold inside the US. Presumably if you aren't the importer you can go wild (IANAL).

Yeah, so they're really just getting punished for not dotting their is and crossing their ts. They could create a subsidiary with the same board of directors as Ford that they sell the cars to, and then the subsidiary does the dirty work of repurposing the cars from passenger vehicles to cargo vehicles. They skipped paying the $100 corporate registration fee, so now they're on the hook for a billion dollar fine that…

Probably not - that kind of setup gets seen through by judges all the time.

The phrase you’re looking for is ‘criminal conspiracy’

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#207

Post by kentonv » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:30 AM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #194

kentonv wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law isn't interpreted by computers, it is interpreted by human judges, who generally aren't impressed by such hacks (though you might get lucky).

Aren't the seats themselves already a "hack"?

Yes. Seems like Subaru got lucky and Ford didn't.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#208

Post by throwawaylinux » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:43 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #29

HeavenFox wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the Ford vs Chicken Tax; basically U.S. import tariff for passenger van is 2.5% and cargo van is 25%, so Ford, which manufactured their Transit van in Turkey, installed seats in factory and stripped the seats once they arrived in the U.S. Now looks like they are in trouble for this scheme. https://jalopnik.com/ford-faces-potential-1-3-billion-fine-f... (And why it's called Chicken Tax is another fascinat…

Wow. I hope the government loses their lawsuit here. Customs & Border Protection should have absolutely no jurisdiction over what an item is used for once it enters the country.

I've always been lead to believe the intent of a law or regulation is what matters in the eyes of a court.

The Subaru case probably violates the intent as well but maybe that would be a lot harder to prove. But the Ford case they clearly conspired to violate the intent. Which, if "intent" really is the important thing, I suppose should have lead to criminal charges too.

I suppose intent probably matters a bit more when it's the little guy on the receiving end of it.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#209

Post by autoexec » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:56 AM UTC

gumby wrote: post #190

autoexec wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, technically true though I'd think. Mutants aren't human. The X-Gene makes them "Homo sapiens superior" and distinguishes them from humans who were mutated by other means (radiation, spider bites, etc). Do X-men want to erase the distinction or do they just want peaceful coexistence between the two species?

> or do they just want peaceful coexistence between the two species? Are they truly speciated or can they interbreed producing fertile offspring? "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" doesn't really address this as Superman is not a member of genus homo .

Mutants and humans can produce fertile offspring, but hybrids aren't impossible across species just uncommon. Bison and cattle, or grizzlies and polar bears are examples. Where we divide groups into "species" is pretty murky. I'm sure somewhere there has to be a biologist who loves comics enough to sort all this stuff out for us. Then again, I've seen Neanderthals called both a subspecies and a separate species of human too so they should probably sort that one out first.

Re: Adding unusable RAM for tax reasons

#210

Post by alboy » Fri, Jan 21, 2022, 2:58 AM UTC

NoboruWataya wrote: post #101

titusjohnson wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's also overtones of taxation without representation going on here; individuals can vote, and so they have lower taxes than businesses, which can't vote. I'm confused about this statement. Businesses are comprised of individuals, and those individuals (if citizens) can vote. So the business has a vote through the voice of its employees and representation in government through the people employees at a business…

> Or are you saying the legal fiction of business personhood should give the business a ... vote? That just sounds like business owners (individuals) getting 2 or more votes then... I believe the more common proposal is to resolve the contradiction the other way: remove taxes on corporations, as the individuals comprising the corporations generally already pay taxes. That would be politically quite unpopular, but the…

>I believe the more common proposal is to resolve the contradiction the other way: remove taxes on corporations, as the individuals comprising the corporations generally already pay taxes.

Without a wealth tax that would just make tax evasion even easier for the ultrawealthy in the usual manner of borrowing against the equity of the stock they own.