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Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

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Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#31

Post by rrrrreeeee »

Shivetya wrote: post #14

Chicago is in the hole for nearly thirty billion dollars. They have been floating the idea of a ten billion dollar bond with the debt structured in a way which lets current politicians escape the fallout from its payment and not having to raise property taxes. The state of Illinois is not well off either with debts estimated at the low of one hundred thirty billion to two hundred fifty billion. An Illinois proposal j…

Do the employees and employers not pay into a separate fund that cannot be touched? I fail to see how it's the fault of the pensioners. It's absolutely archaic if the future taxpayers have to pay for a retirees pension. In Canada we have pension funds that are separately funded entities that are payed into over an employee's career.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#32

Post by Mirioron »

reaperducer wrote: post #12
dontbenebby wrote: post #8

I thought the main reason states collect tax on Amazon purchases is because they have a presence in a state (distribution centers, warehouses, etc)? I'm confused how the legal thinking goes that a company not based in Chicago, offering services on the internet, can be taxed. (They don't even ship DVDs to most customers, whereas Amazon was shipping physical goods)

It's an entertainment tax. Netflix supplies entertainment to people in the city of Chicago, and so the city of Chicago taxes that entertainment. Same thing with concert tickets and other forms of entertainment.

And if every city and town has their own tax that's different in some way? Then what?

Or alternatively, could Netflix ban all residents of Chicago?

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#33

Post by lotsofpulp »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #26
outside1234 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just pay them market rate and give them 401ks like everyone else - what am I missing? Why do we keep doing this to ourselves with government jobs?

> Why do we keep doing this to ourselves with government jobs? Because the politician who agrees to the largess will be long gone before the bill comes due. Not sure how to fix this, but generally I think some sort of additional checks and balances should be required whenever government takes on huge future liabilities.

Easy to fix, ban long term compensation agreements. If a union wants an annuity, they can go buy it from an insurance company. No need to negotiate anything other than cash salaries. Unfortunately, not enough taxpayers vote to offset the government workers voting themselves benefits as a bloc.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#34

Post by mindslight »

Maybe instead of putting on a show in court, Netflix et al should simply stop asking people for their physical addresses? I mean, that is the underlying vulnerability that will allow this push to succeed.

We were so excited for the promise of the Internet to overturn all this legacy bullshit. Then the legacy bullshitters got here, built a bunch of proprietary services on top of HTTP, marketed them as progress, and are slowly reimplementing the status quo!

The Internet option, piracy, has been here the whole time. It's just "inconvenient" people say, as they repeatedly complain about new inconveniences caused by centralized services. In reality, it's simply the poverty mindset - a little bit of self-actualizing work today would pay off tenfold down the road.

I look forward to the next phase of storage getting cheap enough, along with streaming services fragmenting themselves, that it becomes trendy to trade USB keys with friends.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#35

Post by lostphilosopher »

outside1234 wrote: post #20
gfodor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling or cutting the pensions of retired public service workers (many of whom who risked their lives to protect the public) would, beyond the ethical questions, eliminate the credibility of the city's promises to those who sign up for such jobs and hence would likely greatly reduce the quantity and quality of recruits.

Just pay them market rate and give them 401ks like everyone else - what am I missing? Why do we keep doing this to ourselves with government jobs?

Doing this requires spending money now. You can get away with funding pensions with IOUs much longer than you can do it with a salary or 401k. Further the benefits of solving this kick in long after you are out of office, assuming no one breaks your system before then.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#36

Post by lotsofpulp »

rrrrreeeee wrote: post #31
Shivetya wrote: post #14

Chicago is in the hole for nearly thirty billion dollars. They have been floating the idea of a ten billion dollar bond with the debt structured in a way which lets current politicians escape the fallout from its payment and not having to raise property taxes. The state of Illinois is not well off either with debts estimated at the low of one hundred thirty billion to two hundred fifty billion. An Illinois proposal j…

Do the employees and employers not pay into a separate fund that cannot be touched? I fail to see how it's the fault of the pensioners. It's absolutely archaic if the future taxpayers have to pay for a retirees pension. In Canada we have pension funds that are separately funded entities that are payed into over an employee's career.

How do you ensure the funds are invested properly, and not in a nephew's real estate development project? How do you ensure the correct assumptions are used in calculating how much to contribute into the fund in the first place? You can adjust mortality tables and investment return assumptions to make the benefits seem cheaper than they are. The government can even choose to forego making their understated contribution if they vote themselves to forego it! (which many governments frequently have)

People's eyes glaze over when talking about their own 401k, what chance is there for voters to get into the nitty gritty about multiple government agencies' pension liabilities and investments at the city/county/state/federal level?

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#37

Post by scarface74 »

gfodor wrote: post #16
Shivetya wrote: post #14

Chicago is in the hole for nearly thirty billion dollars. They have been floating the idea of a ten billion dollar bond with the debt structured in a way which lets current politicians escape the fallout from its payment and not having to raise property taxes. The state of Illinois is not well off either with debts estimated at the low of one hundred thirty billion to two hundred fifty billion. An Illinois proposal j…

Pulling or cutting the pensions of retired public service workers (many of whom who risked their lives to protect the public) would, beyond the ethical questions, eliminate the credibility of the city's promises to those who sign up for such jobs and hence would likely greatly reduce the quantity and quality of recruits.

The whole idea of policemen “risking their lives” is not statistically accurate. Only 144 policemen died in the line of duty in the entire United States last year (https://www.npr.org/2018/12/27/680410169/more-police-officer...)

The Chicago police department isn’t exactly what most people would call “quality”.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#38

Post by BurningFrog »

outside1234 wrote: post #20
gfodor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling or cutting the pensions of retired public service workers (many of whom who risked their lives to protect the public) would, beyond the ethical questions, eliminate the credibility of the city's promises to those who sign up for such jobs and hence would likely greatly reduce the quantity and quality of recruits.

Just pay them market rate and give them 401ks like everyone else - what am I missing? Why do we keep doing this to ourselves with government jobs?

> Why do we keep doing this to ourselves with government jobs?

Time horizon arbitrage.

The elected politicians care about things looking good the next 4 years. The employee unions care about the life long outcome for their members.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#40

Post by aswanson »

scarface74 wrote: post #37
gfodor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling or cutting the pensions of retired public service workers (many of whom who risked their lives to protect the public) would, beyond the ethical questions, eliminate the credibility of the city's promises to those who sign up for such jobs and hence would likely greatly reduce the quantity and quality of recruits.

The whole idea of policemen “risking their lives” is not statistically accurate. Only 144 policemen died in the line of duty in the entire United States last year ( https://www.npr.org/2018/12/27/680410169/more-police-officer... ) The Chicago police department isn’t exactly what most people would call “quality”.

It's not even in the top 10 most dangerous occupations: https://www.ajc.com/news/world/these-are-the-deadliest-jobs-...
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