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

Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 99 posts

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#41

Post by gnicholas »

The Bloomberg article links to a blog post by Warren, which is headlined by a graphic that says: You probably pay more in federal income taxes than America's biggest, most profitable corporations.

This strikes me as an inflammatory — and generally untrue — statement. Even if you assume that all of these corporations pay zero federal income tax (they don't), then roughly half of Americans don't pay more (recall Mitt Romney's impolitic-but-true statement about 47% of Americans not paying any federal income tax).

But of course, most companies do actually pay federal income taxes, and when they don't it's often because of loss carryforwards. This particular aspect of tax law is not a "loophole", and lumping it in with lobbied-for tax credits/deductions doesn't help move the discourse forward.

The scope of the proposed tax hasn't been fully fleshed out, and I won't comment in-depth on it (as a former tax lawyer) at this point. But when I click through to see the original proposal and am greeted by this inflammatory and untrue statement, I am reminded that even the wonkiest of policy wonks will spin things pretty hard when it's election season.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#42

Post by rb808 »

olliej wrote: post #33
rb808 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think this is the real problem. Most people think Amazon makes a lot of money. They even say they made $12B, but they gave billions to of RSUs to employees so the IRS wisely says they didn't make much. The truth is they didn't make much/any money which is why their tax is low.

The problem I have is being able to report different profits to different groups - you should be required to have a single pretax profit number, and that is what you report. If you really don’t make money then you should be required to report that to your shareholders, and conversely if you tell your shareholders you’re making money, then you should be required to report that value to the irs. I don’t care which one…

Choose the tax number.

"Accounting for Growth" was a classic book written after the late 80's stock market bubble in the UK about how people were fooled by bad accounting and how to spot fraud. One of the main pieces of advice is that the tax number is usually more correct. If a company says it makes huge profit while paying little tax its likely not real profit.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#43

Post by Terr_ »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #25
andrewstuart wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Taxes come out of people's pockets, not corporations. That's not correct - corporations are meant to be paying significant tax.

It is correct. People own corporations. So if you're taxing a corporation, you're actually just taxing the people that own it. (And/or its customers or employees.) The only point in taxing corporations vs. people directly is if you're trying to target a set that's difficult to tax otherwise, such as rich people who own big corps but don't realize a lot of income on their own balance sheet. Which IMO is a fair group t…

> The only point in taxing corporations vs. people directly is

I disagree, you're skipping a huge governmental benefit that almost all the biggest corporations request/receive: "Limited Liability."

If Nuclear Asbestos Infant Toys goes bankrupt, everybody else is picking up the tab for land-cleanup and tumor-removal.

In other words, those owners have chosen to socialize their company's risks, so it's only natural and fair for some of the company's profits to be socialized at the same junction.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#44

Post by zzzeek »

jimmy1 wrote: post #37
andrewstuart wrote: post #17

Taxes are a good thing. They pay, or should pay, for education, health, military, roads and infrastructure and a wide variety of other stuff that is good for everyone. It puzzles me that people hate taxes so much.

> It puzzles me that people hate taxes so much. People's problems with taxes typically fall into two buckets, sometimes both. 1. On a fundamental economics level, the Government is an inefficient third party spender: it spends other peoples money on services it doesn't utilize. There is no feedback loop there besides bureaucracy. 2. We actually have a pretty moderate tax burden already, mostly footed by the average U…

76% of voters favor higher taxes on the wealthiest americans, 61% favor Warren's "wealth tax", and even 40% support a marginal tax rate of 70% on americans earning $10M or more:

http://fortune.com/2019/02/04/support-for-tax-increase-on-we...

this would contradict your theory that "the common worker hates taxes", since most Americans want more taxation, not less.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#45

Post by Lazare »

andrewstuart wrote: post #11
Eridrus wrote: post #10

Why should I care about the corporate tax burden? Taxes come out of people's pockets, not corporations. There's an argument to be made that we can get foreign shareholders to pay taxes they otherwise wouldn't, but that's a much different argument than "corporations aren't paying their fare share".

>> Taxes come out of people's pockets, not corporations. That's not correct - corporations are meant to be paying significant tax.

A lot of places have a tax on houses, but that doesn't mean the house is paying the tax. :)

Ultimately corporate taxes come out of the pockets of owners (via lower profits), workers (via lower wages), and customers (via higher prices), with the exact incidence depending on a number of factors.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#46

Post by refurb »

andrewstuart wrote: post #17

Taxes are a good thing. They pay, or should pay, for education, health, military, roads and infrastructure and a wide variety of other stuff that is good for everyone. It puzzles me that people hate taxes so much.

They hate them mostly because the money is wasted or appears to be wasted.

I’m on the more conservative side of things, but I’m not opposed to taxes if they are efficiently spent.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#47

Post by scottlegrand2 »

malandrew wrote: post #8
scottlegrand2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would extend this sort of simplification to individuals as well. I'd give them a huge upfront deduction all the way up to the median income and then flat tax the remainder.

This just creates a disincentive for those corporations and individuals that are being the most productive. People need to remember that the United States doesn't exist in a vacuum. We are in competition with all the other countries out there. Maximizing productivity matters at a national level. The more competitive we are, the better off Americans are on average. If we lose that lead position to other countries, we…

Oh but there is an incentive here: the higher the median wage, the higher the deduction everyone gets.

And for those below the median wage, they can just keep making all the money they want all the way up to that median wage and pay $0 in taxes.

What exactly am I missing that's giving me all these downvotes? I just want a fair tax code all the way up and down the socioeconomic ladder and I want to wipe out all those incredible deductions given to the capital gains class so that we're all on the same page.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#48

Post by closeparen »

zzzeek wrote: post #44
jimmy1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It puzzles me that people hate taxes so much. People's problems with taxes typically fall into two buckets, sometimes both. 1. On a fundamental economics level, the Government is an inefficient third party spender: it spends other peoples money on services it doesn't utilize. There is no feedback loop there besides bureaucracy. 2. We actually have a pretty moderate tax burden already, mostly footed by the average U…

76% of voters favor higher taxes on the wealthiest americans, 61% favor Warren's "wealth tax", and even 40% support a marginal tax rate of 70% on americans earning $10M or more: http://fortune.com/2019/02/04/support-for-tax-increase-on-we... this would contradict your theory that "the common worker hates taxes", since most Americans want more taxation, not less.

More taxation for other people, not themselves.

If you hate taxes and love services, the obvious thing is to get someone else to pay for them.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#49

Post by sigzero »

andrewstuart wrote: post #17

Taxes are a good thing. They pay, or should pay, for education, health, military, roads and infrastructure and a wide variety of other stuff that is good for everyone. It puzzles me that people hate taxes so much.

I don't agree with the education part. There are other ways to do that. Health I could be on board for, but they lost me at you get fined if you don't participate. That's crap. A lot of people are already taxed to the breaking point and you would have a hard time convincing them. Lastly, the money is mine and not the governments and they already play fast and loose with taxes.

Re: Warren Has a Good Beginning for Ending Corporate-Tax Avoidance

#50

Post by thrill »

zzzeek wrote: post #44
jimmy1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It puzzles me that people hate taxes so much. People's problems with taxes typically fall into two buckets, sometimes both. 1. On a fundamental economics level, the Government is an inefficient third party spender: it spends other peoples money on services it doesn't utilize. There is no feedback loop there besides bureaucracy. 2. We actually have a pretty moderate tax burden already, mostly footed by the average U…

76% of voters favor higher taxes on the wealthiest americans, 61% favor Warren's "wealth tax", and even 40% support a marginal tax rate of 70% on americans earning $10M or more: http://fortune.com/2019/02/04/support-for-tax-increase-on-we... this would contradict your theory that "the common worker hates taxes", since most Americans want more taxation, not less.

Yet another reason why the Founders' recognition that ruling via a simple majority was an eventual death knoll for a society.
Post reply on HN