451–460 of 512 posts
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I don't think that's quite how that works. But your point on double-taxation is certainly valid in some contexts.
It is exactly how it works. Apple has been taxed on the profits that make up their giant cash balance. Once that is paid out to investors through dividends or to employees through payrolls, it will get taxed again.
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>The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. No it wouldn't. Our current regulated lobby 'industry' is an attempt to control something that would happen ANYWAY if it was made illegal. Furthermore, lobbying is necessary and a core part of any democracy. You need to be able to petition your representative government for changes, regardless if you're a regular citizen, an activist, a business owne…
Speeding happens anyway even though it is illegal, but at least there are legal consequences for speeding to deter people.
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It is absolutely regressive when the top earners, presumably earning millions more than I do, end up paying less tax than I do.
What if they are applying a carry loss forward that year? To account for all the money lost in an investment last year? Should we stop doing that?
Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that? Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.
Slave owners followed the law also. Kings followed the law.
If we can't get mad at companies for following the law, can we at least be mad at them for creating these laws?
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I don't think that's quite how that works. But your point on double-taxation is certainly valid in some contexts.
Some jurisdictions (Australia) have input credits that offset tax already paid on dividends. If a company has paid 30% tax on a profit and distributes dividends to shareholders, the individual pays tax on it at their marginal tax rate less the tax already paid by the company (fully franked dividend). Franking credits minimise the double taxation issue in these instances.
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>"If you don't like the law elect different politicians." What an incredibly naive statement that is. Of the 11K registered lobbyists in Washington, DC more than half of them 6200 of them worked on tax related issues in 2017. 4,200 of them specifically on tax reform[1][2][3] Put another way that is 11 lobbyists for every individual member of congress. The lobbyists are the ones shaping the tax code. Further tax refor…
> The lobbyists are the ones shaping the tax code. Further tax reform is a generational thing, the last time it was taken up was under Reagan in 1986. Simply "electing different politicians" will accomplish nothing. If the lobbyists had infinite power, I guess the corporate tax rate would be zero -- or negative. So, popular voting must be accomplishing something. > mature legal system, a stable government, and infras…
Nowhere did I or anyone suggest that lobbyists had "infinite power." Further Lobbyists work on behalf of specific industries or specific companies to to get specific provisions that benefit their client(s). There is no "corporate tax rate lobby" working on behalf of corporate clients everywhere. So no there is absolutely no reason the tax rate would ever be zero. What an absurd comment. Popular voting? Firstly he electoral system in the US isn't even based on "popular vote" it's based on electoral vote. And there is zero connection between the practice of voting and the practice of lobbying.
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No, it's the opposite. It's saying, "get the facts first", and I gave a few examples (some positive and some negative), at a high level of abstraction, of what would and wouldn't be objectionable. I completely agree that you shouldn't need to know the whole tax code to say, "deducting arbitrary figures for payments to a foreign subsidiary shouldn't be allowed and is shady". But "profits didn't cancel out recent losse…
It is really contreversial to have a defensive tone when it comes to corporate taxes. Tell me a year you made money and paid 0 taxes. Or anyone? Why cant we have a sceptical approach when the topic in question is large corps?
Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that? Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.
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I would argue that congresspeople are not experts in general in most (all in some cases?) domains, and make generally totally uninformed decisions that are designed to pander to a political base. And lobbyists aren't experts either, they're simply paid to bribe people to get a result.
> And lobbyists aren't experts either, they're simply paid to bribe people to get a result. This implies that the EFF does not have expertise in privacy and free speech. Would you agree with that?
EFF is probably the antithesis of most lobbyists, certainly the ones being discussed here.
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The US isn't a "flawed democracy", it's intentionally not a democracy.
The US is a democracy. It's not a direct democracy. it's flawed because the system is outdated and broken. It was a system designed to consolidate power among white landowners and to be extremely difficult to change. It's not a surprise it's got issues.
It was designed to be difficult to change because democracies always fail when the majority decides the rule of law is no longer important.