61–70 of 93 posts
I wonder if Vanguards patented way to manage their funds to reduce taxes be affected by this settlement.
Vanguard already gets a blind eye for their management structure’s taxation because they manage the retirement accounts of so many common people without greed.
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> designing complex financial products who's to say it wasn't useful? after all, somebody paid for this complex financial products, so objectively speaking, they must have found it useful enough to have paid for it.
No, that isn’t what “objectively useful” means. Wealthy people pay for this engineering because it helps maintain and increase their wealth. That’s about it. There is zero societal benefit from something like a CDO.
> what “objectively useful” means.
what contradictory beliefs you hold.
You are making a subjective value judgement (your own) on what makes something beneficial to society, and yet claim that the actual objective measure - that of using money to measure value - is not what "objectively useful" means.
Value to society isn't an objective measure. Otherwise, social workers and charity would be rolling in money.
It's always amazing to me how in the world of high profile white collar criminality you can make billions and your punishment is to pay a few percent of it back. I wish ordinary theft worked like this. Steal 500 bucks and your punishment is to return 100.
Tax rules are complicated, and these hedge funds are relying on technicalities to reduce their tax burden. This one didn't work out, but you can be sure their lawyers looked at the code and can say with a straight face that they didn't know how the IRS would rule. That doesn't make you a criminal. It also sounds like they're paying back the entire amount in question, not "a few percent."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that isn’t what “objectively useful” means. Wealthy people pay for this engineering because it helps maintain and increase their wealth. That’s about it. There is zero societal benefit from something like a CDO.
> There is zero societal benefit > what “objectively useful” means. what contradictory beliefs you hold. You are making a subjective value judgement (your own) on what makes something beneficial to society, and yet claim that the actual objective measure - that of using money to measure value - is not what "objectively useful" means. Value to society isn't an objective measure. Otherwise, social workers and charity w…
This is obvious if you consider another example. Imagine a marketplace for hitmen. Clearly some people would pay for such a thing. Does that make it useful? Maybe? Does that mean we should think it’s a good thing? Probably not.
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Why work for society's benefit at the expense of your well-being? I once asked an Oxford-educated post-doc, who had worked as a quant, "are you going to go back to finance?" He replied that he simply doesn't know. He wants to do mathematical research, but both academia and industry stifle such ambitions. For the former, unless you're in the literal handful at IAS, you'll have to waste the majority of your time teachi…
Yes, one can’t really blame the individuals themselves. Especially when the incomes are double or triple that of academia. It is a deep structural problem.
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Yes, one can’t really blame the individuals themselves. Especially when the incomes are double or triple that of academia. It is a deep structural problem.
That estimate seems … low
It's always amazing to me how in the world of high profile white collar criminality you can make billions and your punishment is to pay a few percent of it back. I wish ordinary theft worked like this. Steal 500 bucks and your punishment is to return 100.
A large business could seek out the opinion of ten different tax professionals and get a range of answers of how much tax the law requires them to pay. Even the IRS may not be certain. It's not unusual or unexpected that a business may have a disagreement with the IRS on how to interpret the law. If the taxpayer and the IRS can't come to an agreement, then the only way to resolve it is to take it to court and force a judge to make a call - the ruling then at least provides certainty to other businesses in the same situation.
For most people, their experience of paying tax as an individual has little relevance to the tax affairs of large businesses. Since there are millions of individuals, for any area of the law that's ambiguous, someone has already challenged the IRS and had the matter resolved in court, providing clarity for other individuals. This is not true for some businesses as there may only be a handful of other businesses (or even none at all) in a similar situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why work for society's benefit at the expense of your well-being? I once asked an Oxford-educated post-doc, who had worked as a quant, "are you going to go back to finance?" He replied that he simply doesn't know. He wants to do mathematical research, but both academia and industry stifle such ambitions. For the former, unless you're in the literal handful at IAS, you'll have to waste the majority of your time teachi…
Yes, one can’t really blame the individuals themselves. Especially when the incomes are double or triple that of academia. It is a deep structural problem.
Because I fell into an edge case, had I moved from my post-doc to a professorship, I would have faced a 20% pay cut. And that's not because my post-doc was well paid; after I factored in the side-costs of the position I was not that far above minimum wage. And this was at an elite European research group where the professor was doing his best to take care of me.
So I moved to industry.
The amount of human capital that has gone into financial engineering is depressing. Thousands of brilliant minds who are designing complex financial products instead of useful technology.
Something something can't execute a transaction for the sole purpose of avoiding tax...
> Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.