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Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

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Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#61

Post by unstatusthequo »

peterbecich wrote: post #52

Why is a corporate tax necessary? It would be simpler to increase the income tax. EU has low corporate taxes and higher income taxes i.i.r.c.

I wish you were kidding but I doubt it given how much taxes are loved on HN. Income taxes are too high as they are. Taxed when you earn, tax when you spend, taxed on property, taxed to use your car, to fill your car or EV, taxed on inheritance, taxed on capital gains, etc. It’s out of control and is making the income division worse. Corporations R posting massive profits, dodging fair tax payments through creative loopholes, and then our lawmakers mis-spend the taxes they do taken. The entire system is broken.

And I really don’t think the EU is a model for tax sanity. Look at eliminating loopholes, not squeezing the average Joe even more than they already are. Their shit salary isn’t even keeping up with inflation. But their taxes sure do.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#62

Post by paxys »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #5

What a PR powerhouse. Publicly saying "we paid lots of tax" would be career suicide for a tech CEO.

I'm trying to imagine what would happen to the random Berkshire board member who floats the idea of replacing Buffett.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#63

Post by throw678937 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #35
kristopolous wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you honestly say when the people were drafting how IRAs would work they were thinking this as an intended use-case?

Can you say why employees of large and well funded businesses get to save $23k+ per year in 401k, but employees of small and less well funded businesses can only save $7k per year in an IRA?

[dead]

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#64

Post by viraptor »

learn-forever wrote: post #37
vel0city wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if a household was only taxed on the money they managed to put away in savings and could count housing expenses, food expenses, education costs, healthcare, entertainment, vacations, vehicle purchases, etc. 100% against their income.

are you agitating to tax companies that lose money?

Yes! That's the VC funded model - money injection while you burn cash and run on losses until you're big enough for a huge return. Which incentivises all sorts of bad behaviours. Same with Hollywood accounting. Just tax a bit less on revenue.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#65

Post by FredPret »

Here's some interesting thinking about different kinds of tax:

https://economicsobservatory.com/which-taxes-are-best-and-wo...

> "Raising the income tax rate has by far the least negative effect on GDP. In the long run, the simulation shows that the economy pretty much returns to baseline levels, with a slight increase in potential output.

The opposite is true for corporation taxes. A rise in the corporation tax rate leads to a severe and negative initial fall in GDP. Potential output also decreases. This leads to lower productivity, higher inflationary pressures and deteriorating economic circumstances in the long run.

A rise in indirect taxes (such as VAT) does not affect GDP quite as badly as a rise in corporation taxes, but it does affect GDP more substantially than a rise in income taxes. Indirect taxes operate largely through the price channel, increasing the prices of goods. By artificially raising prices, demand is curtailed."

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#66

Post by jazzyjackson »

merth wrote: post #60
peterbecich wrote: post #52

Why is a corporate tax necessary? It would be simpler to increase the income tax. EU has low corporate taxes and higher income taxes i.i.r.c.

I think because they don't get any dividend to trigger income tax, instead they get a loan against their shares and spend that and roll over the debt to infinity.

I feel like this is a myth people share without ever looking into. You service the debt with income that you make and pay tax on the income you service the debt with

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#67

Post by shermantanktop »

tekla wrote: post #38
kristopolous wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-t... Some examples: > Food conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland enjoyed $438 million of U.S. pretax income last year and received a federal tax rebate of $164 million. > The delivery giant FedEx zeroed out its federal income tax on $1.2 billion of U.S. pretax income in 2020 and received a rebate of $230 million. > The shoe manufacturer Nike didn’t pay a dime o…

How is it a loophole when it was literally legally allowed, not even as a slight of hand.

Some loopholes are an accident. Some are intentionally put in place by parties interested in traveling through the loophole, benefiting from doing that, and then claiming they would be stupid not to do so.

Those cases are different, even though the legal status of them may be the same.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#68

Post by dh2022 »

peterbecich wrote: post #52

Why is a corporate tax necessary? It would be simpler to increase the income tax. EU has low corporate taxes and higher income taxes i.i.r.c.

By income taxes do you mean personal income tax?

In any case, corporations benefit from airports / roads / ports / law enforcement / defense / education / etc... which are funded by local / federal governments. So corporations have a moral duty for to contribute to these expenses by paying taxes.

(But it is only a moral duty, and not a legal obligation. So corporations end up paying nothing, or next to nothing.)

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#69

Post by gruez »

energywut wrote: post #44
gruez wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>could count housing expenses, food expenses, education costs, healthcare, entertainment, vacations, vehicle purchases That's what the standard/itemized deduction is supposed to represent. The problem is that we obviously can't let you deduct everything, because if you can deduct everything there would be nothing to tax, aside from savings. And you really don't want to tax savings because savings (also known as "inve…

I most certainly cannot deduct housing, food, entertainment, vacations, or large purchases. > The problem is that we obviously can't let you deduct everything, because if you can deduct everything there would be nothing to tax, aside from savings. This is the point the parent poster is making. We say that it's ok for corporations to deduct everything, but not the people? Why are we ok with that?

>This is the point the parent poster is making. We say that it's ok for corporations to deduct everything, but not the people? Why are we ok with that?

Because companies, to some approximation, are pass-through entities, so it doesn't make sense to tax them. Most of the stuff you buy are for own use/consumption. Food is an obvious one, but so are movie tickets TV and last year's European vacation. Companies don't do any of that. It doesn't need food, movie tickets, or European vacations. It might buy flight tickets for its employees to go on sales trips or whatever, but it's not for the company itself. Moreover if you're buying stuff for business purposes (eg. you're a contractor and need a flight ticket to go meet your client), you can deduct it too.

More practically, taxing revenue or not allowing companies to deduct expenses would heavily encourage vertical integration. A vertically integrated widget factory will only have to pay such a tax once, but a widget factory that buys its sheet metal from a foundry, which gets its ores from a miner will have to pay the tax 3 times. That's bad for the economy because it discourages specialization and division of labor, which is basically the other pillar of the modern economy.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#70

Post by bluefirebrand »

sneak wrote: post #23
asadotzler wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair means the same playing field, the same rules, the same consistent outcomes from all the corporations subject to these laws and regulations, and not just one of them who does the right thing. Exercizing loopholes is the opposite of fair. It puts those with the best cheating strategies ahead of those who play by the rules. Because you can catch the ref with his back turned doesn't make you a fair player.

Loopholes are the definition of playing by the rules. Laws are not enacted in spirit, they are drafted, voted on, and enacted in text . What the law says is what matters, not what people assume it wants to achieve. To claim that complying with the law exactly as it is written is unfair is, quite frankly, undemocratic and an outright rejection of the rule of law.

No, criticising the laws for being written in such a way that allow loophole behavior is not undemocratic. In any reasonable democracy you're allowed to criticise laws however much you please
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