> some
I'd call that a success.
Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
81–90 of 175 posts
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#82The intellectual dishonesty of this from allegedly smart people continues to astound me. Amazon has little-to-no taxes mainly because they have such low taxable income in the first place because they spend so much in R&D and other things. They’re actually creating jobs and new businesses rather than showing massive profits and paying a ton in taxes. I have no doubt they take advantage of perfectly legal tax code item…
They reported $12 billion in profit last year. That's not low.
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner in charge of competition, said Luxembourg’s “illegal tax advantages to Amazon” had allowed almost three-quarters of the company’s profits to go untaxed, allowing it to pay four times less tax than local rivals." https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/04/amazon-eu...
That is in EU, we're talking about the USA corporation.
The fact that they're not so neatly distinguishable is very much at the heart of the problem. One of the main ways companies avoid tax is by making it appear that their revenue, profits, and (to a lesser extent) costs are somewhere other than where they really are. Amazon in the US is very much aware of the tax implications of hiring or locating assets in the EU, whether legitimately or as a pure dodge, and depends on the difference.
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
but the rent and bills of a corporation are deductable? Why is it different? A corporation has the same legal rights as a person, but a person has to pay more for these rights. It's unfair imho.
Let's say you run a gas station, which is a notoriously low margin business. You have $1,050,000 in revenue this year, and $1,000,000 in expenses, so you make $50,000. Let's say you run a small software company, which is a high margin business. You have $1,050,000 in revenue this year, and $500,000 in expenses, so you make $550,000. You should be taxed on the $50,000 and the $550,000, not on the $1,050,000. Otherwise…
At a high level of just considering taxable income that is true. However, the difference is there are a lot more things a corp can do to reduce taxable income than an individual can do. If you happen to be the owner of a corp you can also use those things to your individual benefit.
If the argument is to say "income is income", then "expenses are expenses" should apply too.
Edit: typo
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not making money is not the same as making losses. You can carry forwards losses you've made on investments.
> Not making money is not the same as making losses. I have rent and bills to pay regardless of whether I'm making money, that is the definition of making a loss.
"I have rent and bills to pay regardless of whether I'm making money, that is the definition of making a loss."
That is not a loss. That is an exchange of value; you pay $100 for your heating bill and receive $100 of heating.
A loss is when you have some value, and it disappears, and you have no compensating value. Buying a stock at $100 and selling it at $50 is a transaction in which you have less money at the end than you had at the beginning, and where you also had no compensating value exchange
Normal taxpayers do have rights to do things like carry forward losses in many circumstances. Business do get to be not taxed on expenses, but there are conditions on that. You can tell there are conditions on that because you can't just form an LLC and declare all your expenses to be losses, because you won't meet the conditions for your expenses to be losses. Note that that is the source of the problem, "form an LLC" is something you can totally do very easily, it's the failure for your personal expenses to qualify that is the problem.
While it might be emotionally satisfying to tax businesses on expenses, it's not hard to think about it a bit and realize why letting taxpayers deduct all their expenses, or trying to tax businesses on their expenses even when they didn't make a profit, are both not great ideas. (Think about the incentives created. Taxpayers don't need any more incentives to spend all their money on "expenses" as it is, if you've seen the credit card debt statistics.)
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not turning a profit does not mean or even imply selling at loss at all.
It does actually. Cost of doing business includes all costs. If amazon believes they need to spend money on R&D then that R&D is a cost of doing business, if its not turning a profit with that R&D spending then the business is not sustainable by definition. Amazon was not doing R&D for shits and giggles. Just because the time horizon was long doesn't mean it wasn't any less of a requirement for their success. Amazon…
Should we have been allowing amazon to capitalize that R&D though? It creates one of their largest assets and yet is not reflected on the balance sheet and is expensed immediately.
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that engagement and discussing policies is important. But it does feel disingenuous and aimed at provoking outrage (to trigger a knee-jerk reaction) when you just mention a fact like "look at these rich guys that don't share anything!" and ignore the context of why it got to be the way it is. And I'm not saying that there aren't changes that could and should be made. Just that this particular article doesn't…
jealousy leading to anger is all part of the political play book and the NYT is there to serve its political masters by running stories that will soon be picked up by candidates to run with. it is all part and parcel with an upcoming election. get your direction from the PAC you deny feeds you stuff, write an article with enough truth in it to pass muster but leaving out enough to make a "rational" decision. Thereby…
Right, except the candidate with the most detailed and thought out policies designed to tackle these issues (and one of the front runners currently) is Elizabeth Warren, a senator who has built her career doing the exact opposite of what you're claiming. The vast, vast majority of her funding comes from individual contributions and the vast majority of the rest comes from such "lobbying powerhouses" like Emily's List. Are you seriously claiming that the NYT's political master is the woman who spearheaded the CFPB?
Intellectually void "everyone is corrupt why cant the sheeple see" tripe is best saved for Reddit.
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#88> carryforward losses from years when the company was not profitable The idea of carrying forward losses in general is sound, but I'm beginning to wonder if there should be an exception. If the loss is intentional, using investment instead of profit to drive growth, I'm not so sure those losses deserve to be carried forward. Probably an unpopular opinion here on HN, but I think denying reductions in those cases would…
Agree that these companies are using the tax code to write off losses that they are intentionally incurring in order to achieve a lower cost point than their (profitable) competitors. This is a very predatory practice that should be ended. Companies should compete in the marketplace. Having tax payers foot the bill for some companies disruption gambit makes no sense.
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#89The intellectual dishonesty of this from allegedly smart people continues to astound me. Amazon has little-to-no taxes mainly because they have such low taxable income in the first place because they spend so much in R&D and other things. They’re actually creating jobs and new businesses rather than showing massive profits and paying a ton in taxes. I have no doubt they take advantage of perfectly legal tax code item…
Can you prove that all the other businesses that didn't survive, either online or shops weren't has much jobs than the one Amazon provide? Also, all the taxes that they don't pay needs to be paid by others. For each optimizations done by those companies, it's as much money that needs to be paid by others as each country runs on a budget that is mainly based on taxes. Them not paying taxes as a direct impact on taxes…
It’s hard to compare to other businesses because amazon cannot capitalize R&D. If they spend $1bn on software dev and Tesla spends the same amount on a factory, Amazon’s ebitda is down $1bn and Tesla’s is only down ~$100M.
Re: Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not making money is not the same as making losses. I have rent and bills to pay regardless of whether I'm making money, that is the definition of making a loss.
"I have rent and bills to pay regardless of whether I'm making money, that is the definition of making a loss." That is not a loss. That is an exchange of value; you pay $100 for your heating bill and receive $100 of heating. A loss is when you have some value, and it disappears, and you have no compensating value. Buying a stock at $100 and selling it at $50 is a transaction in which you have less money at the end t…
A company paying a cost of $50 to produce widgets for 1 year (and don't sell any that year), then selling all the widgets on the 2nd year for a profit of $100, can claim that they made a loss of $50 in the previous year, and therefore only have $50 that's taxable.
A person who works for 1 year for $100 income, then stops working the 2nd year (and live off their income from the 1st year), must pay their taxes at the $100 rate. If they are allowed the same 'carry forward' as a corp, they should pay at the tax rate of $50 for both years, rather than at $100 for the first year, and $0 at the 2nd year. And yet, this isn't allowed for a person. Of course, you could claim that the gov't can't tell that the first $100 is supposed to be 'averaged out' in the future. So would the situation be any different if you lived off savings for the first year, and replenished them in the 2nd year? I don't think this is any different.