Renaissance executives agree to pay around $7B to settle dispute with IRS • Hacker News Board

Re: Renaissance executives agree to pay around $7B to settle dispute with IRS

#91

Post by matheusmoreira » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

jpadkins wrote: post #77

matheusmoreira wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frustrating, isn't it? I feel the same way about YouTube celebrities and sports players making millions while actually useful professions make significantly less. From what I've read the better paid doctors make about 300k/year. I also feel the same way about most consumer technology being developed today. It's mostly advertising and intellectual property exploitation. Nothing particularly useful, really. Yet the peo…

here is a way to rationalize it (not sure if this helps you) doctors provide very valuable services to dozens - hundreds of people (treating disease). youtube/sports celebrities provide a small amount of value to 100k - millions of people (amusement or entertainment). so the value they get back from society is because of the number of people touched, not the depth of value for each person. If we figure out how to sca…

That makes sense to me but it still doesn't help... It just doesn't seem right to me that some random person can make a meme video and become a millionaire off of the ads alone. A society that enables these aberrations is sick and needs to be fixed.

I used doctors as an example but engineers are also comically undervalued in my country despite their extremely valuable and necessary contributions to society. It's a joke.

> doctors provide very valuable services to dozens - hundreds of people

I think this scale is a bit off. Doctors see thousands of patients per year.

Re: Renaissance executives agree to pay around $7B to settle dispute with IRS

#92

Post by renewiltord » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #34

renewiltord wrote: post #30

Huh, I recall people saying this 5 years ago only to be shouted down. I guess they stand vindicated. Pity they didn't have a way to monetize their correctness.

> Huh, I recall people saying this 5 years ago only to be shouted down. It was seven years ago, it was (among others) Sen. Levin, and they weren't shouted down; six years ago the IRS publicly agreed that the tax treatment was wrong and notified people how similar cases should be treated and must be reported going forward. What has gone on in the interim was Renaissance fighting that decision being applied to them.

All right then. Perhaps my memory is shit. I recall it being common to downvote anyone here on HN who alleged that Rentech was just a tax fraud.

Re: Renaissance executives agree to pay around $7B to settle dispute with IRS

#93

Post by lostmsu » Mon, Sep 06, 2021, 5:30 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #10

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.

Have you missed all the articles about theft in San Francisco going nearly entirely unpunished?