Facebook Accused Of 'Picking And Choosing' Tax Rules

[HardOCP News]

As much as I hate the idea of companies like Apple, Facebook and Google getting away with this stuff, it's not them you should be mad at. It's the governments and politicians that allow these huge corporations to get away with it and why we end up with factually correct statements like this:

"We pay all the taxes that we are required to under UK law." Facebook ended up with an £11.3 million ($14 million) tax credit in the U.K. last year, which more than offset the amount it was charged, according to a new company filing, adding to concerns that the social media giant isn't paying enough into the country's coffers. The U.S. social network paid £4.1 million in tax to the U.K. in 2015, a sharp rise from the £4,327 in 2014 that sparked outrage from campaigners, accounts filed with Companies House showed.

 

[Probleminfected]

Tax laws are nuts. I haven't been able to do my own taxes in over 15 years, way to complicated and don't want to get audited.

Seems like me need to start over fresh with all loop holes removed. But this seems impossible as well...

 

[azuza001]

You make the loophole then get surprised when mega corporations use it. I can't blame them, if I was given the choice of paying 1$ in tax or 1000000$ in tax it's a no brainer.

Close the loophole, problem solved.

 

[Jadawin]

Sorry, but there is no "loophole". they are abusing the system by juggling money between different countries and pretending they didn't earn the money in countries with high tax rates. That's blatant lying - but well, Apple will have to pay, next will be Facebook. Because tax avoiding schemes are no loopholes, they are illegal.

 

[Mugato]

And people are mad at Trump for not paying taxes?

 

[TAP]

Step 1: politician accepts campaign money from corporation or corporate group.
Step 2: politician writes laws that are favorable to that corporation or corporate group.
Step 3: politician leaves Congress to go work for that corporate group.
Step 4: Process starts all over again.

 

[TAP]

And people are mad at Trump for not paying taxes?

Trump is running on a platform that he is a successful businessman so the fact he is not paying taxes should cause anger and resentment. And think about this, one of the main principles of our military is to protect American assets. So the fact that Trump has $billions in property assets and has paid ZERO towards our military budget will certainly piss a few people off.

 

[funkydmunky]

Successful business me don't pay taxes. Unsuccessful business men do.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

There is no loophole, there is no abuse, that is just how the law is. This is like saying money for tools you buy for work and write off on taxes is a loophole....It's not. If you do not like how the law is, change it, but stop calling it what it is not.

Another thing is we should be wanting less taxes, NOT more, no matter who is being taxed, as taxing is always destructive.

 

[cyclone3d]

Trump is running on a platform that he is a successful businessman so the fact he is not paying taxes should cause anger and resentment. And think about this, one of the main principles of our military is to protect American assets. So the fact that Trump has $billions in property assets and has paid ZERO towards our military budget will certainly piss a few people off.

Does Trump employ people? Then by way of his employees, taxes are paid.

Is Trump the one who wrote the tax laws? No? Then why is anybody complaining about this?

Is Trump breaking any laws? No? Then why are people complaining about this?

Do YOU pay any more taxes than are required by law? No? Then what place do YOU have complaining about this?

 

[TAP]

Does Trump employ people? Then by way of his employees, taxes are paid.

Is Trump the one who wrote the tax laws? No? Then why is anybody complaining about this?

Is Trump breaking any laws? No? Then why are people complaining about this?

Do YOU pay any more taxes than are required by law? No? Then what place do YOU have complaining about this?

You can say it's OK because he didn't break any laws all you want. It's not going to change the perception that he is not doing his part. I know for a fact that Iraq War vets are NOT happy that he supported the war and paid ZERO towards it.

 

[jardows]

it's not them you should be mad at. It's the governments and politicians that allow these huge corporations to get away with it

Or, it is the governments that write such impossibly complex tax laws that only people who can hire full-time accountants can make any sense of it.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

You can say it's OK because he didn't break any laws all you want. It's not going to change the perception that he is not doing his part. I know for a fact that Iraq War vets are NOT happy that he supported the war and paid ZERO towards it.

Doing his part? So he should pay in more taxes than required by law? I bet at the end of the year you don't file for a return, I bet you cut a check to the IRS for 75% of your income to do your part right?

"oh, its for the vets", holy shit, does this show how little you understand where money is spent from tax dollars I am just about crying I am laughing so hard. However, that is out of the scope of this and delves into what the Government should be spending money on and doing in the first place.

 

[cyclone3d]

You can say it's OK because he didn't break any laws all you want. It's not going to change the perception that he is not doing his part. I know for a fact that Iraq War vets are NOT happy that he supported the war and paid ZERO towards it.

He paid his employees who then paid taxes.

Either way, the money came from his businesses in the first place.

Are you doing your "part"? EXACTLY how much did you or any of these people complaining about it pay for the military?

People can easily be generous with others' money and possessions, but when it comes to what they own, they aren't so quick to give it away.

EDIT: maybe you should do some research about the news outlets who are decrying this. You will find that they do the same exact thing.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

People can easily be generous with others' money and possessions, but when it comes to what they own, they aren't so quick to give it away.

Reminds me of:

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money." - Joseph Sobran

 

[tetris42]

Sorry, but there is no "loophole". they are abusing the system by juggling money between different countries and pretending they didn't earn the money in countries with high tax rates. That's blatant lying - but well, Apple will have to pay, next will be Facebook. Because tax avoiding schemes are no loopholes, they are illegal.

You have your terms wrong:

Loophole: something technically legal to get out of having the law apply to you, even though it goes against the letter of the law.
Tax Avoidance: Finding technicalities (loopholes) and exploiting them so that your company less taxes. Legal, but everyone who isn't a shareholder hates this.
Tav Evasion: Not paying taxes you legally owe. THIS one is illegal.

Another thing is we should be wanting less taxes, NOT more, no matter who is being taxed, as taxing is always destructive.

Taxes pay for public schools, libraries, roads, environmental cleanup, police, firefighters, social security, medical research, etc. Pretty much anything that isn't profitable or any service that is so critical to society that it can't be left to the free market because it would be more open to abuse and / or the poor wouldn't be able to afford it is covered by taxes. Who gets taxed, for how much, and the best way to allocate them are certainly points for debate, but saying "taxing is always destructive" sounds more like more like a religion rather than anything supported by evidence.

 

[TAP]

Doing his part? So he should pay in more taxes than required by law? I bet at the end of the year you don't file for a return, I bet you cut a check to the IRS for 75% of your income to do your part right?

"oh, its for the vets", holy shit, does this show how little you understand where money is spent from tax dollars I am just about crying I am laughing so hard. However, that is out of the scope of this and delves into what the Government should be spending money on and doing in the first place.

Oh please do explain. Because based on the latest numbers, almost 20% of all federal income taxes collected goes to a $600 billion military budget and that is on the light side. And how much or little his companies have paid in taxes is irrelevant since the only issue here is his income. I am happy to have an adult conversation about this.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

Taxes pay for public schools, libraries, roads, environmental cleanup, police, firefighters, social security, medical research, etc. Pretty much anything that isn't profitable or any service that is so critical to society that it can't be left to the free market because it would be more open to abuse and / or the poor wouldn't be able to afford it is covered by taxes. Who gets taxed, for how much, and the best way to allocate them are certainly points for debate, but saying "taxing is always destructive" sounds more like more like a religion rather than anything supported by evidence.

Property taxes pay for schools, libraries are funded locally with very little federal money if any at all, they are also supported and built by donations, roads are supported mostly from local taxes, fuel taxes and tolls, federal money only goes into some highways with grants to states, and the same repeats for everything else listed. Social security? Are you kidding? The insolvent forward leaning welfare system that when I am old enough to collect after paying into my whole life (again not in income tax), I will get nothing out of because it will no longer exist? Yeah, you can keep that shit, if it was so wonderful why is it not optional, why is it a FORCED pay in? The reason is because it is forward leaning, I am paying for my parents SS, not for my own, the debt was made the moment it was singed into law.

So critical it can't be left up to the private and free market because it would be more open to abuse and corruption? Are you joking? Because I can't even take that statement seriously, if you really think the government is not far worse in this way, you really should pull the wool from over your eyes and do some reading and research. Taxing is always destructive, taxing does not produce, it only removes means from those who are productive in the market that is dictated by demand and need and puts it into a corrupt government to hand out to those in political favor in some of the most inefficient ways and means you could ever think of.

Oh please do explain. Because based on the latest numbers, almost 20% of all federal income taxes collected goes to a $600 billion military budget and that is on the light side. And how much or little his companies have paid in taxes is irrelevant since the only issue here is his income. I am happy to have an adult conversation about this.

The money goes to paying debt...Maybe, if it is not lining someones pocket, those programs, and military are paid for by inflation, printing money, the military is a beast that needs to be put down, most of that money by the way goes into programs, contractors, aid etc etc, not into paying the the Vet, only a fraction of it does (less than 6% actually). Why is the only issue his income? Better yet....Why did you even bring it up in a post about Facebook? Again, you bypass the questions, do you willingly pay more in taxes than required by law? I will put my paycheck on the line that you do not, yet you are happy to yell out that someone else should pay in more because well...You think they should because they have been more successful than you have. It is amazing the government has done so well demonizing wealth to the masses...

It just dumbfounds me that people justify wanting someone to pay more in taxes because of a bloated government, rather you should put so much energy and effort into downsizing, cutting government spending etc etc so we all have to give away less of our hard earned money. But no, wanting to keep the money you make, apparently after you pass some imaginary line becomes evil and we should pass new laws to get them to pay more, this kind of idea and mindset is the very thing that has been stifling business and jobs, because people have no idea what it is like trying to run a business or how hard it is and what could be done with that business if they were allowed to keep that money. Many small business owners those taxes could pay for 3-4 extra full time job positions. Wake up, no amount of taxes are going to pay for the debt we have and are making every day, or are you one of those that believes all income should go to the government? Because that has worked out well for every country that has tried it.

The laser focus on this guys taxes shows just how blind people are to what the REAL problems are, which is government spending.

 

[Ducman69]

Trump is running on a platform that he is a successful businessman so the fact he is not paying taxes should cause anger and resentment.

That doesn't make any sense.

No business in the history of man is more successful by paying more taxes than they are legally required to. A good businessman uses all LEGAL means to reduce their tax burden as much as they can, and he has never been found at fault in an audit to date. We don't have tax returns, so we don't know how much, or little, he paid, but for sake of argument lets say its as low as is legal.

You don't get mad at a businessman for making smart business choices for his company, you get mad at the politicians that create stupid tax code. Tax code that Hillary's husband for example helped put into law, which basically involves purchasing properties almost entirely on loans, which appreciate, but you then spend on further properties again on loans, and thus end up with zero net gain since the money is always reinvested, even though you have massive cashflow at all times. This "loophole" would be easy to close, but donations to Clinton campaign along with other representatives encourages them to support such deals.

Trump has been forthright in that he has actively participated in this system, and is the reason career politicians on both sides were always at his beck and call, but that it needs to end. If nothing else, no one can argue that Trump hasn't raised issues that no one else would talk about, and really pushed the curtain aside in the government of Oz and shown the American people was is really happening behind the scenes, and that its not just American businesses influencing American politics in their favor, but international banks and foreign nations like the Saudis with their domestic investments. That's why even many Republicans are against him, as he is threatening their livelihoods! This is how they want to maintain and grow their wealth, and he's exposing the whole system, and they are PISSED!

So people are more mad realizing that Hillary represents the establishment and is guaranteed to continue the status quo, where she will receive bribes in the form of $400K 10 minute motivational speeches, campaign donations, and syphoning from the Clinton Foundation, and the like in exchange for positive legislation in their favor.

And the biggest problem with these systems is that its counter to how a free market system should work.

Competition improves the breed, where the best ideas can rapidly grow and the bad ideas whither and die. But the Obama administration, of which the Clinton's were absolutely in lock step with, created this concept of "too big to fail" where bad ideas don't die, and then provide essentially government monopolies to their big donors that small businesses can't take advantage of. So the good ideas don't take off like they should, because they don't have the influence of the big players, and of course actually end up paying more taxes than the giants.

You can say Trump is a liar, and you don't believe he'll really change anything and is two faced, but he's the only one that has vowed to actually make real change, especially in the trade department and limiting foreign influence on domestic policy.

 

[tetris42]

Property taxes pay for schools

So in other words, a tax. Could you spell out for me how funding schools is destructive?

libraries are funded locally with very little federal money if any at all

They are most certainly funded by taxes, often on the state level.

roads are supported mostly from local taxes, fuel taxes and tolls,

Again, with taxes.

Taxing is always destructive, taxing does not produce

Except for schools, libraries, and roads, by your own admission. But this is, of course, the most destructive thing imaginable. Fantastic logic there.

 

[sleepeeg3]

Trump's running mate, Mike Pence supports the solution - FairTax. If a company sells in this country, they pay tax. No way of avoiding it. Everyone corporation and individual pays their fare share.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

So in other words, a tax. Could you spell out for me how funding schools is destructive?
They are most certainly funded by taxes, often on the state level.
Again, with taxes.
Except for schools, libraries, and roads, by your own admission. But this is, of course, the most destructive thing imaginable. Fantastic logic there.

You don't get it do you?

First, public schools, that shinning light of great education and efficiency....You do understand that private schools have been shown and are actively cheaper than public and are night and day better with child performance? You are removing productive funds by taxing that could have been left in the hands of the producer to pick and send their kids to a good school of choice, this is destructive in the WORST way. The same goes for libraries, which the state all over have shut down private ones, that is private owned, but public access, they are so effective that they pull most traffic from the government funded ones, local funding again meant local taxes, not income taxes, which you are so focused on. Because in your mind, life it self could not exist without the IRS and income taxes. As for roads, I can't believe someone is actually using this argument, which has been debunked time and time again that government is needed for this, it has been shown that government is quite bad for this, as the most spending for roads is all rural, rather than where the bulk of traffic flow is, that being city, because they are not accountable for efficient spending etc like the private market is. Private run roads (that already exist), are built and maintained for cheaper than simple one time maintenance of government roads. The government is nothing but waste and taxes are nothing but destructive, by your logic, the government is so enlightened and safe from corruption, we should have them confiscate all funds and control all labor because they do so well at it, why should we leave it to the abusive and inefficient private market to do anything at all? Lets just allow the all knowing government to take care of us.

 

[Ducman69]

Trump's running mate, Mike Pence supports the solution - FairTax. If a company sells in this country, they pay tax. No way of avoiding it. Everyone corporation and individual pays their fare share.

I haven't seen the proposal yet. The magic is in the details, and you really have to go through with a fine-tooth comb to make sure its not setup so buddies come out winners.

Hopefully it really is a "flat tax", and doesn't still rely on fudging of numbers and moving money around and investments so that it always shows that they don't have "income" or are taking losses, when really they are not. Amazon for example was always growing their business, and so I don't think were turning a profit, but you shouldn't be allowed to not pay anything when you have billions in revenue and are using that to grow-grow-grow until you're "too big to fail" and can use your size to create virtual monopolies and influence politics again in your favor.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

Trump's running mate, Mike Pence supports the solution - FairTax. If a company sells in this country, they pay tax. No way of avoiding it. Everyone corporation and individual pays their fare share.

Fair share of theft....Sounds fair.

Rich tax, flat tax, whatever tax people, it doesn't matter, and will not work. We need to get spending under control, that is the only way we are going to survive. Give me a real budget that makes the "hard" choices and that is the person to vote for. Right now it is like a husband and wife, the husband only wants to get 20,000 in debt a year, but the wife wants to get in debt at a rate of 30,000 a year, but the problem of over spending is never talked about.

 

[Ducman69]

Rich tax, flat tax, whatever tax people, it doesn't matter, and will not work. We need to get spending under control, that is the only way we are going to survive.

Sure, but which spending? If we're talking about welfare queens, sure, they are a problem and a blight on society, but on the other hand how do we fix the out of control wealth disparity in the US? Just like in the military, a general DESERVES to earn far more than a private, and you need that incentive system to work hard and climb the ladder... but when does the ladder hit retard level on exponential increases? Right now we are approaching feudal and pre-french revolution levels of disparity, and that's not good, and cutting spending on the bottom 20% as you can see in the graph isn't going to make up a lot of money.

 

[TAP]

Well this turned into the ole right wing "government is evil" instead of the original topic...

 

[Deleted member 184142]

Sure, but which spending? If we're talking about welfare queens, sure, they are a problem and a blight on society, but on the other hand how do we fix the out of control wealth disparity in the US? Just like in the military, a general DESERVES to earn far more than a private, and you need that incentive system to work hard and climb the ladder... but when does the ladder hit retard level on exponential increases? Right now we are approaching feudal and pre-french revolution levels of disparity, and that's not good, and cutting spending on the bottom 20% as you can see in the graph isn't going to make up a lot of money.

Wealth disparity is a straw man. It is a "this person makes way more than I think they should" and nothing else, they don't talk about quality of life gains we have seen as a whole and massive gains "normal" workers have seen in wealth. If you think it is so easy and not worth the pay check to a CEO or owner, go make your own Amazon or Google etc etc. You will find out that the skills, work etc required is not so easy. These people make so much more than these positions use to because companies like this are MASSIVE and global, never before have we had the kind of companies we have today, in size and value, when that sort of risk and direction choices are at hand, you have a hand full of people who have the knowledge and vision to move something like that in the right direction, so the bids these company's and share holders WILLINGLY pay to get this person to run their company and not the other get very high. Anyone can be a janitor, or answer a phone, work a register etc etc so the demand is low and the skill set is low, each of these are driven by the market and choices are made by both parties willingly to enter into these contracts of exchange.

Taxes also do not help the poor or "lower" classes, it helps the rich only, because the rich also get hand outs, it is not always in the form of a bailout or welfare check like the poor, but the politically connected get contracts and favors, they get industry protection in the form is laws and restrictions that bar others from entering the market. Another reason for the larger gap (which there is nothing wrong with), is the advancement and wide spread push for welfare and the more than ever people on it.

The ideas pushed in these videos and the like are of the same ideas of communism, inequality is just fine, so long as it is willing and free market that allows it, when it is forced or protected by government, it is a bad thing. Not everyone is equal, sorry, not everyone is worth the same at a job, it is the simple truth. Everyone should have equal rights and the same chances, but that does not mean everyone should be forced to actually be equal, be that is income, skill sets, life style etc etc. These videos are also very misleading that they talk as if this is everywhere and every CEO makes this sort of gap, however they very often don't tell you that the CEO pay they use are from S&P 500's only, yet there are well over a quarter million CEO's in America alone. This makes these AFL-CIO statistics very lop sided when comparing your normal worker to only the CEOs of some of the worlds largest companies. If you take into account the actual average income of workers in the US which is around $45k, to the average CEO pay, which is 170-180k, which is about the same as a dentist, it makes these videos seem pretty silly, but who wants actual facts? Emotion charged videos with pretty charts and graphs are so much better to post to facebook. This would be the same as me making a video talking about the poor CEOs and how under paid they are to workers....But I don't tell anyone or explain I am only using the salary of those in the medical field (anesthesiologists, surgeons, oral surgeons, obstetricians, orthodontist, internists, family practitioners etc), which all make more than the average CEO. When someone takes an average and compares it to a small set of outliers, it is clear they have an agenda they are trying to push, nothing else.

This narrative is that CEOs are being paid more and more at the expense of the normal worker and not because of the actual reason, which is that these companies have an ever growing market capitalization. This can be seen in the fact that worker compensation (salary/benefits) as a percent of corporate income has been relatively stable since the 1940s.

 

[Ducman69]

Wealth disparity is a straw man. It is a "this person makes way more than I think they should" and nothing else, they don't talk about quality of life gains we have seen as a whole and massive gains "normal" workers have seen in wealth. If you think it is so easy and not worth the pay check to a CEO or owner, go make your own Amazon or Google etc etc.

*facepalm* Yes, everyone in America just needs to own a Google or Amazon company, then it'll be OK! And everyone has an equal opportunity to do so, if they just apply themselves. Sounds reasonable!

The world should not operate in extremes.

People that work harder or are smarter or more talented deserve more pay, as was said, and socialism doesn't work. It says that in the video, repeatedly. Contribution should not be divorced from compensation, or people won't want to contribute more. No one disagrees here.

But right now contribution and compensation are divorced, when some people make for 60 seconds of work what others makes in 6 months of labor. It'd be like having a task to bring rocks up a hill, and whoever brings the most rocks gets paid the most, but you have to have a supervisor... well what if the supervisor takes 80% credit for each rock brought up the hill? Bullshit right? And the solution "well, everyone should just be supervisor then" is idiotic and impossible to implement as no rocks would make it up the hill. That's a broken system.

So the question is, at what point does "deserves to be paid more for working harder or being more talented" become, well, retarded. 5x more pay? 10x more pay? 15x more pay? 30x more pay? 50x more pay? 100x more pay? If you can't think of a number where its just downright idiotic and unfair, then you have a fundamental flaw in your belief system.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

*facepalm* Yes, everyone in America just needs to own a Google or Amazon company, then it'll be OK! And everyone has an equal opportunity to do so, if they just apply themselves. Sounds reasonable!

The world should not operate in extremes.

People that work harder or are smarter or more talented deserve more pay, as was said, and socialism doesn't work. It says that in the video, repeatedly. Contribution should not be divorced from compensation, or people won't want to contribute more. No one disagrees here.

But right now contribution and compensation are divorced, when some people make for 60 seconds of work what others makes in 6 months of labor. It'd be like having a task to bring rocks up a hill, and whoever brings the most rocks gets paid the most, but you have to have a supervisor... well what if the supervisor takes 80% credit for each rock brought up the hill? Bullshit right? And the solution "well, everyone should just be supervisor then" is idiotic and impossible to implement as no rocks would make it up the hill. That's a broken system.

So the question is, at what point does "deserves to be paid more for working harder or being more talented" become, well, retarded. 5x more pay? 10x more pay? 15x more pay? 30x more pay? 50x more pay? 100x more pay? If you can't think of a number where its just downright idiotic and unfair, then you have a fundamental flaw in your belief system.

If you don't like the pay you have, don't take the job, or do something that pays more, don't pick some outlier CEO who you think makes to much money and is "wrong". Why is it wrong? All I have seen so far is it is wrong because....

That is also not socialism, rather that is communism. And no, it is not bullshit, everyone agreed to the job, if you thought it was bullshit and that your ability to push rocks was worth more, go somewhere else. Again, you look past the whole point, that these ratios DONT EXIST. They portray these as average pay for workers and CEOs, did you read my post? Did you read the videos sources? If you didn't, they are blogs, if you follow the sources for those and then the sources for those, it links back to a CNN article about the AFL-CIO statistics, which only looks at pay for less than 200 of the CEOs from the S&P 500, that is looking at 0.00074% of CEOs, and that is not even a random 0.00074%, but a cherry picked outliers in the top of the top multinational companies....Biased much?

Why is this even an issue? Maybe we should look at electrical engineers, look at how much they make to someone making minimum wage, WHAT AN OUTRAGE!!! This is about the same level of logic the CEO to worker argument reaches. And it always comes down to "I, someone who holds no ownership in this company, thinks this CEO is being paid to much because.....". why is there a flaw if I don't think there is a number that it is idiotic? If a company is willing to pay this to someone, what is wrong with it? You, and all of these videos out there (and there are many), never answer why this is wrong, the ones that do make the false assumption that it is at the expense of normal workers, which as I already showed, it is not. So, I ask again, why is this bad, even if you use these totally cherry picked and made up number which do not exist except in these videos?

 

[Ur_Mom]

Trump is running on a platform that he is a successful businessman so the fact he is not paying taxes should cause anger and resentment. And think about this, one of the main principles of our military is to protect American assets. So the fact that Trump has $billions in property assets and has paid ZERO towards our military budget will certainly piss a few people off.

It pisses me off. WTF? Not at Trump, though. He's taking legal tax cuts. Be pissed at the law makers that created those tax cuts that were used. They were created to help their friends and those who paid for those tax cuts... (a little conspiracy theory in there for dramatic effect).

Yea, it's messed up. Hopefully (doubtful) it will bring some attention (that will soon be lost) from the American people that our tax code is fucked and needs some big changes (that will never happen).

 

[c3k]

...
Taxes pay for public schools, libraries, roads, environmental cleanup, police, firefighters, social security, medical research, etc. Pretty much anything that isn't profitable or any service that is so critical to society that it can't be left to the free market because it would be more open to abuse and / or the poor wouldn't be able to afford it is covered by taxes. Who gets taxed, for how much, and the best way to allocate them are certainly points for debate, but saying "taxing is always destructive" sounds more like more like a religion rather than anything supported by evidence.

Schools: can be done by private sector better than public. (Public schooling is a relatively new invention.)

Libraries: used to be funded by philanthropic endeavors and donations.

Roads: used to be funded by venture capital; hence, toll roads.

Environmental Cleanup: you made the mess, you clean it up. Lawsuits worked, even before the epa was telling me my exhalation was a pollutant.

Police: many localities still use private police

Firefighters: volunteers and donations...still...in many places.

Social Security: a new invention, admitted to be a Ponzi/pyramid scheme. Relieves workers of the need to plan ahead. Grasshopper and the ant.

Medical Research: funded by private corporations.

Now, is there a role for government? Sure. But they have destroyed every market that government has ever taken over. It is a monopoly...one of the very things government tries to abolish due to the deleterious effect that the lack of competition has.


If you want to eliminate corruption, you've got to eliminate laws which have set-asides for specific classes. Tax law is so obviously corrupt, it's amazing anyone argues differently. This doesn't even touch using the IRS as a tool of political coercion...which started with FDR against Mellon, and has continued under obama against political groups opposed to him.

Flat tax, no loopholes, no set-asides, no special classes...

Ken

"When does corruption become treason?"

 

[ManofGod]

Oh, for the days when the people were not manipulated so easily by what they were told and presented. So, by a show of hands, who here sent in more money last year than they were required just for that year only and did not want it back? Or, who here is going to call in and tell the US Government to forget the refund, they can just go ahead and keep it? Anyone? Anyone?

 

[IcePickFreak]

I mentioned it in another thread, but in glorious cities like Milwaukee, taxes are used for important stuff like sports stadiums and arenas.

Miller Park for the Brewers (who sometimes actually play baseball) is estimated to be up around $500m at this point and will likely continue to grow since we're on the hook for maintaining it, and of course they're crying they need $20m or so to renovate the already "out-of-date" food court.

Then our governor recently signed over $250m (ironically, the original amount we were suppose to throw at Miller Park) for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks, otherwise the new owners (each worth over $1billion) were taking them out of town. It's expected to again actually cost us closer to $500m when it's all said and done.

But I sleep well at night because I know at least the federal taxes I pay get put to good use.

 

[wizdum]

It pisses me off. WTF? Not at Trump, though. He's taking legal tax cuts. Be pissed at the law makers that created those tax cuts that were used. They were created to help their friends and those who paid for those tax cuts... (a little conspiracy theory in there for dramatic effect).

Yea, it's messed up. Hopefully (doubtful) it will bring some attention (that will soon be lost) from the American people that our tax code is fucked and needs some big changes (that will never happen).

The problem is not so much that politicians are paid to make loopholes, its that politicians are paid to make a law once. They spend a year or so drafting it, and maybe another year hammering out the details. Meanwhile, there are entire corporations that hire thousands of people who's fulltime job is to find ways around the law. In the same way you can never have a 100% secure computer system (that is still usable), you can't have a 100% tax system.

 

[tetris42]

local funding again meant local taxes, not income taxes, which you are so focused on

Where did I say I meant income tax specifically? I was responding to your statement "taxes are always destructive." So I take that to mean ALL taxes. Local taxes, state taxes, property taxes, sales tax, federal taxes, income taxes etc. And I'm saying without taxes some needs don't get met. Particularly for the poor. I mean hell, you were talking about "choice of schools" for "producers". What if the family in question can't AFFORD any of the available private schools? Public education can certainly beat "nothing", especially with both parents working.

Because in your mind, life it self could not exist without the IRS and income taxes

You're projecting. You care to quote me where I even mentioned the IRS? I can envision all kinds of different systems than what we have now. You're arguing with some built up perception of me in your mind.

The government is nothing but waste and taxes are nothing but destructive,

Hyperbole doesn't help your case. Look at something like the national parks. Those protect the environment and make them freely available to everyone who wants access. How would private enterprise do that? Where's the profit motive it making something available for free? They would have to charge admission, someone poor who wanted to hike, camp, or hunt, wouldn't be able to access the land. Or better yet, why would a company conserve the land if there was a better profit motive to sell it off to a mining company and make 10x the profit? Government makes that illegal for protected land. Private enterprise has basically no barriers to that sort of thing.

by your logic, the government is so enlightened and safe from corruption, we should have them confiscate all funds and control all labor because they do so well at it, why should we leave it to the abusive and inefficient private market to do anything at all? Lets just allow the all knowing government to take care of us.

Now you're projecting AND using hyperbole. I never said government is enlightened and safe from corruption. Of course it isn't. I said in some cases, it's less likely to be prone to it. I'm specifically thinking of situations where the profit motive creates an incentive to be corrupt. Look at the health insurance industry. When they have to pay out because someone gets injured, they lose money. Therefore, it's in their best interest to deny coverage whenever possible, either due to some technicality, or obfuscating the language in their contract so it's misunderstood what clients actually paying for, etc. People in that industry get promoted by how much money they can earn for the company, which frequently means how many people can they deny coverage to. Compare that to something like socialized health care in Europe and there's no profit motive to deny someone coverage. They've been injured, they get treated, it's already paid for by taxes. Point is, private market is good for some things, government is good for others. Taking an absolute extremist view and trying to bend reality to make government ALWAYS bad just makes you look like a zealot.

 

[tetris42]

Schools: can be done by private sector better than public. (Public schooling is a relatively new invention.)

Libraries: used to be funded by philanthropic endeavors and donations.

Roads: used to be funded by venture capital; hence, toll roads.

Environmental Cleanup: you made the mess, you clean it up. Lawsuits worked, even before the epa was telling me my exhalation was a pollutant.

Police: many localities still use private police

Firefighters: volunteers and donations...still...in many places.

Social Security: a new invention, admitted to be a Ponzi/pyramid scheme. Relieves workers of the need to plan ahead. Grasshopper and the ant.

Medical Research: funded by private corporations.

Now, is there a role for government? Sure. But they have destroyed every market that government has ever taken over. It is a monopoly...one of the very things government tries to abolish due to the deleterious effect that the lack of competition has.

You're talking about alternatives. Some are better, some are worse. For example, schools can ABSOLUTELY be done better by the private sector, no argument. But they don't have much incentive to do it for FREE for children whose parents can't afford admission. Same with the environmental cleanup. If a smelting company is spewing really bad pollutants in the air, people around the region can suspect it's affecting their breathing and may get cancer in 20 years, but it's so diluted they can't prove it's THAT specific company that's causing the problem (or that they will get cancer in 20 years until after the fact), or even if they can, may not be able to afford to challenge a major company in court, which will have the upper hand due to affording better representation. Meanwhile, if you have something like the EPA, they can go in and perform an inspection on the company, and if they find they're violating legal standards, then bam, the company gets fined or shut down. That's far more efficient than tying things up for years in court while the company continues to pollute and people keep getting sick, assuming they can even bring it to court. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the government doesn't make plenty of fuckups, but all things being equal, there are some things that the free market can't do as effectively, particular when there's no profit incentive to do so.

Anyway, I was mostly responding to the claim that taxes are ALWAYS destructive. That's a very simplistic view, and frankly, wrong. Sure, government can cause all kinds of problems, but if it was ALWAYS destructive, we never would have had it in the first place.

 

[Ducman69]

If you don't like the pay you have, don't take the job, or do something that pays more, don't pick some outlier CEO who you think makes to much money and is "wrong". Why is it wrong?

Are you just pretending to be obtuse? Compensation and contribution should not be divorced, but for a small percentage of the population, it massively is. A CEO surely works harder and is more talented than the average employee. But how much harder and how much more talented? 2x, 10x, 20x, 50x, 100x? You can't seem to understand this basic premise.

Lets say that hypothetically, the top 1% of society owned 99% of the GDP... would that be a broken distribution of wealth from the goods and services produced by the country as a whole? Is 1% really doing 99% of the work?

Why is this even an issue?

Why is it an issue that the top 1% take 40% of the country's GDP as their share, and so many people have next to nothing? When a factory produces goods, it requires the efforts of thousands of employees, and the question becomes how the fruits of their labor should be divided. Saying that one person should take around half of what the thousands produced together is not a fair distribution of wealth. Not everyone contributed equally, for sure, but one person sure as hell didn't work THAT much harder than the average person to produce the finished product.

This isn't rocket science, and perhaps pirates are a good example of fairness in operation. A pirate ship's captain has greater responsibility and burdens and risk placed upon him, and has to have greater skill, and is elected by the population of pirates (usually) for the task, and can be voted out of his captaincy as well. Because of this, the pirate ship captain gets a larger share than most, and skills pirates like the cook, carpenter, quarter master and first mate and the like also get a larger share. But the shares are reasonable, with a captain getting 2-3 shares (2-3 times the normal amount), and others getting 1.5x shares, and 1.25x shares, etc.

But lets look at a bullshit real world example. CEO David M. Zaslav earned $156 million in 2014 while median worker pay, based on Glassdoor salary reports, was $80,000, for a pay ratio of 1,951x.

You never answered the question, at which point does it become retarded? If a CEO were making 100,000x the average worker, would that be an unfair distribution of the fruits of their labors?

If you can't figure out at which point its broken, then you're broken.

 

[tetris42]

So the question is, at what point does "deserves to be paid more for working harder or being more talented" become, well, retarded. 5x more pay? 10x more pay? 15x more pay? 30x more pay? 50x more pay? 100x more pay? If you can't think of a number where its just downright idiotic and unfair, then you have a fundamental flaw in your belief system.

You know you mentioned generals, a general is going to be paid about 7x more than a private, with a top general being closer to 9x. At the Mondragon corporation (one of the largest cooperatively owned ones), it's part of the company rules that the CEO can't get paid more than 5x the lowest paid employee. So going by those two examples, it sounds like the ratio of the highest paid position to the lowest paid should still be in the single digits somewhere. I think the vast majority of people recognize that people who are more important to an operation should be compensated more, however the more you let that ratio get of control, the more it ceases to represent something remotely fair.

 

[Ducman69]

You know you mentioned generals, a general is going to be paid about 7x more than a private, with a top general being closer to 9x. At the Mondragon corporation (one of the largest cooperatively owned ones), it's part of the company rules that the CEO can't get paid more than 5x the lowest paid employee. So going by those two examples, it sounds like the ratio of the highest paid position to the lowest paid should still be in the single digits somewhere. I think the vast majority of people recognize that people who are more important to an operation should be compensated more, however the more you let that ratio get of control, the more it ceases to represent something remotely fair.

Absolutely, I have no problem with a large company with an average $50K worker salary having a CEO with a $500K salary, which would represent a 10x increase over the average (not lowest). However, in my Zaslav example, when we see $156,000,000 salary, that's not right, nor is it necessary.

There would be no limit to qualified people willing to do the job of CEO if they were somehow capped at say $1 million or even $5 million a year, as that is a very lucrative lifestyle, and its frankly ridiculous that we have people that are worth $82 billion (Bill Gates), $78 billion (Ortega), $55 billion (Zuckerberg), etc. Absolutely there is nothing wrong with them being rich... but $100,000,000 net worth is already rich, and tens of billions worth is just, well, stupid and unfair to the people that work for them, as I can assure you Zuckerberg is not working more than 24hours in any given day, and has a lot of engineers breaking their backs for him from which he is skimming.

 

[c3k]

You're talking about alternatives. Some are better, some are worse. For example, schools can ABSOLUTELY be done better by the private sector, no argument. But they don't have much incentive to do it for FREE for children whose parents can't afford admission. .

(Picking part of your post to make a point.)

Nobody does it for "free". Your words. They just force other people to pay for their kid's education. It's called coercion: that's what the government uses. "Think about the children", has been used to raise taxes for years. Who benefits? Well, the entire school administration (how many supervisors are really needed to run a school? Really. Etc. In a perfect world (hah!), a locality could vote on whether they think the benefit to their community is worth public funds. Of course, having competition ALWAYS benefits those who use that service. It's amazing how the school voucher system (you use your designated tax dollars to go to a school of your choice...that your children attend) is so hated by the public school supporters. They know it means the death of their monopoly.

"Free" does not exist.

If a family is so impecunious that they cannot afford school for their children, then society has many aid organizations to help them. Of course, I'd imagine a family that poor would not have multiple smartphones, cars, air conditioning, etc.

If a service is being provided to someone by the government, it means it is being paid for with other peoples' money. If they disagree with the purpose and refuse to pay, the government will destroy them by using fines and imprisonment. That's coercion.

Free = Other Peoples' Money