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Google To Add Pay To Cover a Tax For Gays
GrApHiX42 writes "Starting on Thursday, Google is going to increase the salaries of gay and lesbian employees whose partners receive domestic partner health benefits, largely to compensate them for an extra tax they must pay that heterosexual married couples do not. Google is not the first company to make up for the extra tax. At least a few large employers already do. But benefits experts say Google's move could inspire its Silicon Valley competitors to follow suit, because they compete for the same talent."
Why is it okay to discriminate against people in such an expensive way? That's like taxing tampons or pads because they know that 50% of people need them. It conflicts with the Christian moral agenda in the first place in so many ways...
Disagree != mod troll.
Unmarried hetro couples are now discriminated against. They should get the same as the Gay/Lesbian couples, some people may not believe in marrage or may not want to get married for one reason or another. Why should they be forced to marry just to avoid a tax?
Boy, do I see a lawsuit brewing here. How can they legally justify paying straight people less than gays, if all other factors are equal? I don't care about any tax issues. Does Google pay an apartment dweller more just because they don't get a mortgage write-off? Do they pay a single person more because he can't claim to be a head-of-household under IRS rules like a married person does? Do they pay a blind person less because they get two personal exemptions rather than one on their ISR 1040? If their pay policy doesn't address these and a lot more tax inequities, then I hope that they get sued big time for a pay policy that actually favors gays over straight people. In short, it's not for Google to start correcting the unfairness of the tax system, and to do so in a discriminatory manner that favors gays over straights just isn't right or smart.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Maternity leave is one area where the US is particularly behind the rest of the world. In general US labor laws are tilted in favor of the business you work for, what will be most profitable for them, unlike much of Europe where the employees actually have more power in many situations than their employers (as it should be).
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Sorry,two wrongs don't make a right. Plus, spare me the BS please. He's not proposing to deny you gay marriage or anything, he's just just saying basically that compensating that tax for one particular slice is still leaving out a whole other lot of slices which, for all practical purposes, are just as married.
It seems strange to me to see reactions basically boiling down to "booyah, now it's your turn to suck it up." Unless he is one of those that actually did anything against you in the first place, two wrongs just don't make a right.
And basically you're trying to prove what? That gays can be just as much self-centered pricks as the fundies on the other side? We already knew that. After all the most vehement anti-gay preachers turned out to _be_ gay.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
That was pretty much my reading too. I think the correct solution is to give in to the Christians wanting the state not to recognise gay marriage and go a step further - the state should not recognise any kind of marriage. If you want to sign a contract for shared ownership of possessions and to cohabit with someone, that's possible without marriage law. If you want to get this agreement blessed by your favourite religion, that's not the state's business.
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No law can be defect-free, but consider the fact that every member of a Gay/Lesbian couple was once a child.
Some mostly-correct assumptions are implicit in the law. Kids are known to do better in intact families. (even kids that grow up to be gay) Kids do better with a stay-at-home parent, traditionally the mom. Hetero couples generally produce kids. Legal issues related to kids (inheritance, etc.) are easier with a married couple.
Even totally single people benefit from marriage-related tax breaks. Oh sure, having benefited as a child it would be mighty nice (totally selfish) to throw away the tax advantages for the generation that follows. Your childhood is comfy, and screw the next generation, hmmm?
It's kind of like social security, moving wealth across generations. The kids are at least a good investment; they cost less and aren't just waiting around to die. Better food or additional at-home parental time would do some good.
Think of the children, Gay ones included.
European companies are really hesitant to hire people because it's so damn hard to get rid of people.
Places that think they can get away with it will particularly avoid those who seem likely to take advantage of the benefits.
WTF is with people thinking they should get paid for nothing and/or have a right to get back a job they abandoned for half a year? Everybody else at that company gets hurt, especially the substitute worker who'd really like to keep the job.
But they can get married, so why don't they?
If they don't want to get married, but think unmarried gay couples shouldn't get benefits they don't have, the solution is obvious: lobby for gay marriage.
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That was pretty much my reading too. I think the correct solution is to give in to the Christians wanting the state not to recognise gay marriage and go a step further - the state should not recognise any kind of marriage. If you want to sign a contract for shared ownership of possessions and to cohabit with someone, that's possible without marriage law. If you want to get this agreement blessed by your favourite religion, that's not the state's business.
Actually, it's absolutely the state's business. You're not seeking simply cohabitation or shared ownership, you're seeking a legal agency relationship that trumps the rights of blood relatives, allows for probate-free inheritance, etc. Since the state normally enforces probate and intestate succession, they absolutely must be involved in marriage. When the state is not involved - i.e. common law marriage - the couple does not get these probate benefits, nor do they get to be legal and medical proxies for each other.
The church has no business being involved, however. They perform weddings and join people in wedlock, which is a purely religious ceremony.
you know, some of us actually believe the point of life is not to labor as a wage slave. that if society were set up in such a way to maximize individual happiness instead of profit, corporations would take a dent, but capitalism would go right on ticking, and we would be happier people with richer lives. exactly what is wrong with that goal?
meanwhile, you seem wedded to the ravenous idea that toiling for the corporation should be the end-all consume-all point of life
"Everybody else at that company gets hurt, especially the substitute worker who'd really like to keep the job."
well yeah, if the point is to run at maximum capacity possible, all the time, like we are at war with something. there is no slack to pick up if there is no tension in the rope. relax the goddamn rope, you don't have to run full bore all the fucking time. go about your company's business leisurely, let things go a little slower, and calm the fuck down
if all your competitors labor under the same respect the individual's happiness rules, there's no competitive disadvantage
or, move to china, where the wage slaves are committing suicide in mass numbers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Employee_suicides_and_deaths
and forming unions (in a communist country, irony)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/world/asia/21chinalabor.html
to agitate for the respect from the government and companies that i am agitating towards you: the individual's happiness is the paramount concern, not the fucking company
really, asshole
fuck you fucking corporatists,
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it