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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.
Bromance, now pays better than expected.
This. All I see is an article about how the government intrudes into family lives, giving particular benefits to two heterosexuals living together in a particular sort of arrangement but not to singles, homosexuals or people living together under other arranegments. And Google has decided to follow the government's lead by discriminating against everyone whose lifestyle is not that of a particular steady homosexual partnership, e.g. people who remain single / practice polyamory / shack up in a massive commune / sleep around / anything else.
All this crap about the moving helping in "competing for the same talent" implies that everyone is either in a gay marriage[tm] or straight marriage[tm].
"Do you know your Sons might be Lesbians?"
From the article:
Working for a company as rich as Google comes with an incredible number of fringe benefits: the free food, the free laundry, the doctor on duty at company headquarters and the impressive five months of maternity leave with full pay and benefits, to mention a few.
Five months is impressive? 26 weeks (almost 6 months) is a legal right over here. In some countries it's much, much more!
Sure, why not? We tax alcohol and tobacco too. Are you suggesting that this is a sin tax error?
I think what happens is that health benefits to your spouse are tax free. Health benefits to your partner to whom you're not married are not - and gay couples can't get married. Of course this screws over the non-married heterosexual couples - maybe Google should just pay the tax for everyone who gets charged it.
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.
You really want to be gay-for-pay ?
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
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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I think the point was that if you "go all natural", you'll get pregnant way more often, and thus "get a couple periods every couple years."
But, what do I know? I'll return to my basement now.
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.
Either legalize same-sex marriage, or just do away with any kind of legal marriage at all. The latter is what I would do if I had my way. Why does the state meddle in what should be a commitment between two people?
And Google isn't helping same-sex couples much. Sure, they are making up for some tax exemptions those couples don't have, but in a wider view they are helping maintain the status quo of marriage laws that are flawed in the first place, in addition to discriminating against heterosexual unmarried couples.
A woman gets one or two periods, and then she's pregnant.
Roughly 9 months go by with nothing.
A baby is delivered. I suppose you could call that a period, maybe.
Breastfeeding suppresses the menstrual cycle. The woman can almost certainly go 6 months without a period, and stands a decent chance of going 18 months or more.
So there you go. Regular periods are NOT natural. They are a side effect of birth control.
Each kid born, and each kid nursed, reduces the risk of breast cancer. It's a 5% drop and a 7% drop, or the other way around. Assuming every kid is nursed, that should be about 12% to 13% risk reduction per kid. A woman naturally has about a dozen kids. Breast cancer is quite rare in countries where women birth early and often.
BTW, another side effect specific to the pill: reduced sex drive.
The employee would have to declare that they need domestic partner health benefits. Google isn't "snooping", it's information the employee is providing.
If they qualify for domestic partner health benefits, I should think so.
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.
Well, this is all in the eye of the beholder:
- Gay couples pay extra tax
vs.
- Non-gay couples get tax benefit
Or
- Non-Gay employees are negatively discriminated
vs.
- Gay employees are compensated
http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/
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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There isn't an extra tax. Domestic partners health premiums cannot be paid pretax like a spouse or child's can. The part of the premium for the partner is considered income (imputed income).
If there were gays at Google, they would have a lot more beautiful site design.
Got a friend? Want more money?
If need be, you can use half the money to rent a friend.
After the expenses of Lady Gaga mp3s or Cher (for older partners) of course.
Gotta have the image.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
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.
Indeed - I think it would be much better to offer the extra benefit to any unmarried partners. It solves several problems:
* It's not then unfair to people who are unmarried with opposite sex partners.
* It avoids the sticky question of whether this might be illegal discrimination. It's an interesting problem - whilst it's trying to address the original discrimination that exists, which I think is good for them to do, it's now reasonable for someone to argue that how they pay their employees is discrimination (I don't know if sexuality is a protected class for employment discrimination in the US?) Whilst technically they would still be discriminating against people who are married, this is far less repugnant (since marriage is a choice), and has far less risk of being illegal.
* Gay people don't have to out themselves - they simply say they've got an unmarried partner.
TFA says:
The extra compensation to cover the domestic partner tax will apply only to same-sex domestic partners, Mr. Bock said, because heterosexual couples can avoid the added tax by marrying.
That may be true, but there are plenty of reasons why opposite sex couples may not wish to get married (e.g., they don't want to enter in a contract for life, with all the implications and connotations that brings). An equal system must treat people the same, not create a separate class system for gay people (another example is here in the UK where we have civil partnerships for gay people - I believe that gay people should be able to get married, but it's also a problem that straight people can't have civil partnerships - not because I'm thinking "oh no, think of the poor straight people", but it's emphasising that gay people should be treated differently).
Of course, it would be a lot simpler if gay people could get married, so I hope any straight people thinking this is unfair is in favour of gay marriage.
Marriage was a civil instritution first, long before it was religious.
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
I wish. I joked with my wife about the tax benefits of our two kids. Being a math geek, she started to do the math taking into account the new birthdays, additional holiday gifts..on and on. Let's just say it didn't end up much of a benefit in the fiscal sense.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
The problem is, that's ALREADY the way it is!
You can be "secular married" by walking in front of a judge and signing a piece of paper. And indeed, if you're church married, after your church wedding you have to go to the courthouse to sign a legal marriage certificate.
But you can't do that if you're gay. The problem isn't even religion! Plenty of churches will gay marry a couple, so if all you want is the religious bit, you're fine. But if you want the legal status, you're fucked.
What gay people want is the right to visit their partners in the hospital, the right to deal with their estate, take care of their kids, all the shit that straight people get for free.
I'm not gay. Hell, I don't even have any gay friends who aren't total closet cases. But that this shit has managed to stay an issue for this long blows my fucking mind. It's pure discrimination, and it should not be fucking tolerated.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I think we need two words for marriage. There's Religious Marriage which involves going to a church/temple/whatever and having your priest/rabbi/whatever declare you husband and wife in the eyes of your religion's god/gods/goddess/etc. Then there's Civil Marriage which is a legal contract which grants spouses rights not normally granted to non-blood relatives (and, in fact, rights greater than blood relatives). The latter can be obtained during the course of a Religious Marriage or by simply seeing a Justice of the Peace who effectively stamps a few forms and says "you're married."
I don't think there should be any governmental pressures on Religious Marriage. If a church doesn't want to marry Tom and Joe or Mary and Jane then those couples can find another church that will or just not have a Religious Marriage. Meanwhile, Civil Marriage should have no limits so long as the two people being joined in marriage are consenting adults. So Tom and Joe should be able to get a Civil Marriage even if they've never set foot in a church.
The problem is that the word "marriage" has been used for both types of marriage up until now and neither side (Civil or Religious) is going to give it up for an alternative word.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Yes, this is the origin of the saying "God Hates Figs" The Westboro Baptist Church just got things messed up in their minds.
That is true.
The answer is this then -- civil union. No, not as an alternative to marriage for gays, but as a replacement. Separate legal marriage from religious marriage completely. Civil unions get "cut and pasted" in place of marriage in all the laws, and add a clear protection that protects all religious groups from having to perform marriage/union ceremonies of any kind for any one for any reason at their discretion.
There, there is no longer a legal difference between one couple and the next because one is gay and the other is not, it's clearly and explicitly stated that your church doesn't have to marry gays if it doesn't want to in clear black and white, and if you really feel like it, you can say that because they weren't married according to your faith that they aren't "really" married.
I think we need two words for marriage.
We already have them. There's "marriage", a contractual relationship between two consenting adults and the state that has existed for thousands of years. There's also "wedlock", a religious institution. You can be married without ever entering a church or temple, but you are not wed. Similarly, you can be wed by a priest but if you never visit a town hall to sign the certificate, you're not married.
The problem is that the word "marriage" has been used for both types of marriage up until now and neither side (Civil or Religious) is going to give it up for an alternative word.
Not true. The term "marriage" has only been used interchangeably with "wedlock" since the Council of Trent, during which, in response to their declining power, the church decided to take over many aspects of the secular government. We should restore "marriage" to its original meaning, bereft of religious interference.
the government should step in and put the brakes on the excesses of capitalism, absolutely
remember children toiling in factories? remember pinkertons goons kneecapping union organizers? remember mandatory 60 hour workweeks? all for pennies?
never hear do the gilded age, huh? out of your ignorance of economic history you want repeat our past mistakes?
if the government does not step in and put limitations on what a company can demand from an employee, and demand rules of fair compensation, then the company will gladly work employees to death as slaves and pay them nickles, in the name of competition, just as you say. this is historical fact
so thanks for being an asshole who hasn't learned from history
start here, you corporatist asshole:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_and_employment_law
it's all about hard fought for protections of THE INDIVIDUAL'S LIBERTY from outright abuse by powerful, unregulated corporations
LEARN YOUR HISTORICAL FACT SO YOU DO NOT REPEAT PAST MISTAKES YOU FOOL
we NEED government regulations to SAVE us from the excesses of corporations, which are a FAR greater threat to your liberties and freedoms than any government ever could be. read your history, you uneducated goon
and this is where you call me a fascist or a communist, when i'm just talking about regulationg C-O-R-P-O-R-A-T-I-O-N-S, not individuals, you propagandized ignorant asshole
corporation != individual
corporate threat to individual > government threat to individual
LEARN YOUR FUCKING CONCEPTS, UNLEARN YOUR PROPAGANDIZED ASSOCIATIONS, THEN SPEAK
corporations, NOT governments, will happily destroy your freedoms. your democratically elected government is your only tool to protect yourself from them. THESE ARE FACTS OF LIFE. enough with the free market fundamentalist social darwinist libertarian fantasy fiction!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it