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Not Just Apple, How Microsoft Sidestepped Billions In State Taxes
reifman writes "Apple's not the only company to save billions in taxes through Nevada as The New York Times reported yesterday. Here's how Microsoft's saved $4.37 billion in tax payments to Washington State and how it's led indirectly to $4 billion in K-12 and Higher Education cuts since 2008. 18% of University of Washington freshman are now foreigners (because they pay more) up from 2% six years ago. Washington State ranks 47th nationally in 18-24 yo college enrollment and 48th in K-12 class size. This hasn't stopped the architect of the company's Nevada tax dodge from writing in The Seattle Times: 'it's [Washington] state's paramount duty to provide for the public education of all children. Unfortunately, steady declines in public resources now threaten our ability to live up to that commitment.' Yes, indeed."
Does geeknet, Inc. pay accountants to minimize their tax burden?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Glad to hear that Microsoft is employing competent accountants.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I am appalled that Microsoft is to blame for the current state of our university. The constant budget cuts are hitting the Engineering department the hardest, especially Computer Science & Engineering. Demand for the major has steadily increased, and yet the number of students able to be admitted has largely stayed the same for years. As it stands, nearly 50% of persons who are already in the University are rejected from the engineering departments, for the CS major it's closer to 70-80% rejection. Considering our UW is right across the lake from Microsoft and yet they continue to exercise such dodgy and harmful tax practices tells me where their true priorities lie.
While I oppose the kind of tax dodges that Apple and Microsoft are up to ... I cannot say that any of the problems in this state would be that much better if Microsoft paid all the taxes possible here.
Our local government seems amazingly incompetent.
Since we're taking on the tech giants, here's Google.
Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html
What's the problem? Why do you point fingers at others whenever something negative is being said about Apple. You keep going on about how Apple is better than other companies. Act like it.
It seems to me all the states are in a race to the bottom to make big companies come to their state. The end game is nobody pays taxes, because states are too afraid of losing companies in their jurisdiction. The only way out is for all the states to gather together and put an end to these races to the bottom.
You know, it's going to get pretty boring around here when we have to read a constant stream of stories titled "Oh yeah, and company X dodges taxes also!".
In other words, just drop it. All companies do this and it's not news.
And do away with states. Let's simply tax whomever we like whatever we feel like taxing them and if they don't like it they can move to Lichtenstein.
We have the highest corporate taxes in the world. Without the loopholes most US companies would leave the country or go broke.
Who wants skyrocketing unemployment and a further collapse in the US tax base?
Don't be stupid. Don't drive these companies away.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If the courts are going to treat corporations as legal persons, so should the IRS, State, and local tax collectors.
I'm shocked....shocked, I say! Billion dollar companies hiring lawyers to create, and then exploit tax loopholes for their own (and their shareholders') benefit? There ought to be a law...oh wait!
Why is it that when CEOs are payed ridiculous compensation packages people say that "to attract the best talent you have to pay," but when it comes to teachers people say "they should be doing it for the love of it, not the money."
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
This is what competition between the States brings us.
Corporate profits are up, wages are flat, and State tax revenues are down.
Just wait till property taxes get reassessed downward and State tax revenues plunge even further.
It's hard to talk about this without sounding like a partisan, but that's only because one side of the debate wants these kinds of anti-social outcomes.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
you Slashtards are effin' stupid - really!
Big companies hire accountants.. these accountants show them how to doge taxes *LEGALLY*.. You would be stupid to pay taxes you don't *HAVE* to. Publicly traded companies especially will doge taxes, their shareholders (Rightfully so) want to get as much money as possible.
I wonder how much tax revenue Washington State will get if Microsoft just up and leaves the state if Washington State 'punishes' Microsoft. What's 100% of zero again? I'm not good at math but I think it's zero...
"Don't be stupid. Don't drive these companies away."
But is the alternative to let these companies be the de facto rulers, dictating their own terms?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
every day for god knows how long, company X is evading taxes though some loophole, and yet nothing will ever be done about it ... both the taxes and the filler
As someone who has physically visited Microsoft's "Nevada Tax Dodge", I can tell you that they have hundreds of people employed across three office buildings, doing real work. Here's a street view: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=microsoft+licensing,+GP&hl=en&ll=39.466978,-119.777091&spn=0.014196,0.027874&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hq=microsoft+licensing,+GP&radius=15000&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=39.465765,-119.778911&panoid=SCavTRVJLjF335ijk_l6-w&cbp=12,0,,0,0 The white buildings to the left and right of the frame are wholly occupied by MS while the brown building in the center has one whole floor occupied by MS employees. Declaring that MS has no right to do business in states where taxes are lower is...well, disgusting.
If the people really want all of the things that the governments offer them, why don't they want to pay for them?
Why not just make all of these systems voluntary, if people really want them, they'll pay into the system.
Oh right, I forgot, the majority of the population wants to force a minority of the population to pay for things they want at threat of violence against them. Right.
As long as teachers are paid with tax and/or fake inflation money, the people who pay these taxes should be against them.
You can't handle the truth.
Payment for the use of local public resources - through taxation.
Corporations operating at high tax location A, having 99% of their workforce and assets at location A, using resources of the location A, but avoid paying dues and taxes at location A, paying them instead at low tax location B - that's borderline illegal AND morally corrupt.
The only reason it is not outright illegal is the fact that corporations can afford a different kind of "justice" than the ordinary, flesh and blood persons.
Particularly those flesh and blood persons who have to work for a living.
And that is the source and reason for immorality of such an act.
Assuring themselves preferential treatment based on possession of monetary and other resources, in an environment (legal) which exists solely for the reason of assuring equal treatment of all parties regarding their rights, obligations and grievances.
In short, they are exploiting the rules in a way which allows them to play a game within a game, unavailable to "ordinary" players - but whose score carries into the original game.
And they are cheating while playing the game within the game.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
They're not defacto rulers. They just pay an internationally competitive tax rate.
Forget what you think the tax rate should be... what is the most you can charge before the companies leave the country.
Not only do companies need to offer competitive prices to make sales... countries need to offer competitive tax rates.
That doesn't make the companies the rulers. It merely forces you to be reasonable. If doing business in your country costs the company more money then other places then it isn't reasonable.
Companies will take a zero sum of the whole thing. So if you want higher wages, that's fine... it just gets added to the total cost of doing business. You want to offer healthcare to people? Again, it just get added.
Every time you add something it reduces the amount you can take in taxes before you cross the line and it becomes cheaper to do business elsewhere.
So be careful with it. If you want the tax money, you'll probably have to make doing business cheaper by skimping on something else. Maybe loosening regulations. Maybe making labor cheaper. Whatever. But if you make it too expensive to do business in the US, they'll leave.
Game over. Then you get ZERO in taxes. They are out of your jurisdiction so the regulation is irrelevant. And labor policies are also irrelevant because everyone is unemployed.
It's a balancing act. Don't cross the line.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Shut up citizen.
When government intervention fails, it's because we did not intervene enough! Everybody knows this. Where did you get your economics degree citizen? It sounds to me like you are spewing unapproved economics!
Citizen, pick up that can.
Because those people are ignorant, either naturally or deliberately, and think that somehow their own upbringing wasn't just as subsidized by the nanny state they bitch about as anyone else that grew up in a first-world country.
They were all raised by wolves in the forest and had to fight to the death for every bit of sustenance in their lives, didn't ya know? Remember the movie 300? They grew up like those guys, except for without the helots that made it all fucking possible.
In other words, they're full of shit and just don't want to pay it forward now that it's their turn to do like their parents and everyone before them did.
This isn't solely a strategy of large corporations. Thousands of small businesses have also incorporated in Nevada or Delaware to get away from our idiotic state "Business and Occupations" tax, which can be as 1.8%. B&O is levied against your GROSS sales and there are NO deductions. That means if you have around a 5% margin (not uncommon in competitive markets), you can lose upwards of 40% of your net income to the state for the "privilege" of doing business here. But wait, it gets worse. A lot of cities have their own B&O taxes that get added on, so you can kiss even more of your meager profits goodbye.
I don't blame anyone for getting the hell out of here. It's a nice place to live (if you like 9-10 months of cold temperatures, rain, and grey skies) but it's a crappy place to operate a low-margin business. That's why you see so many high-priced art galleries and retailers specializing in hipster crap with a 500% markup. they're the only ones who can afford to pay the government vig.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I don't get it, why should companies pay taxes on overseas income? Why is USA the only developed country with this type of tax structure? Somebody who is an expert on international taxation explain to me why does USA implements taxation on worldwide income?
And it was also a bailout. You know, the thing that actually seems to have saved the company.
Say what you wish, but a bailout like that makes the government a pretty big investor in the company. Probably one of the major bondholders.
this won't work with Wikepedia, but I wonder who the next SOPA/PIPA opposer is that's up for some 'treatment'.
and how it's led indirectly to $4 billion in K-12 and Higher Education cuts since 2008
That's political theater. Cut education and call a press conference while ignoring the cesspool of waste and mismanagement that permeates government bureaucracy.
News flash: Taxes are a cost of doing business. Costs of doing business are passed on to the consumer. Microsoft and Apple would not pay these taxes in any event. Their customers would pay them through higher prices.
You know, the thing that actually seems to have saved the company.
- it's a good thing you type this as AC, otherwise we'd see who is really retarded here.
Saving a company by confiscating it from the owners?
Saving a company by CONFISCATING IT from the OWNERS?
Well, if you believe that the company's purpose is to provide jobs and that the purpose of a government is to ensure that owners get shafted, then they 'saved the company'.
You are such an cretin. A company is built and exists only for ONE PURPOSE: to make money for the owners.
If it loses the money for the owners, the company is failing. If it loses all the money for the owners by being confiscated it has failed completely. That company has completely failed, just like your brain.
You can't handle the truth.
Yes, better to continue prostituting ourselves and our future. Dignity costs far too much, nay?
The U.S. is the largest consumer market in the world and these guys all depend on being able to sell their shit here to continue making their immense fortunes. Think not? Tell them to pack up their shit and take their products with them. Watch how fast they back the fuck down and start paying taxes.
We have the highest corporate rates, not the highest corporate taxes. After all the deductions, credits, loopholes, etc., our corporations do not generally pay more than in other developed countries. GE and Seimens have pretty similar businesses.
From GE's last annual report:
"Income taxes (benefit) on consolidated earnings from continuing operations were 28.5% in 2011 compared with 7.3% in 2010 and (11.6)% in 2009."
From Seimen's last annual report:
"The effective tax rate was 24% in fiscal 2011 and benefited from the income tax treatment of the Areva disposal gain, which was mainly tax-free. For comparison, the effective tax rate of 29% in the prior year was adversely affected by the goodwill impairment charges at the Diagnostics Division, the majority of which was not deductible for tax purposes."
Let me fix that for you:
The end game is no large company pays taxes, because states are too afraid of losing companies in their jurisdiction.
Small companies get to pay more to make up for that. At least, that's my impression about the Philadelphia region. You read in the paper about all sorts of tax deals, loans, etc. being done to attract big company X to the city, but small companies don't get offered deals like that -- it wouldn't be practical or a make for a good headline (i.e. "We're getting 1,000 new jobs from company X" is easier to pull off and sell than 100 deals to with small companies to bring in 10 new jobs each). Since tax money has to come from somewhere, small companies are presumably paying more to subsidize the special deals for the big companies. Cities want the cache of attracting big companies when small, fast-growing companies could generate more jobs. We would all be better off if tax rules were applied uniformly instead of allowing everyone to get their own special (corruption-encouraging) deal.
From what I have seen, businesses with as few as one employee actively seek out ways to cheat the tax code. Naturally, the larger businesses find even more creative ways to do it, to preserve even more of their own money.
Now, is this a good argument for a "flat tax"? Probably not. In reality, if there were a flat tax implemented at the federal and/or state level, you could count on the congressional powers that be to grant special favors to their favorite sponsors that would make it far less than "flat". Even if the tax code were reduced to fit on a post card, there would still be kickbacks and favors to retain the current system of steeply regressive taxation.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The state giving preferential treatment to large corporations, shocking. With just a bit more power they'll start using it for good, you'll see. Obama/Romney 2012!
"It is not a tax problem, it is a spending problem".
Taxes collected swing with the economy, but spending gets ratcheted up and never swings down. Especially here in California - the spenders see a bubble of income and they lock-in spending like the party never ends. LA is broke, but a bunch of employees are getting a 10% raise - are you getting a raise? Why public employee unions are even legal, I don't know. Talk about a conflict of interest...
The US has the highest corporate rates of the G7
Make tax payable at the same rate everywhere. Simple.
Jonathanjk.com
i wouldn't want my tax money ending in the US either....
it just ends in war anyway, because you're the ricky retardo nation of the world still wondering why their prisons are so well filled...
For the most part they're just greedy assholes who think they've found an ideology that can justify what is nothing more than pure, unadulterated selfishness.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...in taxes through its Nevada office too?
Oh my!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Why is it teachers spend all their time evaluating the job their students are doing learing on a daily basis, but refuse to have their job performance measured in any way ever?
No one put a gun into anyone head and told them to be a teacher. Its not like they didn't know how volatile the teaching profession is before they got into it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Didn't Gm pay almost all of it back.
It is not confiscation if its shares are purchased. Its called capitalism. They asked if they needed a bailout and said yes. Obama said fine and purchased the stocks and then became the new owner. As the largest shareholder he fired the CEO for being incompetent. Now they paid nearly all of it back and the new board is fairly independent.
http://saveie6.com/
There is nothing illegal here. This is just a bunch of 1% loonies that are so filled with anger, hatred, and envy that they can't stand it when some one is doing better than their worthless god-less life allows.
Google makes all their smartphones out of hemp in the US using union labor and then donates all the profits to orphans...orphans with diseases.
Since I really don't have a leg to stand on so I'll try to compare apples and oranges and hope that my shameless whoring for the wealthy will eventually tinkle down upon myself.
Maybe more.
It should be an honor and privilege for everyone to sacrifice themselves doing the work for self-important idiots like you. Id you don't want to pay to live in a decent society, please feel free to leave. Of course, there wouldn't be anyone for you to sponge off of, so I guess you'll just leach off of your betters while whining like a self-entitled four-year-old.
and the numbers are in
69%
42%
>1%
100%-1
As long as teachers are paid with tax and/or fake inflation money, the people who pay these taxes should be against them.
"us" vs "them" ? Like it is a war, against them, the teachers, nurses, firemen, policemen, soldier, politician ? ... and all the big and not so big companies get boatload of money from the government either directly through contract or indirectly through customised regulation. It also us vs them, the employee of the top-500 companies including their CEO.
...) to them.
Wait, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing,
And the bailout ? Add all the bankers and all their support people (it, pa, cleaner,
It starts to be pretty crowded on the "them" side.
As a shareholder in both AAPL and MSFT, they have a legally-binding fiduciary duty to take advantage of any and every legal avenue available to increase the value of my shares.
That is Federal Securities Law. If they can legally avoid paying $5B in taxes, Federal Law requires that they do so on my behalf.
Don't like it? Too bad.
Look, i consider it my duty to pay may taxes, but I see no reason to pay more than my share has been determined to be. My share is determined to be a percentage of my income, less any deductions that are legitimately available to me. I sleep just fine taking advantage of my accountant to help me get access to those deductions. If I plan my financial affairs just so, I can save even more tax.
Why should ultra-rich corporations be any different? They employ or consult with people whose sole job is to minimize their tax liability. The tax shelter approaches they are using are perfectly legal.
If their making use of tax shelters is so offensive, call your congressman to have their loopholes closed. Or stop buying the products produced by these companies.
If it proves impossible to close loopholes, then eliminate all income tax, sales tax, whatever tax, and simply raise property tax to balance things. Can't hide real estate. If bitcoin or similar ever really take off, that's what will need to happen anyhow.
That is not capitalism. Stealing money from one person (the taxpayers) to pay someone else (in this case GM) is theft. It doesn't matter if GM paid it back, it was still an act of theft.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
In other words, you think they should have let GM go bankrupt?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Because it's quite hard to do truly objectively. Looking at some numbers doesn't cut it, but the bureaucrats don't see past that. That's all there's to it. If you want to evaluate a teacher, and do it well, it will cost you real money in time of people who will do the evaluation. And it's not something you can do in an hour, nor even in a day.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Yeah, all their classes are technically offered through their UW-Reno branch campus.
#DeleteChrome
Move to a place with lower property taxes, then. Heck, you may even go to a place that has a better school district that is actually worth your upkeep, ekhm, taxes.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
For the last 10 years, the Washington State revenues have increased beyond the rate of inflation plus population growth. There are plenty of revenues coming in to cover the increase in delivery of services AND the increase in the number of people using those services. What has NOT matched the growth of revenues is spending - the Legislature consistently spends even more, adding new programs and wasting money (see the current Seattle Times article about wasted money on expensive SUVs) with glee. The State does not have a revenue problem; it has a significant spending problem, and cranking more dollars into Olympia will not solve the issue.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Thank you for reinforcing my point.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Didn't Gm pay almost all of it back.
Probably not. From that article: “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that taxpayers will lose around $30 billion on G.M.”
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Perhaps it's because there aren't any pervasive CEO unions that make it nearly impossible to fire them. (That I know of.)
Not to say that there isn't a real problem with golden parachutes, etc., but there's a difference between a CEO negotiating that with an employer and teacher's unions making it nearly impossible to fire incompetent teachers, and far more difficult for talented, motivated teachers to find work.
You're describing a race to the bottom. It ends in the death of the first world lifestyle. Fuck that. We should charge corporations what we think is reasonable, and if they don't like it, then strip their executives of citizenship and kick them out. If Ballmer had to choose between living in Somalia or helping pay for the civilization he enjoys living in, I suspect he'd suddenly come to a very different conclusion about what level of taxes is acceptable.
Didn't Gm pay almost all of it back.
Not really. It used some Government tax dollars in an escrow account to pay back some of its Government loans. And the Government has lost billions on GM stock. So we gave GM some money, we got some stock. GM used some of that Government money to pay back Government loans, and the Government sold some of the stock at a loss. Not even close to paying all of it back.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"For if the King does it, it is not wrong."
-Richard M. Nixon as depicted in ATT's movie.
It just goes to show how little the world has changed in the last several thousand years.
During the Middle Ages, there were laws for Nobles and laws for Commoners.
Obviously, all this talk and laws of Democracy and Feedom confuses you. Back during feudalism, you could be excused for certain crimes if you were Noble, now you just have to be able to afford a lawyer who could use his clout and knowledge to get you off due to some technicality. Face it, laws are written for lawyers to make work for lawyers. On top of that, most judges will let certain things slide and other things are disregarded solely based on the presenting lawyers and client.
Dearest and deepest pockets sweet uncle Warrent 'Buffet Rule' Buffet is an artist when it come to skipping corporate and personal taxes. Like the great fruad of long ago, Ponzi, uncle Warrent spins his web of decit, lies and swendle far and wide across the Americas and Europe. For his next 'Conquest' uncle Warren sets his lust upon China.
Please do no live long, and do not prosper at the expense of the poor from whom you have robbed, err enjoyed, so well, uncle Warren Buffet.
Death become you.
--
We have the highest corporate taxes in the world. Without the loopholes most US companies would leave the country or go broke.
But with loopholes, the US corporate tax burden is on the low end of OECD countries.
Supposedly also Japan has a "value added tax" that pushes their corporate tax rate higher than the USA.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So be careful with it. If you want the tax money, you'll probably have to make doing business cheaper by skimping on something else. Maybe loosening regulations. Maybe making labor cheaper. Whatever. But if you make it too expensive to do business in the US, they'll leave.
As it is the big corporations are paying lower tax rates than most other industrialized countries. And they might as well leave so far as the public is concerned, because they're sending as many of their jobs overseas as they can get away with.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Make tax payable at the same rate everywhere. Simple.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Make tax payable at the same rate everywhere. Simple.
Difficult to do with state taxes. States (and cities) deliberately lowball tax rates so companies will do exactly what Microsoft is doing. Nevada gets less money out of MS than Washington would, but if MS paid the taxes in Washington, Nevada wouldn't get anything out of it at all.
Just another example of society being organized to be cheapest for those who have the most money.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The value of the stock has gone up so much that the government made more money than what it gave out already.
That is an investment if anything. It saved millions of jobs from other tax payers and was well worth it to use the government as a line of credit in such a situation. Now if the CEO of GM took the money and sold the assets it would be theft.
http://saveie6.com/
We have the highest corporate taxes in the world. Without the loopholes most US companies would leave the country or go broke.
Who wants skyrocketing unemployment and a further collapse in the US tax base?
Err, no. You have lower corporate taxes than a number of other countries (think France or Denmark). And ridiculously lower income tax rates. In case you weren't aware, the world's biggest tax havens include Delaware, Nevada, and (until recently anyway) the City of London. Let me put it this way: if you think that lower corporate taxes are the solution, allow me to highlight that the likes of Panama or Belize (both arguably more attractive than Ireland or Luxembourg from a tax stand-point) aren't exactly roaring tigers.
More to the point, high taxes have never made companies go away. Not ever. Reagan and Thatcher wanted you to think otherwise, but the facts don't add up -- let alone history. Because your workforce is simply not there at the other end of the world. You'll excuse the political incorrectness, but I'd rather hire a mostly competent German, French or US coder than a mostly incompetent Indian or Chinese coder. It's education that counts at the end of the day for a number of businesses. And for the rest, well... you cannot outsource burger flippers or supermarket staff.
Which brings us to the employees. As in, you... How long do you think you'd last, since you take it as an example, in India? It's a nice place to go to as a tourist, mind you. Wonderful even. But to live there for more than a week or two? I dare you. Ever wiped your arse with your left hand and a bucket of water? Seen corpses drifting down a river on a regular basis? Seen kids the age of your own offering their arse for a few bucks so they can eat? Spent more than a few months away from friends and relatives? If not, your opinion on this topic is, I'm sorry to say, completely irrelevant. And don't get me started on the language barrier. Some people cope with it; some don't. Make that most don't. The point is, shifting the workforce to wherever is simply not an option. No matter how high the payroll of the staff that you keep to train and manage. The equivalent workforce elsewhere is non-existent. Those who believe that you can just shift a company to wherever may just as well believe that unicorns exist -- and that they crap skittles. Many companies tried this lunacy, mind you. Many are returning, and are finding out that they slaughtered their own workforce in the process. Many are going to die. Boeing is a case in point: they outsourced so much that their wings are now designed in Japan; if you think they'll be a meaningful business in 20 years, think again.
And then, there are trade barriers. Take Apple. They produce a lot in China, as you know, and they fully intend to keep the bulk of what they do there in the near future because, you know, the screws are produced down the street and the glass is produced at the other end of the town. It's a gigantic industrial hub, like the US used to be 50 years ago. Enter Brazil. The cost of selling built-abroad phones there is so punitive that Apple had Foxconn set up factories in Brazil. Punitive, as in during the golden age of capitalism... in the 19th century... in... wait for it... hey, cotton-farmers even lost a civil war to get rid of those tariffs... yeah, they did... slave labor was just so darn cheap.... that would be the US in case it hadn't sunk in yet. Something to chew on the next time you praise lower trade barriers and über-free markets.
Regarding going broke, that's the company's problem, not yours or mine. If all else fails, they can increase their price. But since their survival lies in delivering something that Joe Shmoes cannot deliver anyway, they deserve to die if they haven't thought about how to monetize their (hopefully) superior product or increase their competitivity -- see Apple in Brazil. In addition, in case you're not aware, increased regulation has historically increased the productivity of firms in
State and local governments are responsible for the actions of Microsoft and Apple because they passed the laws making such tax avoidance possible. It's unreasonable to think that any company or individual would not try to pay the lowest legal amount.
But the lengths to which Apple, Microsoft, and the other tech giants have gone to influence these laws is what offends me. The tech lobby's biggest priority is to allow high-tech firms to bring back profits from overseas operations that were established precisely to avoid taxes in the first place. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-18/technology-companies-lobby-u-s-lawmakers-for-lower-corporate-taxe-rates.html
Companies download software from countries with lower tax burdens, claim their profits there, and now are pushing hard to be allowed to bring that money home free from U.S. tax. It's nice that Apple and Microsoft help Ireland pay for its schools, but not while Cupertino's and Seattle's are cutting educational spending to the bone and beyond.
And if the tiny city of Cupertino has the temerity to ask Apple for something as modest as citywide free wireless, Apple threatens to move out of town, neglecting to point out that, to a large extent, it already has.
Please vote.
During last 12 month almost every single news outfit run a story (and some of these outfits run it more than once) about companies (like GE or all Oil companies) not only not paying any taxes in US but actually getting substantial refunds. At the very least, Apple and MS do pay some taxes in US. If you create a crooked tax system, do not complain that peoples and companies learn how to "use" it, change the system. It seems that lately someone figure out that any news gets "hotter" if it has "Apple angle". I am getting sick of it, but apparently stories about how incompetent and dysfunctional US congress is can not sustain "public" interest as well as "Apple ... doing ... anything".
I'm going into teaching. I just finished student teaching, I'll have my certificate for Secondary Ed within a month or two. The *minimum* salary I will be paid is clearly posted and easy to find. There's really no excuse to complain about your pay when going in you know what you're getting into. Schools are free to pay teachers whatever they want above the minimum and many do. Teachers are paid middle class income. If you don't want to earn middle class income, then find a different profession.
And yes, teachers actually have to like their job because if the teacher isn't enthusiastic about what they are teaching, the students aren't going to be enthusiastic about what they're learning. I've been living on 30K for the last few years with a nice house, a decent car, etc. The minimum teacher's salary with my credentials is actually a raise so no, I'm not complaining.
Teaching is not a revenue generating profession. CEOs can quantify their value in real dollars and that's how they get paid. On top of not generating revenue, teachers are barely being ranked on results. By what objective metric can we say that a particular teacher deserves X amount of dollars? Currently we just lump all teachers together and refuse to acknowledge teachers as individuals. Any attack on a particular crappy teacher is turned into an attack on all teachers.
So until that changes, teachers will be paid a decent middle class income. And no, they have no room to complain about it unless they want to change the collective mindset into an individual mindset.
Work Safe Porn
You're only seeing things from one side. As typical for a corporate apologist.
Take things from another perspective. If the corporations seek too much of a free ride, or force too many cuts, what happens then? Do they get kicked out? What loss would that cause, if they're turned out of a market? What if they start having customers too poor to buy other products, or just too busy not starving to seek entertainment?
Companies that play things your way are amoral and psychotic, their leadership needs to be dealt south in the only way that works with such inhumanity: Rooted out as the noxious weeds they are, poisoning the rest of the garden.
Why? Because they have crossed the line.
What happened to it?
With CS on it's own.
4 year CS is to long for most IT jobs and there is a lot of learn on the job and lot's of skills you get in tech schools that CS does not give you.
No, it isn't theft, you silly little bitch. It's called taxation. And taxes are required to support the money system and private property, without which, there would be no such thing as actual theft. Put down the Ayn Rand and get a job.
Well you do realize that there are places with way higher standard of life and way lower tax rates then US? As surprising as it might sound to you but those wealthy people stay in US mostly because they a patriots.
Can't really call it theft if you have the right to vote or move to another location.
...Except for the fact you don't have a right to move to another location. If you look at the legislation governing passports in the US, you aren't entitled to receive one, in fact, there are various bills being debated restricting passports even further. Even the basic right to renounce citizenship is questionable! There have been reports where people have gone to renounce US citizenship and their application to renounce citizenship has been denied!
Voting still fails to nullify the theft issue. After all, if a gang comes up to you in a dark alley wielding guns, bats and knives and gives you a vote when they decide to take your money it is still theft. If the same gang does the same thing and promises to use your stolen money to donate to charity, buy books for a local library, etc. it is still theft. The situation doesn't change just because gang is wearing a police uniform.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Absolutely.
I can see that many in this thread cannot get enough of government cock. You could happily suck it all day long. When a corporation unzips his fly and asks for a free suck you turn away. I don't understand what it is about the taste of government dick that you love so much. I get that you think powerful corporations are bad (and I agree), but I don't understand why you think powerful governments are good.
I don't want to suck government dick or corporate dick. Nor do I want to be anyone's slave. It is for this reason that I am quite poor and only work the bare minimum of hours necessary to survive. If I'm going to be a slave at least I can be a lazy one. I refuse to be a beast of burden either for the government or for corporations. In such a system I will only work the bare minimum necessary for survival.
I don't like any concentrations of power. People in general are selfish narrow-minded, corrupt scumbags and can always be counted on to behave badly. The government consists of people and corporations consist of people. So they are both evil. But corporations are less powerful. At least they cannot arrest you and put you in a cage because you didn't follow some silly rule of theirs or because you didn't treat one of their enforcers with the respect they feel is owed to them. No doubt some corporations would love to have that kind of power, but they just don't.
I believe that slavery is bad. All forms of slavery. Just as I would hate any corporation that demanded a percentage of every hour of my labor I hate and resent any government that feels I owe them part or even all what I make working at some shit job. I say fuck greedy people, whether it is the government or corporations. I don't owe them a damn thing. My life is my own. It belongs to me and not to the government. They have no right to even one penny of the money that I need for paying rent or buying food.
The people who founded this country were like me. The British government believed that they owned the colonists. That a portion of their labor belonged to some king across the ocean. Well the colonists gave the finger to that king and told him to come and get it if he could.
It is scary how easy it is to convince people to be slaves. It must be a very deep part of human nature to want to be owned. Well enjoy the taste of that cock. Suck it all you want. Just don't try to force me to suck it as well. Enjoy licking your masters' boots.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Someone please set roman_mir's house on fire, so we can see if he's a hypocrite or not. If not, he'll refuse the fire department's help.
[quote]If doing business in your country costs the company more money then other places then it isn't reasonable. [/quote]
So why are any of these companies in the US at all? Surely it would be cheaper to set up in a third world country, or some other first world country with a lower tax rate.
The answer is that they depend on the first world infrastructure paid for and maintained by tax dollars, and they shouldn't be allowed to put more and more of that burden on the shoulders of their employees while they are making record profits.
It's really just another roundabout way to put profits ahead of people, further consolidating the wealth gap which likely ends in corporate slavery.
Corporations are legally bound to make profits at the expense of everything and everyone around them, and that should necessarily be paired with a responsibility to support the communities that create the infrastructure their profits depend on. Unfortunately these "external costs" end up getting paid by the increasingly impoverished work force.
It should read:
"Not Just Apple and Microsoft, but nearly every mega-corporation, and how they Sidestepped Billions In State Taxes"
This is clearly nothing more than people trying to downplay Apple and their glorious, late Mr. Jobs and how a cheap, penny-punching asshole couldn't do any wrong. Just the same as Microsoft fanbois will do the same for their favorite company. In reality, this is a huge problem with a lot of big companies such as those and it won't stop until either the loopholes are closed, or governments stop taxing the hell out of success.
Bullshit. Charge them what *we* think is reasonable, boot them out of the country if they don't pay up, and then *tax the shit out of any of their products imported into the country from wherever they move* so that their more well-behaved stay-at-home competitors can eat their lunch. Corps won't be so hungry to go offshore anymore if that means they also lose their biggest market.
Apple is sitting on a multibillion dollar 'war chest' of petty cash, and so is Microsoft. How can you possibly believe that making them pay their fair share in taxes will in any way diminish their ability to compete or do business?
It's led indirectly to $4 billion in K-12
The more money the K-12 system gets, the worse it becomes.
the point being your failure to comprehend?
I am not a tax attorney, but doesn't the US also have the highest tax write-offs for lobbying, political contributions, and other means of influencing the government? As usual, the rules benefit corporations with the means and willingness to manipulate the system. There's high taxes to preclude benevolent corporations from prospering, oil restrictions that only the most corrupt corporations can circumvent, FDA restrictions so costly only the most corrupt pharmaceutical corporations can afford, and don't get me started on the SEC, military contractors, or the health system. They're all exactly how the most corrupt corporations want them.
So would you rather US corporations dodged taxes, or essentially spent them to subvert the system against its citizens?
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Microsoft and Apple have companies in Luxembourg, that in reality are shells, yet financially are claimed to the substantial pat of their business. Thats at best deception and at worst fraud. Buffet does not do this.
When *people* work in two countries, they pay the higher of the taxes due, so I work in Luxembourg and France, I pay some taxes in Luxembourg, and the full rate in France minus the part in Luxembourg. If corporations are people then they should be forced to do this too.
Apple and Microsoft behavior is borderline, and quite possibly over, the limit that would constitute tax fraud, and the only reason they have not been prosecuted is because the evidence is abroad and they have political clout. That should be fixed. You can't have rich corporations buying candidates to give them special taxes.
"Voluntary extra payments" - whose talking about 'Voluntary' anything. The law needs to be changed so they can be caught and prosecuted, and if the court rules they have exploited a loophole successfully, then that loophole should be closed.
The article is a followup to a recent article about Apple avoiding taxes.
Microsoft being the topic of this one is just a case of "Well them there do it too!"
Regarding the flavor of taxes...
If you are to browse through the comments on this story and the Apple story you will notice that it is not about the brand of taxes at all.
The topic is polarized, as it is often case here at Slashdot, around two options - taxes evil and taxes good.
As for "a good accountant"...
Sorry, but that (and similar) comments remind me of those times when I get dragged into religious arguments, and the other guy starts quoting dogma as proof.
My point is that such actions (tax evasion) are immoral, be they legal or not.
Look up my earlier post on that in Apple tax evasion thread (the long one) if you are interested in my further explanation why I find it to be so.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
GM went bankrupt and wiped out shareholders and most bondholders. Many contracts were abrogated as a result.
The US government expedited the bankruptcy with force (a good thing in the circumstance) and recapitalized with new money.
Yes, I would like to see MS relocates more workers to India.
In fact, I like to see how they deal with the Indian worker's skillset, the government stance on IP, privacy and competition laws.
For any tech company, the greatest asset is the employees. I like to see a company as big as MS to migrate away from the high-skilled and IP haven like US just to save tax is entertaining.
Corporations love to reap the benefits of a country (skilled workforce, laws and protectionism, stable economy and government) but seldom want to contribute a single cent to that country.
I propose that we will make more progress in our inquiry if we re-frame how we approach the matter. These articles (viz. Apple and Microsoft) have generated a lot of traffic because there is a tacit expectation that corporations have moral responsibilities or are moral actors. I want to challenge those assumptions.
To assign feelings to corporations is anthropomorphic: Apple cannot hate (or love) America any more than a colony of bacteria can hate or love a petri dish. A corporation will seek to minimize its tax burden the same way a simple organism unpleasant stimulus in its environment. Casting that behavior as moral or immoral is a fallacy. It is an easy mistake to make because every behavior a company exhibits is an expression of a decision made by a person. People are moral actors endowed with individual wills, conscience, and (hopefully) a moral compass.
There does not have to be any conscious evil unpinning corporate behavior for a corporation to behave in ways that feels immoral or amoral to us. For example, if a finance executive can reduce a corporation's tax burden by taking steps that are not demonstrably illegal, that exec will prosper. His superiors will reward him and entrust him with more power. His rival will fall by the wayside. If a financial executive's moral compass caused him to make decisions that were not in the corporation's best interests, the corporate body will expel him, just as a living body might try to eliminate a cancer.
The system rules by which corporations act are observable and remarkably consistent. This might be useful. For example, the phenomenon that water tends to run down hill is also observable and remarkably consistent, and this simple observations leads us to build damns to store potential energy, irrigate crops and control flooding.
The turning point comes when we stop asking "how can we make corporations to behave like good citizens" and start asking "how can we best harness corporate behavior for the good of the citizens". If I had the answers, I'd try and write a book instead /. post. Approaching the problem from a new perspective might lead us to some new territory we haven't already covered.
But if you make it too expensive to do business in the US, they'll leave.
I hear Ireland is doing really well these days.
Companies also need a knowledge base, infrastructure, and culture. They also need a market. These things require corporate taxes to be paid to create and upkeep. In the short term, offshoring may allow external nations to be more competitive and we may equalize somewhat, but the picture is much bigger than "tax them and they will leave" and "don't tax them -- profit."
It is no more the state's duty to educate everyone than to provide shoes for everyone. The private sector is much more capable of providing much better quality education for everyone and at lower costs. Nor does the money of a corporation belong to the state it happens to do business in. The idea that besides the value it offers in its products and besides all the benefits that derive from it being in existence in the the state, that somehow it also owes more to the state is utterly absurd, it is hideously parasitical. What on earth makes you believe a corporation or anyone else owes you a damn thing?
Calling taxes stealing is very revealing of your ideology. Here's mine: "Taxes are what we pay for civilization." -Supreme court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Want to live in a free, vibrant, healthy society?
I, for one, would like to see the sorts of tax structures in place that in the past helped build a strong infrastructure, best education system in the world, and from which every corporation and rich person benefited. Top marginal rates were 70-90%. Corporations paid their share, as is appropriate, given the infrastructure (courts, roads, electric grid, etc.) upon which they built their profits.
Today, taxes are "stealing." You might enjoy the libertarian Mecca of Haiti, or the freedom from taxes afforded by life in sunny Somalia. Think about it.
Totally predictable behavior. Apple fanboys love to chant about how valuable Apple is, how much money it has, how it is more now bigger than Microsoft. Being big means more scrutiny. Factory working conditions, tax avoidance. All of that stuff goes with the territory. So the fanboy reaction is to bleat "Microsoft does it too" as though that justifies Apple's actions. No, sorry. Apple got to where it is by hard work, luck, zealous fanboys, and lots and lots of advertising. Now that they are there, the spotlight gets more intense. So what if Microsoft and Google "do it too?" Aren't we told Apple does everything better? Shouldn't they lead by example? Nothing in the corporate culture of Apple leads me to believe they will.
FWIW, Ben & Jerry's (the ice cream company) once tried to find a CEO that should be doing it for the love it, not the money. After a so-called "essay-contest" they got Bob Holland. Five years later (and after going through another CEO in the meantime), Ben & Jerry's finally sold-out to Unilever (a british and dutch megacorporation).
What lesson can we draw from this? Perhaps that sometime people (incl. CEOs, teachers and often people managers) you hire that "should be doing it for the love of it", sometimes aren't the best people for you to hire to do that job.
Ridiculous idea and totally unworkable. As soon as you do that I'm going to run out and buy a bunch of gold. Then how are you going to tax my wealth? I could do the same with any number of things, bottles of wiskey, rembrant paintings etc. You're going to need an awfully large bureaucracy to audit the millions of people who do the same.
Wealth taxes are the worst taxes possible because they encourage people to hide and hoard wealth. It immobilizes capital into unproductive forms (say, gold bars) rather then productive uses (factories, services etc)
The solution you're looking for is a consumption tax. The rich, who consume more pay more. The poor pay less. If the rich choose not to consume, and instead reinvest their money into more production, all the better.
That's corrupt politicans you're complaining about... not corrupt corporations.
Remember the politicians exempted themselves from the national Do Not Call list? Same thing. They'll never pass a law that makes it harder for you to give them money. That has nothing to do with corrupt corporations.
Imagine if you're an honest corporation trying to make a living... then a politician passes a law that hurts your company. And your competitors all make big campaign contributions so that the law doesn't apply to them. They get special exemptions. And you get nothing because you didn't grease the right palms.
So now you're punished for not being corrupt.
Do you realize how common that is in this country? So when the politicians come asking for money, it's often something of a protection racket. You can pay or they'll f*ck you. Are you corrupt for paying them to leave you alone? Is the man that pays the mob off corrupt for not wanting his store burned down?
It is the same thing.
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No pun intended.
Incorporate wherever you want, so long as you stand by your word. A company should not be able to be located in one state, have its income generated in a second state, but have its contracts with a local jurisdiction bound to a third.
The state of California should just say "you bind people to my jurisdiction in your click-wrap agreements, then obviously this is where your revenue was generated. Pay up".
Shachar
The rich can just stop consuming. They'll work for companies (owned by their friends) who pay for everything (untaxed under most consumption tax proposals, like Fair Tax). Consumption tax with the "don't tax companies" loopholes will be massively regressive.
Learn to love Alaska
Its not a race to the bottom.
The difference between manufacturing in China over the US is only about 20 percent. China can't go any lower then they're already going and china has many problems they cannot or will not fix. We have many advantages. If we just removed some of the stupid and very affordable problems we could even our prices with China without sacrificing our standard of living.
It's little things like faster regulation. Not even less. Just faster. It can take upwards of eight months to several years to get approval for construction. Make it happen in two weeks... approval or denial... but case closed and everything will move faster and companies will save money because they won't have to wait.
Other things like more flexible labor policy. Many labor rules were written 70 years ago and they're not relevant anymore. Just reexamine them and don't be stubborn.
And yes... eliminating or radically lowering corporate taxes is a good idea. It's a loss leader. If you reduce corporate taxes but increase business activity then you get more revenue on balance.
What is more... 50 percent of nothing or 5 percent of a million dollars?
Do the math.
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But your are united states! Country of the most selfish people in the whole planet that doesn't give a f*ck about other people.
And how would you do that? Planetary government?
Okay, so step one... conquer whole earth... large scale nuclear war will probably be required and billions will die in the process. Bring all nations under your iron rule... and then establish a global minimum tax.
Totally sensible... if you're a psychopath... or an idiot.
You can't establish a global tax because there is no global government. Any nation can and will undercut you.
And then you'll say do it diplomatically. But what is to stop one of your allies from selling you out? Look at the sanctions on Iran for example... how many countries that supposidly agree with the US on Iranian nuclear ambitions nonetheless do business with Iran either under the table or with special exemptions?
Your idea doesn't even work in the EU. Look at Ireland. Member of the EU, member of the Euro, and basically zero corporate taxes.
So if you can't even get member states of the EU to do it how are you going to get the hundreds of unaffiliated nations all over the earth to sign on to your suicide pact?
Two choices... you can either admit your idea is ignorant or you can start a thermonuclear war to establish a world government.
This is an intelligence test.
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There is no loss in dignity to offer a competitive rate.
That's merely being reasonable.
If I charged you 10,000 dollars for a sandwich and when you complained about the price... if I said "it would be beneigh my dignity to charge less"... exactly what would you think of my dignity? You'd think I was a moron, laugh at me, and never buy one of my clearly over priced sandwiches.
Do you want what business the US has to leave? Because attacking US businesses is a great way to turn the US into a third world country. No employers. No money. Death.
Anyone that knows anything about economics knows you want to encourage business activity. Not attack it. Attack it and you might as well just slit your f'ing throat and bleed out. Do that and you're f'ed. How much dignity will you have then?
Do you know what I call dignity? Having enough economic security that I don't have to worry about ignorant little pricks mouthing off about subjects they haven't the first inkling.
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Jim I'm out!
Do you want unemployment to go higher.
You can agree with me and we can have increased job growth or you can disagree and enjoy the suck.
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Exactly. And without those exemptions which this stupid article is whining about... the US economy would die.
You'd all be kicked out of your parent's basements because your parents would be broke and the house would be repossessed... or possibly condemned after a short use as a meth lab.
Stop attacking employers unless you want more americans to be unemployed. The people jinning these stories up are fruitcakes.
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That doesn't make the companies the rulers. It merely forces you to be reasonable. If doing business in your country costs the company more money then other places then it isn't reasonable.
So there's only a couple places on Earth where it is reasonable to do business? Why don't all companies do business there?
So if you want higher wages, that's fine... it just gets added to the total cost of doing business ...
Every time you add something it reduces the amount you can take in taxes before you cross the line and it becomes cheaper to do business elsewhere.
This is a sort-sighted philosophy that can turn a first-world nation into a 3rd world one. The only reason companies can sell so much crap is because people demand a high enough wage in the first place. If everyone thought this way, wages and benefits would spiral down to nothing as everyone tries to remain "competitive", just to maximize shareholder return, until the economy collapses because no one can afford to buy anything anymore.
You can say that about nearly every job out there.
Doesn't mean that some effort shouldn't be made to evaluate workers and eliminate poor performers. Its clear that all systems aren't perfect, but no system at all is far, far worse.
As to why companies haven't all left, they are... it takes time.
Your question is akin to asking why a dam doesn't drain in ten seconds.
Further, many of them really don't want to go. They're American companies run by American managers that all things being equal would rather keep as many operations in the US as possible. But not if you keep f'ing them over.
Look, the difference between the US and China is between twenty and thirty percent. It's not that huge a difference. But it too much to ignore on a balance sheet.
Here's all I ask. Rather then coming up with more of your own basement theories... ask a business why they left. Seriously. Find a company that you feel/think/know has left the country for some reason and ask them why they left and what it would take to have them come back.
Don't assume. Ask. Many politicians aren't talking to business at all. They're talking AT business and completely ignoring any of the feedback.
Just make it a two way conversation and you MIGHT have an f'ing clue what you're talking about. Maybe.
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Where I live we pay fire insurance to a private company and part of that money goes towards fire department.
By the way, the people who are forced to pay taxes towards fire dep't should absolutely be using that service. Are you telling me that somebody who is paying taxes towards that shouldn't be getting the service? If so, then the gov't shouldn't be upholding a monopoly on fire departments. Do you have half or only 1/3 of a brain?
You can't handle the truth.
Saving a company by CONFISCATING IT from the OWNERS?
Happens all the time. The bankruptcy court gives the corporation to the secured creditors (usually investors or a bank, but in this case the government and the union health fund), who then restructures the company under new management. For someone acting like a know-it-all, you probably should be aware of this "Business 101" process.
These kind of practices are very common in Europe. So common that they are even considered as "normal" by the public.
Every technology company with an office in Dublin is there to avoid taxes.
Purchased? Who said anything about purchased? The bond holders were wiped out, their shares were stolen, that's first.
Secondly - in a free market you are not forced into any transaction by the force of government.
Thirdly: the CEO of GM might have been incompetent, in fact Chrysler was already bailed out once before in 1979 by Jimmy Carter. 1.5 Billion USD was given to them by the gov't and then the US military bought who knows how many thousands of Dodge pickup trucks (M-880). This was a bail out and a stimulus package all in one.
The fact is that GM would have been in a much better shape today if the company was allowed to dissolve and assets would have been sold at various auctions to other companies. Nobody would have bought the entire disaster of a company, but none of the factories and equipment would have just been destroyed.
A fire-sale would have occurred, the assets would have been purchased at much lower prices than what GM was valued at the time, bond holders would have lost probably 60-80%.
BUT it wouldn't have been a disaster as it was - with the company being confiscated, the US gov't showing once more that it is really a totalitarian state of men and NOT a state of laws.
The union would have dissolved and the same people who worked for GM would have been hired again by the companies who would have bought the then cheaper assets.
The US tax payer wouldn't have been on the hook for this and the USD wouldn't have been diluted some more by the Fed.
Yes, GM should have absolutely been allowed to go through a normal bankruptcy and restructuring procedure. The US government has shown more of its true colours.
You can't handle the truth.
They did worse: they destroyed the business and they showed themselves to be again the nation of men, not the nation of laws. I commented in this thread on this already.
You can't handle the truth.
Yes Microsoft, Apple, and Google are behaving in unethical manner,
stop whining, vote with your wallet, boycot the jerks..
And yes it's kind of hard to do with google since it has something like "all the share", and if you want a smartphone, you are kind of stuck, (I mean BB come on...)
But not using microsoft and apple is really trivial, there is no real valid excuse, you might find it slightly more comfortable because you're used to...
But if you cannot change an habit because you are too lazy to learn something new, then do not expect law maker to stop helping these same companies to steal your money in exchange for some small "gifts". (and I do not even suggest that you lobby your employer to get rid of microsoft, just you on your personal machine),
If you are really shocked, write a letter today telling them: "I exchanged my i for an alternative vendor, and scratched the OS on my PC to install (your choice of Linux/BSD/haiku/...) and I will not come back until your tax returns show that you pay fair taxes in all the countries where you operate.
(of course I do expect you to do exactly nothing...)
It starts to be pretty crowded on the "them" side.
- I completely agree with you and I comment on this very problem here enough, that if necessary I'll give you literally dozens of examples.
Absolutely there shouldn't be any privileges to anybody given out by government, but then the government shouldn't be as powerful and as large as it is, so that nobody would be in a position to pay for such privileges and get them at the expense of the market.
You can't handle the truth.
It would be interesting to see how Washington ranks in college students in the 16-22 range compared to the rest of the states 18-24 range, considering the enormous number of students enrolled via Running Start. They start 2 years earlier, which probably leads to a lot more completing the same college curriculum early as well. Both those would skew enrollment numbers to the low side.
Not that this makes up for enrollment being near the bottom nationwide, but it's certainly something to consider.
I could have sworn I remember Slashdot reporting this when MS first did it.
I'm not surprised by the amount of connections MS has with government.
Raising taxes on Microsoft doesnt end with Balmer deciding between Somalia and America.. Raising taxes on Microsoft ends with Microsoft deciding between Balmer and someone else. Microsoft the corporation doesnt suffer "living conditions" .. only "economic conditions."
The discussion is about State taxes on corporations, but some really fool-hearty people (you ignorants) dont seem to know that there is a real difference between corporations and the executives currently "in charge" like Balmer.
As someone has already asked, how much in taxes would Microsoft (not Balmer) bare before moving out of Washington? The event "Microsoft moves to Somalia" does not equal "Balmer moves to Somalia." nor does the event "Balmer moves to Somalia" equal the event "Microsoft moves to Somalia"
Washington could enact severe personal income taxes without Microsoft giving any shits at all about it. Moving the company because of it wouldnt even be a matter of board room discussion, although maybe the topic of a few board room jokes.
This isnt a race to the bottom. If you dont think that its a good thing that downward pressure exists on taxes because of the competition between tax regions, then lets discuss that.. but I don't think that you want to discuss what you are trying really hard not to even admit to yourself.
"His name was James Damore."
Successful People were always immigrating from places with high tax to places with low tax.
It is a function of the difference. Companies are always trying to minimize their tax.
All of this is very good. Governments didn't work for that money. Morally they don't deserve it in the first place.
States compete between themselves for businesses to open. This competition is very positive, it keeps the greedy politicians in check.
It's not ignorant. It's totally possible with all the countries' borders staying where they are, just unlikely as you've described. At some point though, even just in the US, something will need to be done. If we can put a man on the moon and build an internet, we sure as hell can change some numbers. All it takes is will power.
Jonathanjk.com
If you (a person) pretended to be working in one state while actually working in another state, you would be prosecuted for tax fraud.
How is it different when Microsoft sets up a shell company with a couple of people in an office and pretends that this is a 'fulfillment center' or a 'dividend distribution center' or whatever they're pretending. They clearly are bogus offices used to make a false claim, and should be prosecuted as such.
No, they might as well not leave. They're paying your wage. The vast majority of people and nearly all tax revenue in the US comes from taxed income from people that work for companies. Remove the companies and the wages VANISH and then what are you going to tax?
These companies employ millions of people. The federal government collects taxes on all of them. If you think they might as well leave you're saying everyone might as well be unemployed. That's so wildly ignorant I don't even know where to start with it.
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no text
True, we put a man on the moon and developed the internet... and I don't disagree that we could start a thermo-nuclear war that annihilates all who would oppose your "genius" idea. I merely contend that it's not worth the horror... to say nothing of being something only someone with a child's grasp of reality or a literal demon would sign off on.
The simple reality is that it is not in the interest of other countries to cooperate with your idea. So you'll somehow have to trick them all into doing something against their interest or so terrify them that they'll submit out of fear. Short of that, you might as well try flying by flapping your arms... building a house of cards to reach the moon or digging to china with a tooth pick... all the above are more achievable goals.
What you're trying to avoid and you can't avoid is that there are limits to how high you can raise taxes that are set by the global market place. Companies have to set their prices low enough that competitors don't wipe them out by offering a substancially lower price.
Would you suggest that it's a pity that companies are forced to offer competitive prices? Of course not. Well, countries are in roughly the same position as they market themselves as places to do business. Think of the US as a landlord and the taxes and regulation as the rent. Are you going to set up in a place that charges radically higher rent without proportionally higher profits? No. That would be stupid. Which is why many companies walk away.
You don't have a choice. You can't force all the other landlords to raise their rent just so your rent is more competitive. You have to lower your rent or go out of business.
Choose.
This is an intelligence test.
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Well, as long as it's legal that's fine for me. Playing tricks with law is one of the greatest things you can do. And if you can save lots of money, fine, be happy! If people don't want that, they could just change the law. But the law won't be changed anyway, as Microsoft saved $ 4 Billion, so they can just donate half of that to the relevant politicians.
Your post is based upon and chock full of ignorance. Only complete ignorance of the rise of wealth and industry in the US within the taxation of those times would allow you to begin to assert those things you have said. Infrastructure does not fall from the sky. A society worth living in does not fall from the sky. Any policy that does not include the improvement of society is doomed to fail. Feasting off the accomplishments of past enlightenment is a temporary condition. Tax codes can and do determine the distribution of wealth. Saying that tax codes only pass cost is ridiculous. At the simplest they determine distribution. At their best, tax codes provide structure for societal growth and improvement that will lead to abundance that overwhelms any ridiculously pathetic marginal considerations you mention in your analysis. It's not a balancing act. The filthy rich and filthy poor can engage in a struggle where both turn off any social responsibility and fight over the pie while abusing the baker. It is the baker who makes pies. When a country loses a supply chain then no amount of tax reduction will make business return. When a country loses peaceful order then no amount of tax reduction will make business return. Production is not just numbers on a page. A company can locate where the populace has provided an attractive environment by providing the infrastructure and culture for that business. The business can then crap on the populace by avoiding payment to maintain those conditions. The business will then relocate to another victim who has provided an attractive environment and do it again. It won't matter that the tax rate is low if the infrastructure and culture is poor. That is the reality. Its not all taxes high or taxes low.
Above a certain size, it makes business sense to start evading taxes legally and Apple or MS are not unique.
I personally heard the CFO of a $14B tech company boast that the company's effective tax rate was 0%.
We don't want to enable those people to live a life of selfishness. We want to force them to comply with the will of the majority.
Speak for yourself. I welcome all forms of tax evasion, for the simple reason that less revenue for government means less injustice. Go ahead and fight to give your oppressors yet even more money if you are inclined, but DO NOT assume that everyone else is on your team.
everyone pays 25% tax. no cuts no nothing.
you want to sell here, pay taxes, you don't want to sell here, get out, and dont use any local resources.
this is how they used to do things, thousand of years ago, and no computer was needed. 3 for you , one for me.
well it was more like , one for you , two for me. but that is another story.
There's nothing wrong with people or businesses following every possible method to reduce their tax burdens.
There is everything wrong with a tax code written with deliberate loopholes to help one's friends and political donors.
Further, and I understand that this is just me, but there's also no moral duty to pay to fund a giant wealth redistribution racket, either. If you can avoid it and not go to jail, go for it.
-Styopa
The headline shouldn't be "evil corporations dodge paying their share". It should be "moron spendthrifts chase away golden goose".
Great, so all of these mult-billion dollar companies and persons have all of the tax shelters they want, but yet the media is bugging out about the "Buffet Rule" and all of those "millionaires" (you know, people who make $250k) not paying their "fair share". Last I checked, the more money you make, the less government services you are eligible for, buy yet you should pay more and more? When are poeple going to realize that INDIVIDUALS are not supposed to be taxed on their income. It's a direct tax that is unapportioned. It's unconstitutional, and the stupid law that created the IRS in 1913 (federal reserve act) was only voted into law because it was Christmas break and almost nobody was there to vote against it. Total foreign banker takeover.
All this jurisdiction dodging can be resolved. Just assess EVERYTHING as a sales tax. Then make anyone who ships to a destination from an origin from within the country pay sales tax at the destination. Out of country imports would need a bit special handling.
You're talking about import tariffs. That's how trade worked 100 years ago. Much of the trade reforms since then have been to remove tariffs.
Going back to the Tariff system would cause a global trade war.
We used most of our political and economic capital to get rid of them in the first place. What do you think the WTO does? It's all about removing tariffs and removing trade barriers.
It's difficult to properly explain how serious the political and economic backlash would be if you tried to re-institute heavy tariffs at this point. The whole US might be boycotted by the rest of the global economy.
In short, really bad idea.
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You don't know if I'm talking about that at all, because I didn't say what the special handling would be for out of country imports.
Regardless, linked below is the EU page on the VAT:
http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/index_en.htm
As you'll see, they assess the VAT on import. If your prediction is true, the EU's application of the VAT to imports should have already started a "global trade war". Did it, or do you... have less predictive power than you think?
C//
Corporations are not people so that when they pay taxes they have to get it from their customers, employees, and if they are publicly owned company, shareholders (among other things your 401K). The bottom line is that corporate taxation is just a form of double taxation. We should either have income tax or corporate tax but not both. If you want Microsoft, Apple, Exxon, ..., to pay more taxes while you continue to pay taxes then it means that you want the price of all their products and services to go up and their employee salaries to go down while you continue paying taxes to a wasteful and corrupt government. The average working person pays 25% in federal income tax, 7.5% in state and local tax, 15% directly and indirectly for social security payments, and all of the corporate federal state and local tax embedded in reduced salaries and the price of everything. The total probably comes to something well in excess of 60% in direct and indirect taxes for a working person. The notion promoted by some politicians that most working people don't pay taxes is an evil lie. All this ranting about corporate taxes makes politicians really happy because it diverts attention away from the real bottom line i.e. the fact that if you work for a living you are getting screwed and the price of everything you buy is higher than it needs to be so that our government can fund moronic wars and socialist agendas that have no significant consensus support. Politicians who demonize corporations to the public while failing to regulate them and while taking campaign contributions from them are the lowest form of scum on the face of the earth. It is our government's job to determine the rules by which corporations operate so that when a legal corporation is doing something that you don't like the real culprit is our government and not the corporations.
Oh, then your idea doesn't fix the problem. Imports are still often cheaper because they were manufactured outside of the high tax zone. The value of the goods is taxes however that value is set by the retail price and if they charge a lower retail price you'll get a lower revenue.
Ultimately, your problem is how to make your domestic goods competitive with imported goods. A VAT doesn't do that. It just increases the cost of everything by a set percentage. So if your goods were 20 percent more expensive they'll still be 20 percent more expensive.
A tariff would make imported goods 20 percent more expensive thus creating parity with domestic goods. However, that would cause a trade war.
So if your idea is a VAT, it would have no effect.
Look at Greece. They have a VAT... but doesn't matter because their economy is dead. You need to bring business into the country to tax them. People can't buy things if they have no money and you can't tax economic activity if there isn't any.
You're eating the goose that lays the golden eggs. There's no good reason to do that. If you want more gold, figure out how to get the goose to lay more eggs. Be nice to the goose. Don't scare it or piss it off.
In this lay the seeds of economic wisdom. No one ever got rich by pissing people off.
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"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Bottom line: there's nothing illegal about this practice. Clueless legislatures who believe A) it's a company's duty to pay taxes and B) it's a company's duty to take it up the ass when politicians act irrationally are going to pay the price.
If you think otherwise, you are a fascist. See the wikipedia entry on fascism and economics.
Apple responds to the nytimes article[1] . Lame.
* They employ and "incredible" number of people (34,000 in 2009, 47,000 in TFA) by comparison, Walmart employs 1.8 million. That's more than 300x more incredible.
* They have "more than 500,000 jobs for U.S. workers -- from the people who create components for our products". Must be a lot of americans working in china. How is 47,000 a "vast majority" of the workforce?
* "Apple has conducted all of its business with the highest of ethical standards". lol Yes, and all the child labor and suicide data will back that up.
[1] - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-response-on-its-tax-practices.html
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I agree with a good bit of what you say. But not really this part:
...teachers will be paid a decent middle class income. And no, they have no room to complain about it unless they want to change the collective mindset into an individual mindset.
My wife's a teacher. She's in private schools lately, so the issue with public school funding hasn't affected her directly for the past few years. But what I've heard from her and from her friends doesn't have to do with starting pay -- it has more to do with how policy changes over time. One friend of ours is in a district where all of the teachers are pink-slipped at the end of every year, and then they are "invited" to reapply for their jobs. Since they're "new" employees every year, there aren't the annual cost-of-living raises, meaning that teacher wages in that district have been stagnating for several years.
He loves his school, but hates the conditions under which he has to work. He doesn't fancy moving, so he's putting up with the district's shenanigans for the time being. But bad-faith jerking people around like this buys a lot of ill will. At least some of what you hear in the media about teachers striking and otherwise complaining is due not to any sort of wide-eyed naïveté going into the profession, and instead grows naturally out of bad experiences over the years.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
...teachers will be paid a decent middle class income. And no, they have no room to complain about it....
I don't know what it's like in your jurisdiction, but I often hear similar comments where I live in British Columbia, Canada. I would agree that teacher's remuneration is appropriate, if it were not for the preposterous amount of work they are expected to do without pay. Teachers are routinely expected to attend meetings before work, attend meetings after work, and to perform many hours of addtional work (such as planning lessons and writing report cards) on their own time.
Personally, if I had an employer who expected me to put in that many extra hours with no compensation at all, I would tell them to shove it. There is a huge gap between what is expected of teachers and the appreciation they get for providing it.
.
Ultimately, your problem is how to make your domestic goods competitive with imported goods. A VAT doesn't do that. It just increases the cost of everything by a set percentage.
The various other taxes collected throughout our current system do the same thing. It's just that there are so many forms of taxes everywhere, that you take them for granted and consider them baseline.
C//
The solution you're looking for is a consumption tax. The rich, who consume more pay more. The poor pay less. If the rich choose not to consume, and instead reinvest their money into more production, all the better.
The rich consume less as a percentage of their income. If you care about the poor, what you're looking for is a progressive income tax and if you care about not duplicating the problems we've had in the past you should use an EQUATION and not "brackets". Brackets are one of the most stupid things ever. People end up doing all kinds of tricks to avoid the next highest bracket, or they get slammed if they make just a bit too much money.
To avoid the Mitt Romney 15% problem, you just need to tax most capital gains at the ordinary income tax rate. Some things, such as sale of your primary residence need to be exempt from capital gains. You need to be really vigilant about loopholes. A maximum cap-gain free value needs to be imposed even on the primary residence. Otherwise, the uberwealthy end up building huge estates and designating them as "primary residences".
If the corps paying fairly get named, than there share holders could sue for not doing their jobs.
Then their FTFY. Another product of the Washington State tax-crippled education system, I see.
CEOs can quantify their value in real dollars and that's how they get paid.
The problem with CEO pay is that this is precisely what is NOT happening. Only recently have large shareholders started to get a clue on this vast waste of their capital.
-l
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Why is it that liberal states cannot understand what they see over and over again... Oh, that's right because they are insane... (Definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome...)
The reality is that moves like this hammer state governments which are already under pressure - and directly impact both K-12 and higher education funding which is the Constitutional Paramount Duty of WA State Government.
Period.
The shortfalls in tax revenues in no way led to funding cuts in k-12 and other education areas. State politicians decided to cut those programs instead of cutting their own pork spending and wasteful projects when they ran out of money. They do that because taking money away from schools, fire and police helps motivate the sheeple into offering up more to the tax coffers.
It sure would be nice if Microsoft and Apple and everyone else paid their fair share. But lets not lose focus on who the real problem is with regards to the taxation situation. We really DONT have a revenue problem. We really DO have a spending problem.
Almost everyone seems to be laboring under the false assumption that taxes are good things.
Taxes are like war. No-one really likes participating in them, they are a drag on the economy, they are ultimately unavoidable due to human nature, but everyone would be better off if we had as few as possible.
And anyway, even if Microsoft, Apple, and all the other companies gave 100% of their income to the US government, it still would not be enough to pay for the unfunded liabilities. The US's unfunded liabilities is higher than the economic output of the entire planet.
Also, there is a negative correlation between education spending and education quality (in terms of actual measurable test scores of students, not size of bureaucracy or number of persons employed). The US would have better global test scores if money provided to education was significantly reduced.
Oh, please, not the "nearly every job out there" strawman. The deal is: bureacurats want everyone to believe that evaluations are cheap. They pretty much always try to sidestep the issue of such cost, and pretend that it's not important. Then they get some token bullshit "evaluation" system in place that doesn't do anyone any good, but looks good on paper. That's the widespread disease one has to deal with now.
I agree that good effort must be made to evaluate workers and eliminate poor performers! But, sorry, sometimes no system at all is far better, because the broken system of teacher "evaluations" we have now is fit for an office comedy show. It penalizes everyone, even the school districts that implement it.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Look, from a complexity standpoint, consumption taxes are very nice. There's little to no paperwork for the average person. They're very hard to avoid. They're generally pretty fair since they charge everyone the same rate.
So I don't have a problem with VAT taxes. The only thing I don't like about them is that the tax doesn't seperate itself from the base price. Keep it like a national sales tax by showing people the before tax price and then having the VAT be an implicit addition... and I think they're great.
That said, it doesn't solve your problem. Imported goods if they were made in a country with cheaper taxes will probably still be cheaper which will mean manufacturing will have an incentive to not do business in your country.
By and large, you should not give companies an incentive to not employ your workers. It's bad for the economy.
Just add up the total cost of doing business in your country and compare it against other countries. Include everything. The cost of utilities. The cost of regulation. The cost of bribes (in some countries these costs can be very high and you have to pay them to stay in business.). Just add up all the costs. Ultimately, you want to MATCH or beat your competitors.
It is a belief by many in the US that china for example is a tenth the cost of the US. This isn't the case. The labor is much cheaper. BUT many things that are inexpensive in the US are expensive in china. For example, utilities in china are also fairly cheap but they're unreliable. This requires that factories have backup generators with back up fuel supplies. If you add the cost of that to the basic utility charge, utilities in china are much more expensive. Then there is an issue with bribes. They must be paid or you'll get shut down. The good news is that they're very organized bribes so people that are paid tend to give you money for value. In more chaotic countries you'll find that you're bribing ten different officials to accomplish the same goal which may or may not happen. Then you have transport which involves shipping, import, customs, export... delay... international law. A whole other layer of regulation that adds to cost
Long story short, China is about 20 percent cheaper then the US. Twenty percent isn't that much. We can close that difference without skimping on employee pay. Little things like speeding up regulation in the US would close the gap. Not even remove the regulation. Just make it happen faster. So if someone is going to get or not get a permit to build a factory. Give them the permit or deny it within two weeks rather then eight months. Time is money and if you're slow it adds to costs.
In the end, if your country is more expensive then you'll lose companies.
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VAT is not a specific personal plank of mine. I was merely pointing out the VAT-on-import did not (and will not) start a "trade war." That is obviously false.
I do, however, think that income taxes incentivize jurisdiction shopping. Consumption based taxes in the jurisdiction of the destination are ultimately fare. A company pays taxes based on where it's good are used.
"Imported goods if they were made in a country with cheaper taxes will probably still be cheaper which will mean manufacturing will have an incentive to not do business in your country."
Did you mean to say that foreign manufacturers would not want to sell their goods to the destination country? I don't think this is true. Foreign manufacturers with cheaper labor, will still have a competitive edge. If the sum of the issues, due to transportation cost and the like, begins favoring a local manufacturer, I'm fine with that. Entirely.
C//
Rather then coming up with more of your own basement theories
I didn't come up with the race to the bottom scenario, I'm just living in it; wages today cant keep up with inflation, let a lone rising prices. Glad to know you have absolutely no background in economic theory.
Seriously. Find a company that you feel/think/know has left the country for some reason and ask them why they left and what it would take to have them come back.
I actually have had the opportunity to do that, as I've worked for a venture capitalist firm. They all tell me that it comes down to the bottom line (obviously), but what they would "need" to come back is almost always something like "a lower minimum wage", which is unacceptable. Wages, not taxes, make up the vast majority of costs for corporations.
Just make it a two way conversation and you MIGHT have an f'ing clue what you're talking about. Maybe.
Stay classy.
Nonsense. Freedom of movement is a long-standing right in the US. It's been recognized by the Supreme Court since 1823.
See Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546 (1823).
vat on import only won't cause a trade war if you put all your own domestic suppliers at the same disadvantage. If you arbitrarily inflate the cost of imports that will start a trade war.
And if you don't do that then you have to make your economy competitive.
As to what I meant... I mean your domestic consumers will get a lower price if they buy the imports which will put the domestic manufactures at a disadvantage unless either your domestic prices are competitive or imports are arbitrarily taxed which will cause a trade war.
Ultimately you have two choices.
1. You can make doing business in your country affordable.
2. You can start a trade war by jacking up tariffs.
there is always option three... sucking it....
Choose one of the above.
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As to inflation, who's fault is that? The people devaluing the US currency.
Doubtless you're one of the many advocates of massive out of control deficit spending. Well, inflation is what you get.
As to stagnate wages, that has more to do with a failure to reform labor policies. This isn't the 1930s. We need to radically increase automation amongst other things that big labor has been resisting. Its not helpful to the US economy.
If we want to have a 21st century economy we need to start acting like it.
As to what they'd need to come back. I've had that conversation as well, and the lower wage is not the issue. It's the COST of employment itself which isn't entirely the wage. Wages are about half the cost of hiring people. You can radically lower what you spend on employees without lowering their wages.
And in any case, we really don't need that much of an edge to gain total cost parity with China. The difference isn't that extreme.
It's simply too much for a company to ignore. If there were a five percent difference companies wouldn't care so much. But it's closer to 20 percent. If you can lower the cost of doing business in the US by 20 percent things will turn around fast.
And then you need to not jack up prices again. If the VALUE of American labor increases then companies will pay a premium for it. No minimum wage law is going to get companies to pay people more then they're worth. What you'll do is just stop hiring people.
A major consequence of your stupid labor laws is that teenagers are frequently priced out of the market. Their labor isn't worth minimum wage in many cases. And it also contributes to the use of illegal aliens which of course typically are paid below minimum wage.
What do you think you're accomplishing with these stupid laws? Because all you've done is make US companies less competitive, put many americans out of work, denied young people their early job experience, and created an environment where rampant illegal immigration and labor is the status quo.
And you see all of this as an accomplishment?
For your next trick will you blow your own feet off with a shotgun and call it progress?
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I'm just not sure why we're discussing a split tax. Some kind of consumption tax would naturally apply to everything. I did say "special handling." The difficulty is in compliance.
Since this mostly comes down to the mail order business, I'm not sure how big a deal it is. However, it could get to be a big deal, as the world is an increasingly interconnected place. If we used a sales-like tax exclusively at the federal level, it would approach 30% (e.g. Fair Tax). This would create a huge incentive to cheat.
This is why you need special handling. I don't know what special handling would be, but I suspect it wouldn't be the whole "trust the taxpayer" thing we have right now with the situation on state taxes and mail order.
C//
I don't see how your idea offsets the advantage of doing business outside the country and then importing the goods into the market.
If your economy is not competitive, what is to stop me from making the product outside the country, importing it into the country, and then benifits from the price advantage of making it elsewhere?
See? You have to lower taxes so they're internationally competitive or you need to have tariffs. And the tariffs will cause a trade war.
Which means... you need to make the economy competitive. That means keeping the taxes low, the regulation efficient, the regulation reasonable, and generally not going out of your way to screw businesses.
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Hmmmmm? I think not. If locally and remotely made products when sold all have a consumption tax applied when sold, then everyone is equal. Jurisdiction shopping was a waste of your time for tax avoidance purposes.
C//
You're assuming the consumption tax is the only tax and that the regulations between point A and point B are the same and that labor costs are the same.
If I'm paying half what you're paying for labor then my product has the same tax yours has applied, I can sell my product for less and still make a profit.
Thus your consumption tax will not equalize prices.
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I was indeed assuming that consumption tax was the only tax. Read about the Fair Tax for one specific proposal (it has its weaknesses, but is the only such proposal with any political legs at all).
While indeed some jurisdictions will enjoy lower labor costs, those jurisdictions also suffer from their own problems, and do have to pay transportation costs to get goods into local jurisdictions. Moving to a consumption tax is therefore something of an equalizer. I never said it was perfect. Nothing is.
One good thing about the consumption tax model that is particularly nice, as it stops the incentive to shift "earnings" to fictitious entities in alternative locales.
Another good thing about this tax model is that it will help address trade balances, as local manufacturers will export out of their own jurisdictions tax free.
A final good thing about this model is that it addresses trad balances again, by shifting the collection point to the good, which means by implication that foreign manufacturers will have to pay taxes in the local jurisdiction (indirectly, so to speak).
Thus your consumption tax will not equalize prices.
This was an improper conclusion. The conclusion would have been proper if you had said "will not completely equalize prices". Which would be true, but would be neither here nor there. Because the consumption tax-only model would partially equalize prices, and that's good enough.
C//
Doubtless you're one of the many advocates of massive out of control deficit spending.
I am absolutely not. The amount of money paid just on the interest to the national debt is absurd. Thanks for putting words in my mouth, though.
It's the COST of employment itself which isn't entirely the wage.
That is what I meant; tax incentives do very little where employee costs are high.
You can radically lower what you spend on employees without lowering their wages.
A major consequence of your stupid labor laws is that teenagers are frequently priced out of the market.
This is probably best for everyone. Teenagers should be trying to maximize their potential earnings (or at least improving them) by gaining an education while they still can, not spending their time girding away at some manual labor.
And it also contributes to the use of illegal aliens which of course typically are paid below minimum wage.
We should give up on the minimum wage because people are just going to violate it anyway? Hell, why not just give up on all laws? Or is this law inherently immoral to you because it raises the cost of business?
What do you think you're accomplishing with these stupid laws?
Allow workers to have at least enough money to survive and pay bills, and raise the standard of living for the labor force, which also makes the country more attractive for investment / employment. Your precious China even has minimum wages laws. That said, I personally believe the minimum wage is slightly too high, but only just.
Because all you've done is ... denied young people their early job experience, and created an environment where rampant illegal immigration and labor is the status quo.
This would be at least partially true if internships did not exist. As for illegal employment, this is like saying that "rampant" illegal car theft is due to the outlawing of car theft. The companies that violate the law and employ people illegally are the ones creating said environment, not me, and not the legislators who wrote the law.
For your next trick will you blow your own feet off with a shotgun and call it progress?
Stay classy.
As to giving up on laws that can't be enforced, yes... that's the same reason we should end the war on drugs.
Those are stupid laws. Look at how many people we're throwing in jail for minor drug possession. It's stupid.
Any law that you can't enforce shouldn't be a law. Another stupid law would be laws against suicide.
You can't stop people from taking their own lives. Passing a law against it idiotic. It would be like passing a law against people thinking about pink elephants. How exactly are you going to enforce that law?
Have fun with that.
Any law that can't be enforced shouldn't be a law.
Many people seem to have the notion that a society with more laws is more civilized. This is not the case. A society with more laws is a society with more criminals. As you increase the number of things that are illegal you increase the number of people in the society that are technically criminals. This is a good idea when their classification as criminals serves the common good. It is a stupid idea when it does not.
Anyway, I don't understand why you're in favor of policies that increase unemployment, reduce our national competitiveness, deny young workers experience, and generally over complicates the labor market.
But some people love theories more then they love life. Some people love an idea but then anything else. And they'll just close their eyes, fixation on that idea, and ignore the consequences.
If I'm putting words in your mouth, I'm sorry. Its not my intention to impose upon you ideas and thoughts that are not your own. However, you are being evasion on certain points and it requires me to fill in the gaps. If you don't like the way I do that, help me do so accurately.
I truly have no interest in insulting you. My ego is not involved in this discussion and I see no profit in insulting you or anyone else. These are my honest assessments. If they're flawed, understand that I am not intentionally biasing them to be offensive.
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I find no fault with your post and it is well reasoned.
I would only argue that some locations will have particularly uncompetitive labor policies that will put companies in those locations at a disadvantage.
The point I kept trying to make is that it's important for given locations to be mindful of actions that damage employers in their jurisdiction. It seems like too often people are so focused on "sticking it to the man" that they don't realize they've created a toxic environment where companies can't be profitable. I live in California which is one of those places.
Tax revenue in California fell 22 percent LAST year this is obviously well after and thus on top of the credit crunch damage. We are bleeding employers to the rest of the country and to other countries because my state is more interested in persecuting employers then attracting them. The result is that jobs are fleeing the state and with them the workers that are made unemployable. It's rapidly becoming a state where it's impossible to run a serious business. This is espeically true for manufacturing or anything that might have any environmental concern. Companies that only do office work are fairing better obviously but even then there is a flight of companies out of the state caused by these polices.
I am mostly expressing my frustration at this process which I feel is avoidable if people merely moderate their polices such that they're reasonable.
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Any law that can't be enforced shouldn't be a law.
I agree with this, but I was under the impression that employment laws were enforceable. Sure, specific people at the IRS can be bribed, just like anywhere else, but that's largely the exception, and not the rule.
Many people seem to have the notion that a society with more laws is more civilized. This is not the case. A society with more laws is a society with more criminals.
This is true only if the laws that categorize the people as criminals are unjust and/or unenforceable. The contra-positive, that a society with fewer laws is more civilized, is also false.
However, you are being evasion on certain points and it requires me to fill in the gaps.
I wasn't evasive at all. You have to ask me about my stance on the subject before you can accuse me of being evasive.
But some people love theories more then they love life. Some people love an idea but then anything else. And they'll just close their eyes, fixation on that idea, and ignore the consequences.
I could just as easily make that claim that this is what you are doing; Your theories on how to help attract companies seem to me to be at odds withe the general welfare of the populace. I am glad to see that both of us are at least trying to do what we think is right, and are open to input and conversations on the subject.
I truly have no interest in insulting you.
I never really felt insulted, and I apologize if I came off as offensive at all.
I live in California, too. I suspect that the toxic-to-employers issues aren't directly related to California's income tax, and more likely due to the "death by a thousand cuts." I.e., it's an army of the little things.
A good chunk of California's financial problems are from the Proposition system, are you aware? I predict that the next down turn will result in a full-blown Constitutional crisis in California. It's my prayer that we toss out the entire proposition system and all past propositions therewith. If we lose Proposition 13 with it, oh well. Fair trade.
Various kleptocratic policies under consideration currently will only accelerate the situation. It is for the best. Part of the problem in California is that we've left the bandaid on so long that removing it is going to require a traumatic flesh injury.
C//
I think you're forgetting that the proposition system came in to control corruption in our past.
In any case, the notion that we'll recover by burning the system down...
How's that working for Detroit? I think california is screwed and won't recover and will keep harassing what little is successful in the state until they all flee the state or country or shrivel into economic irrelevance.
I don't see good things in california's future because I've seen no inkling of reason in the electorate. The high speed rail system was deeply depressing. It was such a stupidly wasteful idea and it doesn't even make sense.
Airplanes are faster, cheaper, lower maintenance, more flexible, more scalable... the only reason to build a high speed rail is because some idiots like the idea of trains.
Why not a high speed Zeppelin? It makes about as much sense. And yet we're blowing tens of billions we don't have on something that we not only don't need but that won't compete with existing transport and will simply be a burden on future taxpayers to maintain.
At some point, it will join the rest of the dead projects that rot in our deserts... the abandoned solar power plants... the abandoned wind farms... the abandoned geothermal stations... we have these things going back to the 70s... they're environmental ghost towns... nothing moves around them but the thumbleweeds.
When these projects run their course there's so little money left that we don't even have the money to tear them down. And so they stand there in the desert as monuments to the foolishness of the california electorate.
As to a thousand cuts... I agree... and they see every drop of blood they draw as necessary and never seem to reject anything.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
As to employment laws being enforceable. They're consensual contracts.
It's about as enforceable as regulating sodomy. If the employee wants to work at that price and the employer wants to employ them at that price, you can't stop them.
And if you drive citizens out of the field it just means it will be filled with illegals. Which ironically the democrats seem to like in the country. It's ironic because it undermines all their labor policies and it makes all their entitlement programs unsustainable. I mean, sure... you can probably give everyone in the US free healthcare if you jack up taxes. But can you give everyone free healthcare that walks across the border on the same tax basis? Of course not. To say nothing of free education, subsidized housing, subsidized food, etc... It's just not sustainable.
I'd be okay with open borders if we killed the whole entitlement system. It would then be sustainable if everyone paid for what they got. But since we're subsidizing everything I just don't see how the numbers add up. How do we keep not only our own poor comfortable but all the poor from Mexico comfortable?
Whatever...
As to my theories and what is ad odds with the welfare of the people. My focus is on employment. I believe that if americans are generating value that the our welfare will take care of itself.
I worry that if we're all sitting on couchs, eating potato chips, and collecting a monthly government check that we're doomed.
So I have a great fear of welfare programs because they're addictive and have an opiate like effect on the people. Everyone smiles and goes to sleep... they forget to eat. They forget to bath. No work is done... and the society dies as it's members dream. And one day drugs run out and there is nothing to be done... the system is too crippled even to sustain the illusion.
This is my honest fear on the matter. I would rather my people work hard and generate wealth. If it means they work harder then they'd like or work for less then they'd like then that is the market. Tough it out. But sitting on our asses collecting a check is a very dangerous.
This worries me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o64Fz-KW1Dk
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I think you're forgetting that the proposition system came in to control corruption in our past.
I couldn't forget something I never knew. What I do know is that, presently, the proposition system is a huge source for California fiscal woes, with in excess of 60% of the state budget directed by voters in a fashion that neither the legislature nor the governor can readily overrule. That means that when it comes to crunch time, the other 40% of the budget is what they have to cut, and that includes things like Emergency services and the like. This notion that voters should be able to vote themselves ponies was always a terrible idea; I suppose I would be willing to entertain a limited proposition system, such as one that permitted the voters to continue with initiatives, but greatly limited their ability to obligate funds; but I'd rather scrap the whole thing than quibble about the details.
I don't have any sense that things ought to get worse before they get better. I just think they they will have to. I.e., that's a prediction. We won't jettison the proposition system until there is a full blown Constitutional crisis. That won't happen until the next major fiscal melt down. You know a while back when the IOU system started deteriorating? Keep in mind that the State does not have the legal authority to make workers take IOU's. They can't take them if the IOU's themselves aren't honored downstream. Police, emergency service workers, and doctors need to eat.
C//
I see your point about employment laws being hard to enforce, but I still think is better to have them than not. I think that the rate is too high, but I agree with it's existence in principle. I also realize that too much of any potentially beneficial policy can easily become disastrous. I also very much agree that social welfare programs are already out of hand.
That video is so bad that part of me is holding out hope that it is satire.
First, the video isn't satire. And even if it was, which it isn't, it wouldn't matter.
The EBT program is a mistake. I don't have a problem with foodstamps or a card based food stamp system. But what you can and can't buy with foodstamps should be limited.
I don't mind people buying sandwiches with them. But I'd restrict anything that wasn't essential for their diet. So soda would be off the list. They can have water. And snack foods of any kind would be off the list.
Ideally, they wouldn't be eating out on food stamps in any case. They're for people to go to the grocery store and buy food for their families which is cheaper then buying food at convenience stores or fast food outlets.
Second, everything you're saying right now is how people felt about the war on drugs for years and many still feel that way. They know it isn't enforceable. They know it doesn't work. They know it causes more harm then good a lot of times. But they're so worried about the drug culture that they'll support a system that throws hundreds of thousands of otherwise innocent people into jail for making a personal choice to take a drug.
Employment laws are similar. I'm not saying we have no regulation at all. Some basic safety laws are a good idea. But beyond that, it's between the employer and the employee to work out an arrangement. The amount of paperwork the government requires for this has to be slashed to a bare minimum. The bottom level compensation has to be slashed. And the government has to understand at a base level that employment is something people need. It's like food and water. Everyone needs a job. It is not acceptable for unemployment to be this high and giving people free money or food doesn't even begin to address the issue.
I know you're not going to agree for the same reason the pro drug war people won't agree. You're afraid of the corporations screwing workers more then you're afraid of the obvious consequences of the welfare culture.
Just as I don't know what to say to convince someone to switch on the drug war, I don't know what to say to switch you on this issue. Know that I'm not insulting you. I'm frustrated that we seem to be unable to communicate and I don't hold that against you. It's my fault as much as anyone's.
I sort of think of this as the curse of Babel... not in a super natural sense. But it seems like so often people speaking the same language can't communicate with each other. And this seems most common between political divides.
I don't want to hurt anyone. I love my country and I want it to do well. I believe these laws are killing my country. Destroying it's culture that used to value hard work. Destroying families. Destroying our businesses which are the back bone of our economy.
For this I'd chance a great deal. I think your cure for the problems you're worried about are a great deal worse then the disease. Consider backing off, letting these systems go back to nature to a certain extent and then try different laws or methods of addressing what you think of as a problem. these specific employment laws are a bad idea.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.