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No Such Thing As a Tax-Free Lunch At Google?
theodp writes "In search of the best corporate cafeteria in the world, Gourmet Live's Tanya Steel visited the Googleplex, where she found Petaluma chicken cacciatore, porcini-encrusted grass-fed beef, whole-wheat spaghetti pomodoro, and Parmesan-creamed onions on the menu in one of the search giant's 25 cafes. So, must all good things come to an end? The WSJ's Mark Maremont reports that it's debatable whether Silicon Valley's daily fringe-benefit meals are taxable, and the issue is now on the IRS's radar. 'What would a food tax on Google's meals look like for the average employee?' Maremont asks. 'Assuming a fair-market value of between $8 and $10 per meal, a Googler chowing down two squares a day could get dinged for taxes on an extra $4,000 to $5,000 a year.' That'd be just fine with UF tax-law Prof. Martin J. McMahon. 'I buy my lunch with after-tax dollars,' said McMahon. 'And I have to pay taxes to support free meals for those Google employees.'"
1) How do you know the country is "at that point"? What is the point, and how did you decide it is the point?
2) Who said anything about only taxing the rich? During a weak economy... sure. They have benefited at a higher proportion than the rest of society during the weak economy. In fact, the weak economy has led to them benefiting more through lower wages, higher efficiency, outsourcing, increased executive pay, etc... The point of stimulus spending is to help our economy recover. Once that comes to pass, who says you can't raise *all* of the tax rates back to pre-Bush levels?
3) The largest increase in our spending is due directly to a weak economy and high unemployment. Erase this high unemployment and the deficit fixes itself. Sure, we're left with a high debt, but if GDP increases at a faster rate than our debt, then it's not a problem.
4) What's the investment difference between one person with $1 billion investing, and two people with $500 million each investing? How about one thousand people with $1 million each investing? How about ten thousand people with $100k each investing? Paying taxes to the government is technically a direct investment back into our economy through public sector jobs, projects and programs. Other investments into the private sector only matters if it helps the overall economy. You tell me, what does buying stock in Apple really do when they already have $130 billion in the bank? It raises the stock price, but that's about it. Without demand for the product, a demand which requires all sectors of the economy to flourish, then Apple will never increase production / hire more workers / throw tons of money into R&D.
When unemployment is low, more people are happy, and more money is moving within our economy. There is more competition for sales, more investment, more startups, more ingenuity. What happens when unemployment is high? Well...you tell me how it's been going the past 4 years with sky high unemployment!
Interesting point... one of the more inventive companies to ramp up production lately, Tesla, was backed by the government rather than purely private investors. (whom likely only came along due to that government investment).