Slashdot Mirror
Apple Gives Employees $2,500 Bonuses After New Tax Law (bloomberg.com)
Apple told employees that it's issuing a bonus of $2,500 of restricted stock units, following the introduction of the new U.S. tax law. "The iPhone maker will begin issuing grants to most employees worldwide in the coming months," reports Bloomberg. Apple also announced today that it would bring back most of its cash from overseas and spend $30 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. From the report: Apple confirmed the bonuses in response to a Bloomberg inquiry Wednesday. The Cupertino, California-based company joins a growing list of American businesses that have celebrated the introduction of corporate-friendly tax law with one-time bonuses for staff. AT&T, Comcast, JetBlue, and Wal-Mart also said they were giving bonuses.
Can any corporate finance experts explain why companies would do this? Should we buy that they're just being generous/trying to foster goodwill?
The combined income of the employees walmart has laid off since that announcement substantially dwarfs the "bonus" offered. The "bonus" was to people who had worked for Walmart for at least 20 years, btw. A pretty sad group.
Calling Bullshit on this. Bullshit!
Of course you could cite credible sources and prove your case.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
The full $1K was for people that had worked there 20 year. People who had worked there for fewer years received a lesser bonus but still got something. I think 2 years was the minimum. And by the way, Walmart would have laid off those people either way.
This. I wonder what the vesting period is.
You know they will *try* to make that claim. I've already heard a number of attempts to do this.
Crazy campaign season rapidly approaches. You can pretty much bet that what ever the politicians are saying is about votes and not the truth. This year will be worse than most because of the polarized political reality and visceral hate for one side by the other.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So far, every single company that has announced employee bonuses thanks to the tax bill has followed with an announcement of layoffs shortly afterward. In some cases, the dollar savings of the layoffs almost exactly matched the dollar cost of the bonuses.
^ This ^
Oooh, look, shiny bonuses. (btw we're laying off hundreds/thousands, and forcing people to sign NDA's to get any severance/etc)
Don't fool yourself. Apple is in this for Apple's profits, not for republicans, democrats or even you, except where they can dip into your wallet.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
What's worse, making less than (I assume you mean US) minimum wage in a factory in China, or making almost nothing working on a farm in China?
Also keep in mind that whatever machine you are currently using to write your post was probably made by the same factory workers in China making almost nothing. At least, most of the parts were.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
All it takes is google and searching for "xyz Layoffs"
AT&T: http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
Comcast: http://www.newsweek.com/comcas...
Wal-mart: https://www.reuters.com/articl...
I have not seen JetBlue, but the others, yes.
My libby brother did this with me just yesterday.. Claimed that the stores that Sam's was closing was putting folks out of work, so Walmart's bonus and raise plan didn't show the tax plan was working....
How did this idiot come from the same gene pool as me? Must have been a bad mutation..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You know what's strange? Everyone in the US seems hell bent on claiming the government should keep out of businesses and that everything runs smoother without government meddling in things... but no matter WHAT happens in the economy, somehow either the current or the former president are to blame for it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So ... those hipsters with their flavored coffee are ... Republicans?
Wow, I was away too long.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
NDA's? What's wrong with that? They likely signed such documents when they STARTED there not when they get shown the door. Nothing wrong with NDA's. I think you are talking about Non-competes, which in the case of Apple's employees in California, don't apply because the local California courts won't enforce them.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
no pretty sure he means NDA's and possibly non compete. A few years back a company tried to tie such additional conditions in order to receive your severance pay. it was subsequently slammed.
Comcast is a scummy company anyway so I wouldn't put it past them to do something like this. But in that article is said those getting laid off are getting a "$1000 supplemental payment." So, basically they are getting the $1,000 bonus too.
But looking the evidence here only raises more questions. First there is nothing in the articles that link the layoffs to bonuses. While I can see where you might get the impression that it is, more likely the layoffs where already planned and have nothing to do with the bonuses. Certainly, the ones from comcast don't.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Someone seems to have more mod points than sense.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Pretty pathetic that a poster asking for sources is modded Flamebait.
Beware of the Leopard.
You noticed that too. Flamebait, Most these mod wouldn't know a Troll if one drug them under a bridge.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
There are a million reasons I can think of.
If all you can do is ascribe selfish reasons to any action, then here is one for you - with some many companies having more money to spend, there were be a lot more poaching of workers going on, and companies are trying to head defection off at the pass by fostering goodwill among employees.
But again only for absolutely selfish reasons, could not be they are just passing along some good fortune to those that helped them get where they are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. Get the picture? You laughing now?"
https://youtu.be/elrnAl6ygeM
You are welcome on my lawn.
He got his sources and then pretended they didn't exist. His agenda was to try to pretend the truth is fake. Flamebait was merciful and more than he deserved.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ask me how I know you've gone mental with liberal hate.
Ok, here's how I know - because the story is about APPLE. not WALMART.
APPLE just announced they are hiring 200k employees over the next five years and spending tens of billions more in the US, since they can finally bring money back from overseas. There are no layoffs.
Meanwhile in completely unrelated news WALMART is just one of many companies giving out bonuses, that just happens to also be laying off some workers. That does not change the benefit of what they are doing for the workers. Nor even does it recognize the reality of a company like Walmart being so large they have different cost centers...
There are many, many companies giving out bonuses and most of them are not doing layoffs. That they are giving out bonuses is mostly a good sign they will be hiring soon.
You seriously need to re-think your life at this point, four more years of good news will literally eat your brain and leave you destitute and unable to cope with life. Why would good news do that to anyone? Don't let it happen to you man.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, I didn't. What I got was sources from a Usefull Idiot. Which I have looked over and asked more questions about. AndI also agree the timing is kind of off.
But what I asked for is your sources, PopeTazo. Sources that I've noticed that you have yet to provide. But this is not surprising coming from you. I have asked for you to cite your sources to which you have never done so.
So again. Cite your source and please make sure they are credible sources.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
That is three, out of over 100.... the original claim was "every" company giving bonuses was doing layoffs.
So, #FakeNews (aka Bullshit)
That list was before Apple too. Looks like the wave continues, and Apple alone is hiring 200k people over the next five years. Again when you say "every" company is doing layoffs in the very story where the company giving bonuses is hiring... well, #FakeNews.
Thanks Trump! (I added that last part just for you to enjoy).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
feeding the supply side doesn't really do much. Companies don't hire because you give them money. They hire because they have more demand. And they pay more because they need to keep talent; and the reason for that is other companies are poaching their workers.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Obviously, a zero percent income tax rate will result in zero income tax revenue. Just as obviously, a 100% tax rate (the government takes your ENTIRE paycheck) will result in roughly zero tax revenue - most people won't work a job if they don't get to take home a paycheck. Also companies wouldn't have any reason to.pay more than minimum wage - employees don't demand more because they don't get any of it anyway.
So we can see that tax rates too low result in little or no revenue, and we can see that tax rates too high result in little or no revenue. That's obvious even without understanding the basics of economics, without even knowing the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics, for example.
If the current tax rate is 80%, that hurts revenue and reducing the tax rate to 70% will increase revenue. If it's at 2%, increasing the rate to 10% will increase revenue. So what we can see, without even reading Chapter 1 of Economics 101 is that anyone who says "increasing tax rates increases revenue" is an idiot, and anyone who says "decreasing tax rates increases revenue" is similarly clueless. There is an optimal rate, not near 100% and not near 0%, that maximizes revenue. Raising rates above the optimal rate hurts revenue, reducing them below the optimal rate reduces revenue.
Also, complex tax laws create "compliance costs". Small businesses file taxes about sixteen times per year - quarterly federal returns, quarterly sales tax returns, quarterly unemployment tax returns, annual business personal property tax returns, etc. There is a real cost to all that, even of the business only owes $1, that's a lot of tax paperwork. (I've filed returns for 12 cents before - the cost / time to fill them out was much greater than 12 cents, so the current situation is a significant net loss for the economy.)
Corporate tax rates follow the same reasoning. If you taxed them at 100%, nobody would invest their savings into starting or growing any companies, since they can't make money. The economy would come to a halt and there would be no revenue (and nearly 100% unemployment). On the other hand, with a 0% corporate tax, you have no revenue from corporate taxes, but higher savings and investment, much better returns from your 401k, lower unemployment, higher wages, etc. So again there is an optimum rate. Too high hurts revenue, and too low hurts revenue. Too high also hurts a lot of other things. Fortunately, corporate taxes have been around for many years, many different rates in many different countries, so economists and policy makers can see how each worked. Based on the data, most countries optimize their revenue by setting corporate tax rates at about half of what the US has had. A few countries have tried very high corporate tax rates. A corporate tax rate of nearly 100%, where the government takes all the profits, is called communism. The USSR tried that. China tried that for a while and reversed course before they ended up like the USSR.
So I read the linked article, and I couldn't help but notice that the only thing joining the tax law and Apple's bonuses was temporal proximity. The author conspicuously chooses to use words like "after" and "following the introduction of," assiduously avoiding the more concrete "because of." The author also doesn't attribute anything the company actually stated to the tax law, citing instead some phoney-baloney hogwash about "confidence in Apple’s future."
In fact, if you read the text of the email sent by Tim Cook to Apple employees, you don't see mention of tax policy anywhere--which is weird, seeing as Bloomberg puts "New Tax Law" right in the headline.
It's almost as if Bloomberg.com were blowing smoke up our collective asses and calling it an invigorating Goop.com vapor colonic.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Republican tax cuts are evil!. Millions will die. Even though the standard deduction doubles, those who make minimum wage will starve as the rich will laugh eating there bones!
If tax cuts were good, nothing, absolutely nothing bad will happen. Everyone will fart unicorns. Now everyone is felicitated by a unicorn and everyone keeps their jobs at 15$ an hour. But tax cuts are evil even though the standard deduction for everyone is doubled.
Wow, you're stupid.
Here you go. I'm flattered that you prefer my sources to the other poster who provided them. Happy to oblige (the last one is a nice summary)
http://www.kansascity.com/news...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
https://www.vice.com/en_us/art...
You are welcome on my lawn.
These companies are doing this to sucker the plebeians into thinking they are getting something good. Voodoo Economics is horse manure, and always has been. Wait until the personal cuts expire. Those will be "fun" times.
Of course you could cite credible sources and prove your case.
Credile source #1
Among that group of employees, only those who have worked for Walmart for 20 years or more will get the full $1,000, Walmart told Business Insider.
Credible source #2
The bonuses will be determined by an employee's length of service. Those workers with more than 20 years of experience will qualify to receive the full $1,000. However, workers with less than two years of experience will receive $200, a Walmart spokesman told CNBC.
Credible source #3
A one-time bonus benefiting all eligible full and part-time hourly associates in the U.S. The amount of the bonus will be based on length of service, with associates with at least 20 years qualifying for $1,000. A discrete one-time charge will be taken in the fourth quarter of the current year to account for the bonus; qualification will be determined before the end of the month and payments will be paid as quickly as practical thereafter.
As to the difference between the income of those laid off and the bonuses, this article cites the bonuses will cost $400 million. This article says 9,400 people are being let go during the layoffs. Simple math shows $400 million/9,400 = 42,553. If we assume those being laid off made that much in salary and benefits, then after one year, the amount of money saved by laying off those people will dwarf the one-time bonus amount.
They're using that money for shiny new robots, that won't be subject to the new higher minimum wage.
That's not true. Our corporate tax rates were about the same as Germany's and Japan's if you factor in loopholes actually used. Those are the two top-performing democracies in the world, besides US. If their rates are somehow "sub-optimal", it didn't hurt them enough to knock them from the top two positions.
Now, I'm not necessarily against lowering our corporate tax rates some, but we have to be mindful of the budget deficit. Fix that FIRST. And, GOP didn't have to lower personal tax rates for the rich. Their priorities are out of whack.
Table-ized A.I.
So lets look at your original statement here.
So far, every single company that has announced employee bonuses thanks to the tax bill has followed with an announcement of layoffs shortly afterward. In some cases, the dollar savings of the layoffs almost exactly matched the dollar cost of the bonuses.
Which is a pretty broad statement, leading to me to call bullshit, and asking you to cite your sources. What I get is 4 articles about 3 companies that have laid off employees while giving bonus to others. I also requested credible sources, I'm not sure that Vice qualifies but we'll let it slide.
Now then, you calm that in some cases the dollar savings by the layoffs almost exactly match the dollar cost of the bonus. Yet, in none of the articles do they give numbers for you to reach that conclusion. Vice tosses some numbers around but those seem to be just guesses. Vice tosses around a number like 4,000 but the real number seems to be closer to 700 in AT&T case. Plus the fact that Comcast is giving bonuses to the people it laid off clearly shows that your assessment is in error. So that part of your statement is wrong.
Now then. You state that every single company that has give an bonus as also announce a massive layoff. But yet SuperKendall has posted a link to over a 100 companies giving "Trump Bonus." So unless you can provide evidence showing each and everyone of those companies is having a massive layoff that part of your statement is false too.
So basically Bullshit was the correct call. Any questions?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
More probably than not they're just trying to get all the EU profits they didn't pay any taxes on back home as quickly as possible on now after the EU knows about this after someone blew the whistle on their illegal and secret deal with the Irish.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
remember who to thank when we have to pay
Why would we have to pay anything? It's on Apple. And other companies...
Apple alone is paying $38 billion in taxes to bring cash back to the US.
And (in the article) it notes Apple plans to spend over $350 billion in the U.S. over the next five years thanks to all of the cash it can bring back. All of that spending will also be taxed... along with the 200k employees Apple plans to hire.
Apple is not the only company in this same boat, many others have stashed funds overseas waiting until the taxes were low enough to bring back cash. So that is vast sums freed for spending in the U.S. which again will bring in a Yuge amount of tax revenue.
It's not "Free money". It's "Freed Money". It's been liberated from the cellar, allowed to see the light of day and explore the world at last, where it can finally do some good.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So you're a big company, and you don't want trouble from the government. Of course you're going to do something, if you can, to make yourself look good!
But notice how all these announcements are about bonuses, not pay raises. A bonus is just a one-time event, pay raises keep on giving, month after month. These companies aren't really putting their money where their mouth is, they just want to make a splash in the news.
This makes good sense. Apple's getting a windfall from the tax law changes and they're spreading the good cheer. Some of that money goes to employees which makes employees more loyal and more likely to stay and do well at Apple. Most of that money will likely go to Apple's research and development and other initiatives that drive their company. A lot of that spending will be in the USA which is why the politicians wanted to make the change to the laws. This brings home (to the USA) a lot of cash. Good for the USA. Maybe not so good for some other countries. Winners and Losers in everything.
Yup. The common reason to hire more workers is if your company is expanding. And they never hire more workers than they actually need. In boom times they may make less prudent hiring decisions (witness the dotcom), but generally they're always paying attention to the bottom line. Extra revenue coming from company growth is likely to mean they want to expand. But extra revenue coming from a tax break is different - it doesn't mean the company is growing, they don't have a larger market, they haven't reduced their operating expanses, the margins remain the same. So it's highly likely that in this case that extra revenue will be funneled back to the investors and shareholders.
Now the tax cuts may help a few businesses survive that otherwise wouldn't. That's a good thing. But the giant increase in the deficit probably balances that out. A deficit can hurt a business as well as they may feel pressure to provide more servicesm to employees (growing health care costs, a better retirement plan, etc).
Yes, the Wal-Mart bonuses almost exactly equal the savings in closing the Sam's Club stores. You can find the figures in two consecutive articles in Money magazine, but I'll let you find them for yourself, since you apparently need some practice using a search engine.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Which would make you incorrect, yet again. I'm very aware of how to work a search engine. What you need is practice in learning how to back up your bullshit. You see, you make the claim so therefor its up to you to prove it. Not the other way around. I'm in no obligations to do your research for you.
So again. Cite your sources. Please provide the appropriate links to the articles in Money magazine for everyone to see. I will read them. An once I have done so I will provide counter evidence if I do not agree with them.
Do you understand how this works now?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Some of these corporations recognize that people are going to boot the GOP candidates out if the tax cuts don't "trickle down" as promised. And knowing full well that "trickle down" isn't the effect it's been sold to be, they are manually doing a little trickle down in order to keep the pitchforks at bay.
The problem though is Obama, Krugman, et al stated the country and economy was going to tank if Trump was elected. Either they spread unnecessary fear knowing that their good work was going to save the future and all their charges were empty OR they were just idiot predicters.
You pick.
If my boss doesn't give generous bonuses, they're a greedy scumbag. If they give generous bonuses, they do it for party politics, employee retention and to make themselves look good.
for one will enjoy my bonus and not be jaded AF about it.
That something, is someone. Another user on slashdot who posted a link that refutes your bullshit too.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
There is a link to that post. Take note of the link in that post that clearly refutes your bullshit.
So far, all you've cited is something called a "SuperKendall" which I assume is some sort of sex toy for homosexual men..
I'm not what exactly you mean but this post though. It seems to make some kind of derogatory comment about homosexual men. Which if it does makes you one sorry excuse for a human being.
It also means we are done here. You clearly have no data to back up your clam. Therefor you are just as much full of shit as it is. In the future you should learn to make sure you can back up your bullshit because some of us won't baffled by it.
But most importantly if I was you I would work on my homophobic issues. I believe you can get physiological help for it. I would suggest you do so.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Yup, that will do it.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Bonuses..not raises.
In fact some companies are giving out raises... including WalMart, so that report of WalMart saving more in layoffs than they spend in bonuses is kind of #FakeNews since as you point out, raises will be around forever.
But also even those not giving out raises - the employees get raises ANYWAY because withholding from each paycheck will be lower. People all over the US are seeing higher paychecks now, because of the supposedly deadly tax bill passing...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Since nobody wants to actually do a simplistic google search that takes all of 2 seconds, here's a source about it.
It is part bullshit, part not. The bonus of 1000 dollars for employees is only given in full to those who are part of that sad little 20yr group. Those who have worked 2 years or less (probably the majority of Walmart employees) will only get 200 or so.
This is about employee retention above all else
IT IS ALL TRUMP'S FAULT !!
He is the one to blame for companies having to beg their employees to stay !!!
But tax cuts are evil even though the standard deduction for everyone is doubled.
Yes, but the personal exemption is eliminated...
Now, I only file a standard plebeian 1040-EZ, so someone with more complicated taxes can correct me- but I believe that makes it a no-op...
Not that this data point is really any better than your completely bullshit data point, but the fastest growing economy in the world is the Ethiopian economy, with a corporate tax rate of 30% (higher than ours, now)
More probably than not they're just trying to get all the EU profits they didn't pay any taxes on back home as quickly as possible on now after the EU knows about this after someone blew the whistle on their illegal and secret deal with the Irish.
Let me ask a serious question:
Is there ANYTHING that Apple could, or would, do in ANY scenario that you would NOT find a way to find a way to spin-negatively?
Seriously.
And they call that a bonus?
I'll bet the execs get unrestricted stock.
Same BS, different decade.
I was an engineer in the 90s and got stock options the day my company went public. The tee shirt I got on that day ended up worth more than the stock.
If it isn't cash, it's worthless. Don't accept this BS in lieu of money or even actual stock. It's a PR gimmick.
More probably than not they're just trying to get all the EU profits they didn't pay any taxes on back home as quickly as possible on now after the EU knows about this after someone blew the whistle on their illegal and secret deal with the Irish.
What kind of idiot would come up with the idea that you wouldn't need to pay taxes if you moved the money out out country (or continent)? Not to mention that the EU doesn't tax anybody nor anycorporation.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Watch the techie heads explode like a 60's scifi robot caught in a contradiction, lol :)
Must love Apple ... must hate Trump ... must love Apple ... error, error ...
There is an optimal rate, not near 100% and not near 0%, that maximizes revenue. Raising rates above the optimal rate hurts revenue, reducing them below the optimal rate reduces revenue.
Indeed.
And as I think you touch on later, we might want to optimize for things other than revenue too. Optimal revenue might not be optimal for economic growth, employment, etc. for example. Revenue is not the only variable we should care about :)
Corporate taxes tend to result in downward pressure on wages and to a lesser degree dividends to shareholders.
The above-titled report from the Congressional Budget Office has this to say about the corporate income tax:
A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the
corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere: from reduced
returns to investors in the company, lower wages to its workers, or higher prices that
consumers pay for the products the company produces. Understanding the mechanisms
through which those tax burdens are transferred is crucial in determining the
economic effects of the corporate income tax.
Although economists are far from a consensus about exactly
who bears how much of the burden of the corporate income tax, the existing studies
highlight the significant types of economic mechanisms as well as the empirical
estimates necessary for further quantifying the burdens. CBO's review of the studies
yields the following conclusions:
o The short-term burden of the corporate tax probably falls on
stockholders or investors in general, but may fall on some more than
on others, because not all investments are taxed at the same rate.
o The long-term burden of corporate or dividend taxation is unlikely to
rest fully on corporate equity, because it will remain there only if
marginal investment is not affected by those taxes. Most economists
believe that the corporate tax system has some effect on investment
decisions.
o Most evidence from closed-economy, general-equilibrium models
suggests that given reasonable parameters, the long-term incidence of
the corporate tax falls on capital in general.
o In the context of international capital mobility, the burden of the
corporate tax may be shifted onto immobile factors (such as labor or
land), but only to the degree that the capital and outputs of different
countries can be substituted.
o In the very long term, the burden is likely to be shifted in part to
labor, if the corporate tax dampens capital accumulation.
That's been my normal response, too.
"If you lower corporate taxes, companies will use that money to hire more people!"
Why? If hiring more people will increase revenue by more than the cost of those employees, then the company will hire more people. If revenue won't increase by more than the cost of the employees, then the company won't hire them. The only ways that lowering corporate taxes will change that is if it's payroll taxes that are being lowered or if the increase in revenue is questionable enough that the slightly higher profits from the lower tax rate makes the company more willing to take the risk. In either case, the difference is probably so small that it would have very little impact on employment rates compared to all of the other factors that contribute to the overall economy.
No, it's going to be a net gain for me and I file with itemized deductions now, and will next year too.
It's a net gain for you too, but not until you get to the calculated tax part, where your marginal rate went down but unless you tell us what your AGI is, it's hard to quantify what your gain will be.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Politicians can't resist creating laws that reward or punish specific behaviors (often with side-effects). Asking them to change that habit would be like asking them to balance budgets and think long-term. Expecting to fix human nature is asking too much. Reduce such behavior a bit perhaps, but without DNA changes, it will be minor.
But either way, my point about average tax rates stands.
Table-ized A.I.
Based on the data, most countries optimize their revenue by setting corporate tax rates at about half of what the US has had.
Most industrialized countries had the same corporate tax rate as the US after deductions.
What most economists wanted was for the US to lower its corporate tax rate while eliminating (or reducing) many of the deductions. What the bill did is lower the corporate tax rate while keeping the deductions.
I stole this Sig
Also, most multinationals pay less than the new 21% corporate rate.
Yes, but now they will have to pay even less than they were, so they will still have more money. And no-one was escaping the previous recapture tax, which all companies get to enjoy the benefit of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While agree with what you say, I would also so it's uncontroversial that this optimal rate is a fickle things. It changes over time and depends on things like the current rate, so probably whatever rate you pick this year is not optimal next year. However, I think your larger point stands and it's not worth dwelling on how to optimize since it's probably not the right thing for the government's tax goal to be be maximum revenue.
Chris Mesterharm
Why?
The answer is in General Equilibrium, rather than limiting one's approach to Demand Side (i.e., Keynesian) or Supply Side thinking.
In competition, firms keep producing while marginal cost (the cost o making the next unit) is less than the marginal revenue (increased revenue from another unit [which is price in a purely competitive market, and somewhat less than price]).
Tax is one of the costs of production, as it is based on accounting profits. Produce and sell another unit, and it's a bit more tax.
If you decrease the "price" of any "input", including tax, the marginal cost of the next unit decreases by that amount--and suddenly it makes sense to produce more.
"Making sense to produce more" can be translated as "demand for all other inputs increases". The firm now wants more capital, and more labor.
This increased demand will increase both the price (i.e., wage) *and* the quantity demanded (number of workers or hours used) .
It has nothing to do with "corporations having more money". It all comes down to the changed costs of production. That is, it's not the total tax payed by the company, but rather what happens in producing the next unit that matters.
If a company simply received a lump sum grant of the same amount as its taxes go down, the behavior would be quite different, and production would not change, and therefore wages and hours would not change, etc.
All the interesting stuff in Economics happens at the margin :)
doc hawk
I just learned something interesting about that Washington Examiner (!) article that you're using as a citation. Out of the "100 companies giving Trump bonuses", all but two were already giving bonuses before the tax cuts and most of them give bonuses every year.
So, who's bullshitting whom?
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Dental plan!"
"Lisa needs braces!"
"Dental plan!"
"Lisa needs braces!"
"Dental plan!"
"Lisa needs braces!"
The new tax bill benefits corporations permanently, while the tax cuts given to the upper-middle middle and lower-classes drop off sharply year by year. Tax benefits that amount to around a couple hundred dollars per filer, which was only made possible at the cost of a major trillion+ dollar hike to the national debt, which Republicans traditionally loathe. A large chunk of Republicans also generally aren't supposed to like trusting the average taxpayer with large all-at-once payouts, such as the bonuses that corporations are awarding, because of the concern that joe-six-pack will blow that money on foolish luxury purchases instead of spreading it out through the year, evenly increasing the person's spending power.
So, yeah, the politicians and the companies are both giving taxpayers/employees enough money to have one sorta nice vacation in exchange for the ability to get out of a big chunk of their responsibilities to fund good old Uncle Sam indefinitely. This is a raw deal. Companies should be giving raises, not bonuses. But they don't, because there is nothing whatsoever forcing them to do so.
Apple gets awesome tax breaks for years to come, gives a small one-time bonus....If their tax-breaks are never-ending, then why are they giving a one-time bonus instead giving proper raises? Similarly, individual taxpayer breaks deflate to almost nothing after just a couple years, while, again, the corporate tax breaks don't decrease. Companies figured out how to screw you over in such a way that you smile and thank them for it.
So far, every company has announced one-time bonuses. No announcements of raises. How come the companies benefit from tax breaks every year going forward, but employees get to benefit exactly once? Becaaaaaaause nothing mandates that companies use their funds for raises. And they have zero incentive to bother.
There are in fact people whose taxes will go up, big-time, as a result of the new tax code.
One group that will get it in particular are Apple employees in California.
California has high state taxes, high property taxes, and high housing prices which lead to high mortgages and high interest payments on them.
All of those used to be deductible on federal taxes.
All of those deductions are either eliminated, or capped at a level that bites California residents hard.
People with Apple engineer level salaries will see their federal taxes go up by thousands next year.
Apple may be in part cushioning this blow.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Really? All but two. Care to cite your sources? Any one can make shit up, which you seem to like to do. So cite your sources or it didn't happen.
Oh an by the way. Your statement was "All the companies" not "nearly all the companies." So two companies out of 100 is still not ALL.
Now cite your sources or go back your therapy. You have real issues in your personality that you need to address.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
It is not that someone can't or won't do a "simple" google search. It's the fact that my google search will yield different results from the OP. Google search results change by the hour, or even by the minute. Even if I knew the exact search terms he used to get his information that doesn't mean I will be looking at the exact same article.
By asking for him to cite his links I'm looking at the exact same data he is.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
The two companies both announced layoffs.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Unless you care to cite your sources here and now this discussion is over. Prove it or it didn't happen as far as you are concerned. Last time, cite your data.
You should also apologize for your homophobic comment.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Oh, my marginal drops- the tax plan as a whole is a net gain for me... I was simply stating that the doubling of the standard deduction was a no-op due to the elimination of the personal exemption.
Got it.. I think this was "as designed".
I believe a secondary goal was to simplify many people's taxes by eliminating the need to itemize deductions. By doing this they've pushed a boatload of folks onto the 1040EZ from the long form, reducing their costs to file and the IRS's costs to process.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
> Apple has been sitting on yuuuuge piles of cash for many years. They could have given bonuses etc. to employees all that time.
They could have, and did - outside the US. Bringing the money into the US and paying bonuses to US employees would have been stupid, though, because the US is the only major country in the world that harshly penalized bringing money in. If Apple brought that money, which they've already paid taxes on, into the US, the US govt would take over a third of it, 35%. It would be stupid for Apple to give $35 billion to the US govt and $65 billion to US employees when they could instead give $100 billion to European employees.
Now that the penalty for bringing money to the US has been greatly reduced, Apple plans to bring in $250 billion, on which they will pay $38 billion additional tax. That will generate roughly another $250 billion in economic activity. (When Apple pays a construction company, the construction company pays construction workers and suppliers, who in turn buy things with the money, so the same money keeps getting spent and taxed over and over until it's all gone to either the government or another country. ) So something like $500 billion added to the economy, and maybe $100 billion of that will get sent to China or wherever buying Chinese goods. $400 billion will be spent and re-spent in the US until it's all absorbed by taxes.
To give you a sense of scale, the federal deficit is a bit over $400 billion. So just this one company, Apple, is bringing in enough money to cover the entire federal deficit for the year. This by using an understanding of basic arithmetic when making policy, rather than operating purely on jealousy.
Now that makes sense!
Thanks for the explanation
Fallacy type: Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. Look it up here if you don't already know what this is.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.