5 ms·

Such a pile of crap, by Icahn, of course. Corporations do not exist in a vacuum of social irresponsibility and their first duty is certainly not to their shareh

Such a pile of crap, by Icahn, of course. Corporations do not exist in a vacuum of social irresponsibility and their first duty is certainly not to their shareholders but to the people they employ and to the societies they thrive on.

pzone 11y ago
No, actually what you're saying is a pile of crap. The only irresponsible ones in this situation are the members of Congress. The United States is not immune to economic forces, yet for years despite all the evidence to the contrary they've been in utter denial about this. All they have to do is pass a simple bill to make the US tax code work the same way as it does in every other god damn country in the world, then no more jobs get moved overseas.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  > No, actually what you're saying is a pile of crap. In Germany, our constitution says in §14.2: "Eigentum verpflichtet. Sein Gebrauch soll zugleich dem Wohle der Allgemeinheit dienen.", translated roughly to "Ownership creates duties. Its use shall be for common welfare." For me, looks like the failure is in the US constitution which does not focus on the common good.
  - lazyjones 11y ago
    > In Germany, our constitution says in §14.2: "Eigentum verpflichtet. You can tax the property of people without taxing corporations. The former can be done with reasonable effort and effectiveness because the location of someone and their home's can be determined. Taxing corporations has proven unreliable and ineffective because they're often just a mailbox in s tax haven and profits are moved to other entities easily (via licensing fees etc.). There's also no real need to tax them, as you can tax their owners.
    - pzone 11y ago
      Yes. I would even argue that advancing the common good includes a mandate not to pass unenforceable welfare-destroying tax laws.
    - DominikR 11y ago
      Fully agree, if the state did not tax corporations they could work near maximum efficiency if correctly managed, while the state still could get his share whenever an owner extracts a part of the profits for private use.
      - mschuster91 11y ago
        > while the state still could get his share whenever an owner extracts a part of the profits for private use The problem is: this won't happen, as people by nature are too greedy. They will spend the minimum until someone finds a tax loophole and then in a rush all the money is gone and untaxable.
        lazyjones 11y ago
        > The problem is: this won't happen, as people by nature are too greedy. They will spend the minimum until someone finds a tax loophole Typical extracted profits are dividends. In my country, tax is due and payable by the corporation as soon as dividends are issued and unless you're a majority owner, you have no control over when dividends are paid (certainly true for Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. shareholders).
    - yc1010 11y ago
      > There's also no real need to tax them, as you can tax their owners. Thats what happens in Ireland, corporation tax is lowish (12.5%) and theres not that many loopholes/concessions as in other EU states where companies can reduce their corporate tax to near nothing already BUT personal taxes are a murder Lets say you are a director of startup and the company has€100000 left after costs and taxes etc, lets say as director you want to pay yourself a salary of 100K for your hard work, you be lucky you be left with 50K after income tax, PAYE/PRSI insurance tax and "Universal Social Charge" On the money that you have left you would have to pay for medical insurance (aint free here like UK), VAT of 23% on almost anything you buy (more for cars, less for food etc), new property and water taxes and so on Keep in mind that Ireland gets blamed for alot of this goings on, but its just a step on path large corporations take to move money onto Carribean.
  - DominikR 11y ago
    How on earth can this be a law? This is such a broad and general statement that it could be used for whatever reasons to confiscate private property.
    - king_of_nouns 11y ago
      Sadly, laws aren't written like executable code. They're something vaguely resembling executable statements that require a lot of judgement by the person (trying to) interpret them to actually get to something that can finally be acted upon. As such, law contains many places (usually preambles and stuff) that are there to just give context and aid the interpreter in filling in the gaps, when he centuries later tries to decide on what elected officials that formulated the law were hoping to achieve. It's sort of like having "0" == 0 in PHP .. "How on earth can this be a programming language?" .. but ultimately its still here and gets the job done .. and in some niches its even borderline-useful .. because it's written by people that ultimately are imperfect and guided by lizard brains .. and the target audience are imperfect people too ..
      - DominikR 11y ago
        I know that, but not all laws are unspecific like that one. In fact, most laws specify in which cases they apply. But with such a law it is impossible to specify anything. It just states that private property is to be used for the "common good". What is the "common good"? I have my understanding of the common good which might be different from yours, so how are you going to codify that? This is a prerequisite to judging entities for infractions against this "common good".
        king_of_nouns 11y ago
        ..and that's why you get lawyers to plead their clients cases, various chances to appeal a ruling, a separation of legislative and judiciary powers and ultimately even judges that are voted in and given tenure instead of just hired. Yes, the state humanity finds itself in is a sad one. Patch atop patch atop patch .. for centuries (millenias?) by now. But what can you do? Everything else so far has failed in even more spectacular ways.
  - hguant 11y ago
    By that logic, the USSR and mid-Revolution France were the best of all societies, because their constitutions valued individual liberty AND the common good. Let's emulate them in all ways, shapes, and forms! /s What a constitution says and how a country operates are two different things. Also, and this is something I think we're all guilty of, you're comparing documents from two radically different eras. By German constitution I'm assuming you mean the Basic Law? There are lot of differences between the Englishman of 1789 and the Germans (as coerced by the French, English, and Americans) of 1949.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
apsec112 11y ago
"Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." "Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant." - Judge Learned Hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand)
- rmc 11y ago
  There's no legal responsibility on me to be nice to my elderly parents either. Doesn't mean it's not The Right Thing To Do.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    We legislate that you can't murder, torture, kidnap, or assault your parents. What you do beyond that is up to your conscience. Given that corporations are conscience-less entities, the de jure minimums become the de facto outcomes.
  - paulddraper 11y ago
    Read the quote closer. It wasn't just talking about legal responsibility. It was talking about "patriotic duty", "sinister", "public duty", "voluntary", and "morals". Being mean to your elderly parents conflicts with a few of these ideals.
Veratyr 11y ago
That's a nice ideal but unfortunately it's false [0]. Corporations are legally required to operate in their shareholders interests. They have wide latitude [1] in their decision making abilities but they're still required to act in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule

pzone 11y ago

No, actually what you're saying is a pile of crap. The only irresponsible ones in this situation are the members of Congress. The United States is not immune to economic forces, yet for years despite all the evidence to the contrary they've been in utter denial about this. All they have to do is pass a simple bill to make the US tax code work the same way as it does in every other god damn country in the world, then no more jobs get moved overseas.

mschuster91 11y ago
> No, actually what you're saying is a pile of crap. In Germany, our constitution says in §14.2: "Eigentum verpflichtet. Sein Gebrauch soll zugleich dem Wohle der Allgemeinheit dienen.", translated roughly to "Ownership creates duties. Its use shall be for common welfare." For me, looks like the failure is in the US constitution which does not focus on the common good.
- lazyjones 11y ago
  > In Germany, our constitution says in §14.2: "Eigentum verpflichtet. You can tax the property of people without taxing corporations. The former can be done with reasonable effort and effectiveness because the location of someone and their home's can be determined. Taxing corporations has proven unreliable and ineffective because they're often just a mailbox in s tax haven and profits are moved to other entities easily (via licensing fees etc.). There's also no real need to tax them, as you can tax their owners.
  - pzone 11y ago
    Yes. I would even argue that advancing the common good includes a mandate not to pass unenforceable welfare-destroying tax laws.
  - DominikR 11y ago
    Fully agree, if the state did not tax corporations they could work near maximum efficiency if correctly managed, while the state still could get his share whenever an owner extracts a part of the profits for private use.
    - mschuster91 11y ago
      > while the state still could get his share whenever an owner extracts a part of the profits for private use The problem is: this won't happen, as people by nature are too greedy. They will spend the minimum until someone finds a tax loophole and then in a rush all the money is gone and untaxable.
      - lazyjones 11y ago
        > The problem is: this won't happen, as people by nature are too greedy. They will spend the minimum until someone finds a tax loophole Typical extracted profits are dividends. In my country, tax is due and payable by the corporation as soon as dividends are issued and unless you're a majority owner, you have no control over when dividends are paid (certainly true for Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. shareholders).
  - yc1010 11y ago
    > There's also no real need to tax them, as you can tax their owners. Thats what happens in Ireland, corporation tax is lowish (12.5%) and theres not that many loopholes/concessions as in other EU states where companies can reduce their corporate tax to near nothing already BUT personal taxes are a murder Lets say you are a director of startup and the company has€100000 left after costs and taxes etc, lets say as director you want to pay yourself a salary of 100K for your hard work, you be lucky you be left with 50K after income tax, PAYE/PRSI insurance tax and "Universal Social Charge" On the money that you have left you would have to pay for medical insurance (aint free here like UK), VAT of 23% on almost anything you buy (more for cars, less for food etc), new property and water taxes and so on Keep in mind that Ireland gets blamed for alot of this goings on, but its just a step on path large corporations take to move money onto Carribean.
- DominikR 11y ago
  How on earth can this be a law? This is such a broad and general statement that it could be used for whatever reasons to confiscate private property.
  - king_of_nouns 11y ago
    Sadly, laws aren't written like executable code. They're something vaguely resembling executable statements that require a lot of judgement by the person (trying to) interpret them to actually get to something that can finally be acted upon. As such, law contains many places (usually preambles and stuff) that are there to just give context and aid the interpreter in filling in the gaps, when he centuries later tries to decide on what elected officials that formulated the law were hoping to achieve. It's sort of like having "0" == 0 in PHP .. "How on earth can this be a programming language?" .. but ultimately its still here and gets the job done .. and in some niches its even borderline-useful .. because it's written by people that ultimately are imperfect and guided by lizard brains .. and the target audience are imperfect people too ..
    - DominikR 11y ago
      I know that, but not all laws are unspecific like that one. In fact, most laws specify in which cases they apply. But with such a law it is impossible to specify anything. It just states that private property is to be used for the "common good". What is the "common good"? I have my understanding of the common good which might be different from yours, so how are you going to codify that? This is a prerequisite to judging entities for infractions against this "common good".
      - king_of_nouns 11y ago
        ..and that's why you get lawyers to plead their clients cases, various chances to appeal a ruling, a separation of legislative and judiciary powers and ultimately even judges that are voted in and given tenure instead of just hired. Yes, the state humanity finds itself in is a sad one. Patch atop patch atop patch .. for centuries (millenias?) by now. But what can you do? Everything else so far has failed in even more spectacular ways.
- hguant 11y ago
  By that logic, the USSR and mid-Revolution France were the best of all societies, because their constitutions valued individual liberty AND the common good. Let's emulate them in all ways, shapes, and forms! /s What a constitution says and how a country operates are two different things. Also, and this is something I think we're all guilty of, you're comparing documents from two radically different eras. By German constitution I'm assuming you mean the Basic Law? There are lot of differences between the Englishman of 1789 and the Germans (as coerced by the French, English, and Americans) of 1949.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

apsec112 11y ago

"Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." "Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant." - Judge Learned Hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand)

rmc 11y ago
There's no legal responsibility on me to be nice to my elderly parents either. Doesn't mean it's not The Right Thing To Do.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  We legislate that you can't murder, torture, kidnap, or assault your parents. What you do beyond that is up to your conscience. Given that corporations are conscience-less entities, the de jure minimums become the de facto outcomes.
- paulddraper 11y ago
  Read the quote closer. It wasn't just talking about legal responsibility. It was talking about "patriotic duty", "sinister", "public duty", "voluntary", and "morals". Being mean to your elderly parents conflicts with a few of these ideals.

Veratyr 11y ago

That's a nice ideal but unfortunately it's false [0]. Corporations are legally required to operate in their shareholders interests. They have wide latitude [1] in their decision making abilities but they're still required to act in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule