4 ms·

Off-topic, but I find it strange that money in the order of $1B can change hands between two mega-corporations without anyone outside having an inkling, while I

• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• twinkletwinkle 10y ago
  They are publicly-owned companies too. That's surprising to me as well.
  • jhall1468 10y ago
    Public doesn't mean unlimited access. They aggregate information in their reports because knowing specific transactions means competitors would know far too much about those transactions.
• woah 10y ago
  I think the reason is that you are forced to pay the government worker's wages
  • ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    We all pay Googlers' wages in all the extra taxes we have to pay because Google evades paying theirs.
    • justratsinacoat 10y ago
      And if that proposition rankles, we all pay Googlers' wages via "voluntarily"[0] using Google services and all that entails (ads, behaviour profiles, etc). [0] I say voluntarily here, because of course it is voluntary; put down the phone or whatever. Yet, it's difficult to imagine the average HN user successfully opting-out of making Google money by using the internet (if only because the average HN user wouldn't actually care about most vectors for it). It's basically impossible for the average user to do this. The reason it's so hard to avoid making Google money while you use the Internet isn't because of nefarious schemes, it's because Google kicks ass at what it does -- providing free services that are so good that most people use them, and matching eyeballs to ads using harvested info of said "most people". Regardless, when you're this big, you start to accrue responsibility (to, say, not be evil). Not that the capstone to this ranty footnote is "Google should be as transparent as government salaries", merely that that idea isn't actually too crazy when you consider the power Google wields over society via the Internet. Of course, the inconvenient reality of Google's position as a publicly traded company casts a huge shadow over any highfalutin prospect of serious responsibility to society, but a man can dream of a more reasonable system.
    • Alupis 10y ago
      It's been said before, but I'll say it again: It's not somehow patriotic to pay more in taxes than one is legally obligated to pay. The key word here is "obligated". Google doesn't evade taxes - they pay what tax law obligates them to pay. They just happen to have a team of accountants available to ensure they pay the correct amount (read as: the amount the US Government has decided, through tax laws, that a corporation like Google should pay).
      • mvc 10y ago
        I dare say that it has also been said before that just because something is the law, don't make it right. Do you think that while slavery was legal, it would have been improper to criticize the companies that engaged in it?
        • hluska 10y ago
          Tax law and slavery are dramatically different concepts. Your analogy really doesn't hold water.
        • home_boi 10y ago
          That argument isn't valid because it could used to question literally every single law or moral.
      • robrenaud 10y ago
        pa·tri·ot·ic having or expressing devotion to and vigorous support for one's country. It seems to me like paying more than ones legal minimum in taxes is indeed vigorously supporting the country. Consider that war bonds were often marketed with a patriotic message, and paying taxes above what is required is like accepting a war bond that immediately defaults, which seems a lot better for the country than one that it has to pay back.
• johncolanduoni 10y ago
  Could you explain more about why you think so? I think the ordering is pretty much what I want, even if I'm not necessarily happy with the absolute numbers.
  • yongjik 10y ago
    1. Government workers are your fellow citizens, and they have a right to privacy as everyone else. I don't think "how much a specific low-level government worker earns" is anybody else's business. If you are worried about government spending, you should be able to check aggregate statistics. 2. If companies can spend/earn $1B without anyone knowing, how are we going to tax them properly? If only the government knows and no one else, then we're basically asked to trust the government and corporations to be honest. When they are't, they cause much more financial harm to me (because my tax has to make up for it) than some county office giving everyone a higher raise than necessary.
    • Tinyyy 10y ago
      I don't see how tax is a valid point. 99% of individuals and corporations do not have their spendings - that's not only the net flow, but also the breakdown of revenue and costs - revealed to the public. To imply that they might be dishonest, and that dishonesty will not be caught by the government, would mean that everybody has to release their spendings to the public. Mark Zuckerberg could be cheating on his taxes. You could be cheating on your taxes. Surely you don't want to cause financial harm to the rest of us?
      • yongjik 10y ago
        With greater money comes greater power. With greater power comes greater responsibility. Publicly traded companies already have to disclose salaries of their CEOs, but not their janitors. Same logic.
        • Tinyyy 10y ago
          You complain about the status quo and then cite the status quo in your argument?