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I am sorry, but as someone who isn't from the US (but does live and work in the US) ... phrases like this make zero sense: > Mylan should have been paying a hi

I am sorry, but as someone who isn't from the US (but does live and work in the US) ... phrases like this make zero sense: > Mylan should have been paying a higher rebate of 23 percent, but did not do so because the company improperly classified EpiPen, despite being told its classification was incorrect. If a regular person defaults on paying their taxes, the IRS can seize their property and stuff. Why are Mylan's EpiPen warehouses not being seized to pay for these rebates? Instead, they are being gently chided saying "you really should have paid more, because um, the law requires it?" In my opinion, due to massive lobbying, there are really one set of rules in the US for regular people, and a different set for the ultra rich and large corporations. I would be delighted to be offered a working alternative explanation, or seeing massive financial and possibly criminal penalties for Mylan executives (if willful misclassification is proven).

oldmanjay 10y ago
It's not like the laws you've cited were written by the same people for the same purposes, so there's no reason to be shocked that they are different in content and application. You'll have to find better examples if you want to stoke outrage.
- parennoob 10y ago
  How are they different in fundamental principle? Money is being collected from people (taxes) or corporations (Medicaid rebates) for a collective good. > were [not] written by the same people for the same purposes...there's no reason to be shocked that they are different in content and application This argument is circular in nature. "Different laws are different, because they are different". Why are they different? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Mylan spent several million dollars lobbying various lawmakers? (https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000027765 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002776...)
rayiner 10y ago
That's not how it really works for regular people either. Virginia sent me a letter last year stating "we think you were required to file a 2012 Virginia return." Several months later they decide "we think you owe us X." No Department of Revenue agents seizing my assets. A few months later I had my CPA call, gave them my W2s showing I lived in New York at the time, and the revenue agent was like "our bad, you didn't owe us anything after all." The government really doesn't go full bore after "you should have checked Box A instead of Box B" situations unless something really egregious happens, and that's true for little people too. When there is a big corp, involved in something like this, it's almost always true that there is ambiguity about which Box should've been checked. All these things get the blessing of some tax lawyer who doesn't want to go to jail. Here there doesn't look like there has been an adjudication (a decision in a lawsuit proving Mylan owes something). Until then, it's just some official's statement.
- tptacek 10y ago
  That's true of the federal IRS. I guess it might be true of VA. It's not generally true of the states. My CPA applied my refund 2 years ago to the next year's taxes. IL passed a law saying you can't do that anymore, and quietly mailed me a check for the refund (which I wasn't looking for). When I didn't remit a tax payment the following year, they sent me directly to collections without notification, adding a 4-figure fee to my tax bill.
- parennoob 10y ago
  The IRS can garnish your wages without getting a judgement first. That is just a fancy way of saying they can take your money without going to court. You'll have to sue them if you think it's being done incorrectly, right? Why can't the same be true of Mylan? "Garnish" their profits; and if it was done wrongly, they can sue the relevant Government department. I'm guessing there are issues of scale of bad behavior involved here, and perhaps wage garnishing is really true only for "egregious" cases. My point is that maybe large lobbying pharma companies making insane profit margins off up-marked drugs ought to an egregious case too.
  - iopq 10y ago
    That's actually the IRS having special standing (which it shouldn't, arguably). If it's a private contract, you'd have to go to court over breech of contract and probably end up settling.

oldmanjay 10y ago

It's not like the laws you've cited were written by the same people for the same purposes, so there's no reason to be shocked that they are different in content and application. You'll have to find better examples if you want to stoke outrage.

parennoob 10y ago
How are they different in fundamental principle? Money is being collected from people (taxes) or corporations (Medicaid rebates) for a collective good. > were [not] written by the same people for the same purposes...there's no reason to be shocked that they are different in content and application This argument is circular in nature. "Different laws are different, because they are different". Why are they different? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Mylan spent several million dollars lobbying various lawmakers? (https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000027765 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002776...)

rayiner 10y ago

That's not how it really works for regular people either. Virginia sent me a letter last year stating "we think you were required to file a 2012 Virginia return." Several months later they decide "we think you owe us X." No Department of Revenue agents seizing my assets. A few months later I had my CPA call, gave them my W2s showing I lived in New York at the time, and the revenue agent was like "our bad, you didn't owe us anything after all." The government really doesn't go full bore after "you should have checked Box A instead of Box B" situations unless something really egregious happens, and that's true for little people too. When there is a big corp, involved in something like this, it's almost always true that there is ambiguity about which Box should've been checked. All these things get the blessing of some tax lawyer who doesn't want to go to jail. Here there doesn't look like there has been an adjudication (a decision in a lawsuit proving Mylan owes something). Until then, it's just some official's statement.

tptacek 10y ago
That's true of the federal IRS. I guess it might be true of VA. It's not generally true of the states. My CPA applied my refund 2 years ago to the next year's taxes. IL passed a law saying you can't do that anymore, and quietly mailed me a check for the refund (which I wasn't looking for). When I didn't remit a tax payment the following year, they sent me directly to collections without notification, adding a 4-figure fee to my tax bill.
parennoob 10y ago
The IRS can garnish your wages without getting a judgement first. That is just a fancy way of saying they can take your money without going to court. You'll have to sue them if you think it's being done incorrectly, right? Why can't the same be true of Mylan? "Garnish" their profits; and if it was done wrongly, they can sue the relevant Government department. I'm guessing there are issues of scale of bad behavior involved here, and perhaps wage garnishing is really true only for "egregious" cases. My point is that maybe large lobbying pharma companies making insane profit margins off up-marked drugs ought to an egregious case too.
- iopq 10y ago
  That's actually the IRS having special standing (which it shouldn't, arguably). If it's a private contract, you'd have to go to court over breech of contract and probably end up settling.