4 ms·

Nah it's not really good. We need to just tax rich people if that's what we're going to do. Taxing a corporation takes operating money away from that corporatio

by muninn_ 10y ago

Nah it's not really good. We need to just tax rich people if that's what we're going to do. Taxing a corporation takes operating money away from that corporation to spend on other things. Normally this is where people say "they'll just enrich their shareholders", to which I reply, then tax rich people.

sandstrom 10y ago
This isn't about taxing individuals vs. taxing corporations. The unfair part is that small companies (startups and others) can't do any of this fancy tax-dodging. (there are many arguments for/against taxing individuals/corporations; I think there are good arguments on both sides, but this isn't about that)
- muninn_ 10y ago
  You're right. It's about fixing the corporate tax problem.
davidw 10y ago
I mostly agree with that answer, although think that there are virtually no politicians pushing it: those that want to cut one tax want to cut the other two, rather than a revenue neutral adjustment. Doesn't it create some kind of weird cross-border investing incentives though? I.e. we drop the corporate tax in the US, we could raise the income tax to recoup some of that, but not all of it, due to foreign investors who get taxed in their home countries.
paulddraper 10y ago
> Taxing a corporation takes operating money away from that corporation to spend on other things. (1) Does that mean rich people should incorporate? (2) Taxing a rich person takes operating money away from that rich person to spend on other things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_tax#Luxury_tax_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_tax#Luxury_tax_in_the_U... Rich people were taxed, the industries that depended on them suffered (I'm from Florida, and yacht manufacturing industry alone laid off tens of thousands in the state). --- Your distinction is arbitrary (especially considering point #1).
- muninn_ 10y ago
  (1) Nonsense. (2) Trickle down economics doesn't work. I would also like to add that a luxury tax is very different than taxing rich people. I am not a fan of luxury tax at all.
  - Spivak 10y ago
    In response to (2) pretend that we weren't talking about wealthy people exclusively. If we were arguing about putting money in the hands of individuals to grow demand would you still disagree?
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    > Trickle down economics doesn't work. Trickle up economics (is that what you call a luxury tax?) doesn't work. > August 1993, the Congress decided to eliminate the “luxury tax” since it did not achieve its main objective...According to the tax's critics, these revenues were disappointing and unsatisfactory and also negatively impacted the incomes of the sellers of the luxury items.
    - muninn_ 10y ago
      Yes the luxury tax is foolish. I Made that comment
- bluecalm 10y ago
  (2) is good, right? If people stop buying luxury goods then the resources are going to move to other things which is generally what we want.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    > what we want We being the operative word. Do "we" want people to buy more soylent green and fewer flatscreen TVs? Depends on who "we" is. I submit that in aggregate what "we" want is what "we" are already buying.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
legulere 10y ago
Taxes on profits don't hurt companies that actually reinvest. The problem here is companies that act like they reinvest the money and have no profit, while they actually have tons of profits.
- muninn_ 10y ago
  What is your definition of hurt? Taxing the profit sure seems to me like it "hurts" the company as they have less resources.
  - notahacker 10y ago
    Companies that reinvest most of their revenue make small profits. Companies that don't make larger profits, and thus pay more corporation tax where corporate taxes exists. (By extension, those wanting to abolish corporation tax should come up with an argument why companies that reinvest profits to research or expand should pay more tax - on the goods and services they buy to improve - than companies that do nothing with their large piles of cash except hope it's enough of a war chest to deter others from investing in competing with it)
- nickff 10y ago
  It depends what you reinvest in; I know that the (hardware) business which I work for gets taxed on the revenue it spends on capital goods (machinery and tooling) as if it were profit (then we sometimes get to write off some taxes in the future). One of the reasons 'hardware is hard' is because the government makes it hard.
- bcheung 10y ago
  An expense must be ordinary and necessary and you have to be able to make the argument that the expense had a reasonable intent to make profit down the road.
winter_blue 10y ago
> Taxing a corporation takes operating money away from that corporation You nailed it. We need a system where "corporate taxes" should be entirely at the shareholder level, and corporations should be allowed to propagate tax liabilities all the way to individual shareholders (so that holding entities aren't taxed). Then we should apply a progressive income tax on any capital gains made by shareholders. That would make our the system fair and economically efficient.
- muninn_ 10y ago
  Thanks. I would rather have money in the hands of people and companies so that they can do stuff with it. I'm not anti-government, but I believe that people and corporations spend money more effectively for themselves than the government can. We obviously need taxes to fund programs that the free market cannot handle efficiently (healthcare, national parks, national defense, and these are just general categories for rhetorical purposes only).
- int_19h 10y ago
  We should apply a progressive income tax on any capital gains, period. They're income. There's no reason why they should be taxed at the rate lower than sweat-of-the-brow income, except to economically advantage the rentier class at the expense of the worker class (since the overall tax bill is the same, you're just shifting money paying for it between these two groups by applying different rates).
  - nickjarboe 10y ago
    I agree that capital gains should be taxed like income except for the fact of inflation. If you hold, say a house for 10 years, and inflation averages 8% a year (remember the 1970's), and then you sell it at the same inflation adjusted value, you will pay a bunch of tax on no real gain. Maybe we could adjust capital gain tax to inflation. This would have added benefit of having a constituency that wants a higher CPI against those who would like to keep it low (for example to keep Social Security payments or other retirement payments from increasing).
stuaxo 10y ago
Though somehow a lot of these really big corporations seem to have massive amounts of cash sitting around and are not spending it, at the same time as many governments are imposing austerity on their populations.
elastic_church 10y ago
Every "tax rich people" discussion turns into politicians appealing to the non-rich masses by taxing higher and higher levels of income. When the politicians themselves and the other rich people, simply don't categorize the bulk of their annual earnings as income.

by muninn_ 10y ago

sandstrom 10y ago

This isn't about taxing individuals vs. taxing corporations. The unfair part is that small companies (startups and others) can't do any of this fancy tax-dodging. (there are many arguments for/against taxing individuals/corporations; I think there are good arguments on both sides, but this isn't about that)

muninn_ 10y ago
You're right. It's about fixing the corporate tax problem.

davidw 10y ago

I mostly agree with that answer, although think that there are virtually no politicians pushing it: those that want to cut one tax want to cut the other two, rather than a revenue neutral adjustment. Doesn't it create some kind of weird cross-border investing incentives though? I.e. we drop the corporate tax in the US, we could raise the income tax to recoup some of that, but not all of it, due to foreign investors who get taxed in their home countries.

paulddraper 10y ago

> Taxing a corporation takes operating money away from that corporation to spend on other things. (1) Does that mean rich people should incorporate? (2) Taxing a rich person takes operating money away from that rich person to spend on other things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_tax#Luxury_tax_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_tax#Luxury_tax_in_the_U... Rich people were taxed, the industries that depended on them suffered (I'm from Florida, and yacht manufacturing industry alone laid off tens of thousands in the state). --- Your distinction is arbitrary (especially considering point #1).

muninn_ 10y ago
(1) Nonsense. (2) Trickle down economics doesn't work. I would also like to add that a luxury tax is very different than taxing rich people. I am not a fan of luxury tax at all.
- Spivak 10y ago
  In response to (2) pretend that we weren't talking about wealthy people exclusively. If we were arguing about putting money in the hands of individuals to grow demand would you still disagree?
- paulddraper 10y ago
  > Trickle down economics doesn't work. Trickle up economics (is that what you call a luxury tax?) doesn't work. > August 1993, the Congress decided to eliminate the “luxury tax” since it did not achieve its main objective...According to the tax's critics, these revenues were disappointing and unsatisfactory and also negatively impacted the incomes of the sellers of the luxury items.
  - muninn_ 10y ago
    Yes the luxury tax is foolish. I Made that comment
bluecalm 10y ago
(2) is good, right? If people stop buying luxury goods then the resources are going to move to other things which is generally what we want.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  > what we want We being the operative word. Do "we" want people to buy more soylent green and fewer flatscreen TVs? Depends on who "we" is. I submit that in aggregate what "we" want is what "we" are already buying.
marcoperaza 10y ago

legulere 10y ago

Taxes on profits don't hurt companies that actually reinvest. The problem here is companies that act like they reinvest the money and have no profit, while they actually have tons of profits.

muninn_ 10y ago
What is your definition of hurt? Taxing the profit sure seems to me like it "hurts" the company as they have less resources.
- notahacker 10y ago
  Companies that reinvest most of their revenue make small profits. Companies that don't make larger profits, and thus pay more corporation tax where corporate taxes exists. (By extension, those wanting to abolish corporation tax should come up with an argument why companies that reinvest profits to research or expand should pay more tax - on the goods and services they buy to improve - than companies that do nothing with their large piles of cash except hope it's enough of a war chest to deter others from investing in competing with it)
nickff 10y ago
It depends what you reinvest in; I know that the (hardware) business which I work for gets taxed on the revenue it spends on capital goods (machinery and tooling) as if it were profit (then we sometimes get to write off some taxes in the future). One of the reasons 'hardware is hard' is because the government makes it hard.
bcheung 10y ago
An expense must be ordinary and necessary and you have to be able to make the argument that the expense had a reasonable intent to make profit down the road.

winter_blue 10y ago

> Taxing a corporation takes operating money away from that corporation You nailed it. We need a system where "corporate taxes" should be entirely at the shareholder level, and corporations should be allowed to propagate tax liabilities all the way to individual shareholders (so that holding entities aren't taxed). Then we should apply a progressive income tax on any capital gains made by shareholders. That would make our the system fair and economically efficient.

muninn_ 10y ago
Thanks. I would rather have money in the hands of people and companies so that they can do stuff with it. I'm not anti-government, but I believe that people and corporations spend money more effectively for themselves than the government can. We obviously need taxes to fund programs that the free market cannot handle efficiently (healthcare, national parks, national defense, and these are just general categories for rhetorical purposes only).
int_19h 10y ago
We should apply a progressive income tax on any capital gains, period. They're income. There's no reason why they should be taxed at the rate lower than sweat-of-the-brow income, except to economically advantage the rentier class at the expense of the worker class (since the overall tax bill is the same, you're just shifting money paying for it between these two groups by applying different rates).
- nickjarboe 10y ago
  I agree that capital gains should be taxed like income except for the fact of inflation. If you hold, say a house for 10 years, and inflation averages 8% a year (remember the 1970's), and then you sell it at the same inflation adjusted value, you will pay a bunch of tax on no real gain. Maybe we could adjust capital gain tax to inflation. This would have added benefit of having a constituency that wants a higher CPI against those who would like to keep it low (for example to keep Social Security payments or other retirement payments from increasing).

stuaxo 10y ago

Though somehow a lot of these really big corporations seem to have massive amounts of cash sitting around and are not spending it, at the same time as many governments are imposing austerity on their populations.

elastic_church 10y ago

Every "tax rich people" discussion turns into politicians appealing to the non-rich masses by taxing higher and higher levels of income. When the politicians themselves and the other rich people, simply don't categorize the bulk of their annual earnings as income.