6 ms·

I don't get the number of people here commenting 'this isn't theft' and they're just exploiting legal loopholes. Yes, you may be able to justify this legally,

by Joe-Z 9y ago

I don't get the number of people here commenting 'this isn't theft' and they're just exploiting legal loopholes. Yes, you may be able to justify this legally, but it is a morally highly questionable behaviour nonetheless. I mean jesus, aren't many people on here some kind of intellectual elite? And these are the people that argue FOR the ones fucking over the general populace for their personal gain? This kind of shit has to stop and we should be the people stepping in for the little man. Unless of course you dream of one day profitting from the same anti-social tax-evasion bullshit.

VMG 9y ago
> Yes, you may be able to justify this legally, but it is a morally highly questionable behaviour nonetheless. Same goes for taxation itself. Many in this thread will argue that it cannot be theft since it is legal, which is absurd.
- gambiting 9y ago
  The notion that tax is theft is absurd.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  No, not because it's legal - because it's collectively agreed upon to be a necessary thing. That it's legal is a result of that - you're mixing cause and effect.
  - VMG 9y ago
    The idea that collective agreement dictates morals is flawed and dangerous.
    - vertex-four 9y ago
      And the idea that only individual rights matter, and that people don't have a duty to others, is also flawed and dangerous. As with pretty much everything else, the solution is somewhere in the middle that doesn't suit extremist slogans very well.
ebbv 9y ago
HN has a lot of extreme libertarians who are going to automatically applaud any subversion of the tax system. That's why the comments on this article are a trash fire.
golergka 9y ago
> And these are the people that argue FOR the ones fucking over the general populace for their personal gain? You seem to assume that everybody here has (or should have) more sympathy for 'general populace' or 'little man' than the other side. Why? Have you spend considerable time of your life with 'general populace' and 'little men' at all?
watwut 9y ago
> I mean jesus, aren't many people on here some kind of intellectual elite? And these are the people that argue FOR the ones fucking over the general populace for their personal gain? Intellectual elite does not have relationship to morals - those properties are quite independent. Moreover, people who consider themselves intellectual elite tend to look down on general populace.
- pdimitar 9y ago
  Sad truth. One thing that deeply impressed me when reading Robert van Gulik's "Judge Dee mysteries" was that the judges were required to study (and write!) a lot of poetry and literature as well, which IMO increases their emotional intelligence and make them more sympathetic with the populace they are governing and increase their sense of justice without going Hitler-mode. (The irony of the fact that he was describing a society that didn't have a problem treating women as sub-humans doesn't escape me, of course. I'd argue that outside of that however, the system described by Robert van Gulik had advantages.)
lmm 9y ago
The people involved probably believed they were doing what the government was incentivising them to do. Heck, they probably were. I've invested in a tax-advantaged pension, is that "theft"? I've signed on a patent application that my then-employer probably wouldn't've made if there hadn't been an R&D tax credit for it, is that "theft"?
- turbinerneiter 9y ago
  That's not what they did. What they did is pseudo-trade around stuff and gave multiple persons checks with tax that was never paid so people could get back tax that they never paid. There is no moral wiggle-room if you try to get tax returns on tax you didn't pay. If you don't agree, pay me back the money I never gave you. Doesn't make sense at all.
ptero 9y ago
Labeling the action that is legal under the law as "theft" makes me very suspicious of both the arguments and findings. The laws should be a set of hard, well defined rules (ideally finalcial rules are even formally interpretable). And if one does not break those rules he is not a criminal. I think much of the problem is due to tax system complexity. Not sure about Germany, but in the US we have a horribly complicated mess. Thus the spirit and the letter of the law are not the same (at least it is not clear if they are the same). I think the main argument that I kind of buy is that while the companies described do not break the letter of the tax law, the break the spirit of it. I would agree if the rules were simple and well understood. As it is, what if I got audited by the IRS. If they find me missing a receipt (say, a paper copy got destroyed) my arguments that I am fulfilling the spirit of the law by paying my share of taxes would fall on deaf ears (I think). Broke the letter of the law -- this is your fine. And this approach encourages reciprocity. My 2c.
- joncrocks 9y ago
  I'd note that this is also applicable to most legal systems, in that there aren't a set well defined rules which describe legal behaviour. Vague laws are written and then interpreted by judges and these go on to set precedent. Suddenly you find yourself in the situation that in order to make sure you're not breaking any laws, it's a full-time job. If ignorance of the law is no excuse, and it's practically impossible to know all the law....
  - pdimitar 9y ago
    > If ignorance of the law is no excuse, and it's practically impossible to know all the law.... That's sadly very true and assumes guilt by default which is a very broken state of affairs. It's roughly the same as with mass surveillance -- if the government has enough data on you, they will find something to convict you of.
- pdimitar 9y ago
  The law system is built and maintained by humans. As such, they can't predict every possible loophole and they adapt over time. So yes, this behaviour should absolutely be labelled illegal and persecuted. Your comment didn't contribute much to the discussion save for reinforcing the original objection of your parent commenter -- "who cares if it's technically legal when it's very clearly immoral and destructive for the society at large".
bhaak 9y ago
It's just this easy. If it's legal, it's not theft. I don't like that either but that's how the law is. I mean, apparently, it wasn't so bad. It only took them 20 years to make that behavior illegal. They would certainly have been faster if it were bad. /sarcasm People will always try to game the system. But in this case, the politicians failed to act properly after it was obvious that it didn't work out as intended.
- turbinerneiter 9y ago
  The article talks about two different schemes: one is 100% illegal, the other one is abuse of a loophole. So there was clearly theft in the first case. For the second case, I'd call that theft, too. But theft that involves corrupt lawmakers. When communists confiscate people property, it is theft, no matter what the communists put in their law.
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  I think its lazy to blame politicians for this. Its complex, highly complex, financial horse trading. Its a loophole exploited. Thats probably far more sophisticated than any politician can reasonably be expected to understand deeply, let alone see the bigger destructive picture. (not to mention lobbyists badgering and actively asking for legislation for "loopholes" like this) A Financial regulator/watchdog is to blame. And of course, Quelle Suprise, lots of countries let the finance sector regulate themselves. Which is silly, because there are no ethics involved with some of these people. Just profits, at any cost.
  - pdimitar 9y ago
    Politicians should be experts in many things. Their job is (in the ideal theoretical sense of our political systems) hard and very responsible. What they hell are they doing with their time? Sit in endless pointless meetings? Secret meetings with large business? Faking smiles 13 times a day? WHAT are they doing exactly? And then -- "we're too busy to know this stuff". In an ideal world such a politician would fly far away from office immediately, and all the people who benefitted from that would have to return the gained money from the loopholes, or live in cozy conditions in the jail. One can dream, right? So, what are the politicians supposed to know? How to bullshit the general populace on TV?
jlg23 9y ago
> I mean jesus, aren't many people on here some kind of intellectual elite? Instead of debating based on facts and laws (codified morale and ethics) you expect the "intellectual elite" to debate mob style based on gut feelings? > This kind of shit has to stop Personally I agree. But some context: * Germany holds federal elections later this year. * The business practices where not secret. Not at all. They have been debated publicly for years. * The business practices have been allowed to go on by the very same who now fake outrage. * All but the most incompetent players will provide a "Rechtsgutachten" and thus walk free. A "Rechtsgutachten" in German law is basically the testimony of an expert witness [1] that you get before doing something. If later a judge deems your doing wrong, you pull that out and can rightfully claim that someone from the government who is supposed to know more than you told you "it's ok". [1] in this case someone with actual judicial/legal powers like a judge or a high ranking IRS official
- pdimitar 9y ago
  > Instead of debating based on facts and laws (codified morale and ethics) you expect the "intellectual elite" to debate mob style based on gut feelings? Yes, I absolutely expect that. We're not only intellect, we have feelings as well. If we only operated on intellect, one could argue that the black people would forever retain status of sub-humans (which was never true!) and slavery would be perfectly fine since it actually made sense economically from the point of view of the slave owners. At some point somebody emotionally yelled "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, WE HAVE RIGHTS!" and things picked up from there. There were no strict rules of the kind you ask for when it came to rebelling against such a rigid status quo. Does that mean it shouldn't have ever happened? What are you arguing in favor of? Throw away all gut feelings and emotions out of all politics and lawsuits? I am very sure history knows cases when a judge felt sympathy for a disadvantaged person even though technically the law was on the side of a more powerful person/organization. Then that judge followed a moral code and made an "illogical" decision. "Justice" isn't well-defined and won't ever be and I think it's time to accept that this is okay. Rules can be improved and made clearer with time but there's always a case where the gut feelings are a necessary part of the whole picture. Even if a certain set of morals are written down, that set won't ever be precise. Like damn, sometimes I feel people in HN want to get rid of their bodies and emotions and just become a soulless AI living on a server in a low-orbit. Those kinds of people I won't ever trust with justice though.

by Joe-Z 9y ago

VMG 9y ago

> Yes, you may be able to justify this legally, but it is a morally highly questionable behaviour nonetheless. Same goes for taxation itself. Many in this thread will argue that it cannot be theft since it is legal, which is absurd.

gambiting 9y ago
The notion that tax is theft is absurd.
vertex-four 9y ago
No, not because it's legal - because it's collectively agreed upon to be a necessary thing. That it's legal is a result of that - you're mixing cause and effect.
- VMG 9y ago
  The idea that collective agreement dictates morals is flawed and dangerous.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    And the idea that only individual rights matter, and that people don't have a duty to others, is also flawed and dangerous. As with pretty much everything else, the solution is somewhere in the middle that doesn't suit extremist slogans very well.

ebbv 9y ago

HN has a lot of extreme libertarians who are going to automatically applaud any subversion of the tax system. That's why the comments on this article are a trash fire.

golergka 9y ago

> And these are the people that argue FOR the ones fucking over the general populace for their personal gain? You seem to assume that everybody here has (or should have) more sympathy for 'general populace' or 'little man' than the other side. Why? Have you spend considerable time of your life with 'general populace' and 'little men' at all?

watwut 9y ago

> I mean jesus, aren't many people on here some kind of intellectual elite? And these are the people that argue FOR the ones fucking over the general populace for their personal gain? Intellectual elite does not have relationship to morals - those properties are quite independent. Moreover, people who consider themselves intellectual elite tend to look down on general populace.

pdimitar 9y ago
Sad truth. One thing that deeply impressed me when reading Robert van Gulik's "Judge Dee mysteries" was that the judges were required to study (and write!) a lot of poetry and literature as well, which IMO increases their emotional intelligence and make them more sympathetic with the populace they are governing and increase their sense of justice without going Hitler-mode. (The irony of the fact that he was describing a society that didn't have a problem treating women as sub-humans doesn't escape me, of course. I'd argue that outside of that however, the system described by Robert van Gulik had advantages.)

lmm 9y ago

The people involved probably believed they were doing what the government was incentivising them to do. Heck, they probably were. I've invested in a tax-advantaged pension, is that "theft"? I've signed on a patent application that my then-employer probably wouldn't've made if there hadn't been an R&D tax credit for it, is that "theft"?

turbinerneiter 9y ago
That's not what they did. What they did is pseudo-trade around stuff and gave multiple persons checks with tax that was never paid so people could get back tax that they never paid. There is no moral wiggle-room if you try to get tax returns on tax you didn't pay. If you don't agree, pay me back the money I never gave you. Doesn't make sense at all.

ptero 9y ago

Labeling the action that is legal under the law as "theft" makes me very suspicious of both the arguments and findings. The laws should be a set of hard, well defined rules (ideally finalcial rules are even formally interpretable). And if one does not break those rules he is not a criminal. I think much of the problem is due to tax system complexity. Not sure about Germany, but in the US we have a horribly complicated mess. Thus the spirit and the letter of the law are not the same (at least it is not clear if they are the same). I think the main argument that I kind of buy is that while the companies described do not break the letter of the tax law, the break the spirit of it. I would agree if the rules were simple and well understood. As it is, what if I got audited by the IRS. If they find me missing a receipt (say, a paper copy got destroyed) my arguments that I am fulfilling the spirit of the law by paying my share of taxes would fall on deaf ears (I think). Broke the letter of the law -- this is your fine. And this approach encourages reciprocity. My 2c.

joncrocks 9y ago
I'd note that this is also applicable to most legal systems, in that there aren't a set well defined rules which describe legal behaviour. Vague laws are written and then interpreted by judges and these go on to set precedent. Suddenly you find yourself in the situation that in order to make sure you're not breaking any laws, it's a full-time job. If ignorance of the law is no excuse, and it's practically impossible to know all the law....
- pdimitar 9y ago
  > If ignorance of the law is no excuse, and it's practically impossible to know all the law.... That's sadly very true and assumes guilt by default which is a very broken state of affairs. It's roughly the same as with mass surveillance -- if the government has enough data on you, they will find something to convict you of.
pdimitar 9y ago
The law system is built and maintained by humans. As such, they can't predict every possible loophole and they adapt over time. So yes, this behaviour should absolutely be labelled illegal and persecuted. Your comment didn't contribute much to the discussion save for reinforcing the original objection of your parent commenter -- "who cares if it's technically legal when it's very clearly immoral and destructive for the society at large".

bhaak 9y ago

It's just this easy. If it's legal, it's not theft. I don't like that either but that's how the law is. I mean, apparently, it wasn't so bad. It only took them 20 years to make that behavior illegal. They would certainly have been faster if it were bad. /sarcasm People will always try to game the system. But in this case, the politicians failed to act properly after it was obvious that it didn't work out as intended.

turbinerneiter 9y ago
The article talks about two different schemes: one is 100% illegal, the other one is abuse of a loophole. So there was clearly theft in the first case. For the second case, I'd call that theft, too. But theft that involves corrupt lawmakers. When communists confiscate people property, it is theft, no matter what the communists put in their law.
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
I think its lazy to blame politicians for this. Its complex, highly complex, financial horse trading. Its a loophole exploited. Thats probably far more sophisticated than any politician can reasonably be expected to understand deeply, let alone see the bigger destructive picture. (not to mention lobbyists badgering and actively asking for legislation for "loopholes" like this) A Financial regulator/watchdog is to blame. And of course, Quelle Suprise, lots of countries let the finance sector regulate themselves. Which is silly, because there are no ethics involved with some of these people. Just profits, at any cost.
- pdimitar 9y ago
  Politicians should be experts in many things. Their job is (in the ideal theoretical sense of our political systems) hard and very responsible. What they hell are they doing with their time? Sit in endless pointless meetings? Secret meetings with large business? Faking smiles 13 times a day? WHAT are they doing exactly? And then -- "we're too busy to know this stuff". In an ideal world such a politician would fly far away from office immediately, and all the people who benefitted from that would have to return the gained money from the loopholes, or live in cozy conditions in the jail. One can dream, right? So, what are the politicians supposed to know? How to bullshit the general populace on TV?

jlg23 9y ago

> I mean jesus, aren't many people on here some kind of intellectual elite? Instead of debating based on facts and laws (codified morale and ethics) you expect the "intellectual elite" to debate mob style based on gut feelings? > This kind of shit has to stop Personally I agree. But some context: * Germany holds federal elections later this year. * The business practices where not secret. Not at all. They have been debated publicly for years. * The business practices have been allowed to go on by the very same who now fake outrage. * All but the most incompetent players will provide a "Rechtsgutachten" and thus walk free. A "Rechtsgutachten" in German law is basically the testimony of an expert witness [1] that you get before doing something. If later a judge deems your doing wrong, you pull that out and can rightfully claim that someone from the government who is supposed to know more than you told you "it's ok". [1] in this case someone with actual judicial/legal powers like a judge or a high ranking IRS official

pdimitar 9y ago
> Instead of debating based on facts and laws (codified morale and ethics) you expect the "intellectual elite" to debate mob style based on gut feelings? Yes, I absolutely expect that. We're not only intellect, we have feelings as well. If we only operated on intellect, one could argue that the black people would forever retain status of sub-humans (which was never true!) and slavery would be perfectly fine since it actually made sense economically from the point of view of the slave owners. At some point somebody emotionally yelled "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, WE HAVE RIGHTS!" and things picked up from there. There were no strict rules of the kind you ask for when it came to rebelling against such a rigid status quo. Does that mean it shouldn't have ever happened? What are you arguing in favor of? Throw away all gut feelings and emotions out of all politics and lawsuits? I am very sure history knows cases when a judge felt sympathy for a disadvantaged person even though technically the law was on the side of a more powerful person/organization. Then that judge followed a moral code and made an "illogical" decision. "Justice" isn't well-defined and won't ever be and I think it's time to accept that this is okay. Rules can be improved and made clearer with time but there's always a case where the gut feelings are a necessary part of the whole picture. Even if a certain set of morals are written down, that set won't ever be precise. Like damn, sometimes I feel people in HN want to get rid of their bodies and emotions and just become a soulless AI living on a server in a low-orbit. Those kinds of people I won't ever trust with justice though.