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If we decide corporations have no obligation to be moral or decent, they naturally will behave as we expect. If we expect and demand (and punish the absence of)
by wfo 9y ago
If we decide corporations have no obligation to be moral or decent, they naturally will behave as we expect. If we expect and demand (and punish the absence of) more, we can get more. Corporations are made up of people, and people are fully capable of not committing rampant constant fraud.
Spending thousands of dollars to avoid their moral tax obligations instead of paying is in my view fraud and corruption; the fact that it is possible with an army of accountants and massive resources dedicated to tiny loopholes is really of no importance when we weight the ethical or moral judgements of these actions: if you spend millions on lawyers to devise a clever loophole that lets you murder someone legally you are still a murderer. There's a (bad) argument to be made that for consistency's sake we cannot prosecute you under the current laws, but there's no argument that you're not a monster.
Refusing to pay taxes is stealing from the poor (and the general public) who rely on government services; you are destroying the roads, parks, annihilating schools and universities, preventing people from getting healthcare they need to survive, stealing from children, the homeless, the elderly and the disabled, helping criminals by defunding the police and helping burn people and property by defunding fire departments.
If your job is to find tax loopholes for corporations, you are committing fraud even if our current legal system is written by people who think fraud is okay so long as it's a CPA on behalf of a massive corporation doing it. The fact that some judges have decided this is okay does not mean that it actually is.
- nickpp 9y agoRefusing to pay taxes is stealing?! I am afraid you have this backwards: taxes are simple robbery.
- isostatic 9y agoTaxes are the rent you pay to live in the society you live in.
- nickpp 9y agoDo I have a choice? If not, then I am robbed. I don’t disagree with the idea of taxes, just with the way they are stolen from me and with most of the purposes they are used for.
- aylmao 9y agoYou do. You can choose to not live in society. Go live in the jungle, or buy a raft and jump onto the sea; no one will follow you to tax you. Of course, you won't do this, cause you like living with people. You like living in cities but cities cannot run without roads, piers, planning, etc. And you like being safe, knowing if people hurt you or take your stuff they'll be punished, if your house catches on fire it'll be turned off, and if you're out late at night the sidewalk will be lit so you can find your way back home. You have the choice, it just doesn't seem like one because not living in society is just not worth it.
- nickpp 9y agoThat is the choice of giving up my money, or dying - during a robbery. I am talking about the choice I have in any free marked: where to spend my money and what to get in exchange. I have none of that when it comes to over half of my revenue: my taxes.
- wfo 9y agoYou have a huge amount of choice in your taxes; you can vote, run for office, and advocate for political positions. You have zero choice in your economic situation (if you are 99% of people) since most financial choices are made for you by large companies that you have zero stake in or control over. Is there a difference between someone pointing a gun at your head and saying 'your money or your life' and a company that buys all the water in your region and withholds it saying 'your money or your life'? No.
- nickpp 9y agoHave you voted? How much did your vote count? Did you run for office? How much change did you manage to bring? In a company you can also buy shares, vote at board meeting or get a job in and change it from the inside. But that is not the freedom of choice I am talking about. That is a fake choice since it is too difficult, requiring you to change your entire life. What I am talking about is the simple choice of free market: choosing who to give your money and for what services. I do not intend to give up the government services, I just want to be able to transparently select the provider and not have to buy them in bulk, bundled together.
- closeparen 9y agoDo you leave the standard deduction on the table? Because this is what you’re asking corporations to do: not take the opportunities to reduce tax liability that we provide them. How about let’s raise taxes instead.
- viraptor 9y agoBoth. Simpler (potentially higher, but just more enforcable) tax would be good. On the other hand it's not about standard deductions - if an accountant comes to the corp with "we figured out this crazy loophole, we'll call it double Irish with a Dutch sandwich", then yeah, I think the corp should step back. (and the tax office should charge them for taking a piss)
- icelancer 9y agoWhat you are asking for is vigiliantism and extralegal actions against corporate persons and the people that make up these corporations. There's a lot of reasons why those things are considered pretty bad. I also find it interesting that you say: "Corporations are made up of people, and people are fully capable of not committing rampant constant fraud." What are our local, state, and federal governments made up of, then - the same organizations that don't close loopholes and set tax code properly to serve the greater interest? Are these organizations not made of people?
- wfo 9y ago>What are our local, state, and federal governments made up of, then - the same organizations that don't close loopholes and set tax code properly to serve the greater interest? Are these organizations not made of people? Yes, they are. But going out of your way to hire thousands of attorneys to find loopholes is obvious explicit fraud. Writing a tax code and possibly missing something is a natural human error. "Corporate persons" do not exist -- they are a legal fiction invented to shield corporate criminals from liability. Also, why do you think I have low expectations of my government? I expect them to try their best to prevent fraud just as I expect corporations to do their best to avoid committing it.
- anigbrowl 9y agoGP made no such call to extralegal action. Don't make false allegations like that please.