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So do you voluntarily pay more taxes than you are legally obligated to? Purposely fail to take deductions etc? Hopefully you’re walking the walk since you’re s

So do you voluntarily pay more taxes than you are legally obligated to? Purposely fail to take deductions etc? Hopefully you’re walking the walk since you’re saying things like this.

danieldk 9y ago
The problem is that you can only make use of loopholes if you are large enough. You need foreign entities, an army of lawyers, etc. Consequently, rich companies can use loopholes, but the smaller local companies that they are competing with cannot use the same loopholes. Secondly, you would be surprised, there enough people who don't deduct everything possible. There are also enough people who don't take the cheapest energy, but choose a green option instead. Who don't buy the cheapest meat, but go for more expensive non-factory farm meat. Who don't take a plane, but take a train. Etc. (Before someone starts to criticise green energy, bio meat, etc., that's not the point: people are willing to spend more for a more ethnical lifestyle. Why shouldn't we expect the same from a company that always talks about its ethical virtues?)
- hueving 9y ago
  The green energy comparison is not apt because there isn't an ethical amount of taxes to pay. With green energy you are trying to minimize non renewable consumption. What is the ethical amount of tax deductions to take? All, some, or none of the ones offered by the tax law?
lordnacho 9y ago
Do you participate in every tax minimisation scheme you are presented with? A few years ago a guy came to me with a scheme to reduce my tax. It took him a two-page diagram to show me how it worked. The gist of it was that participants could "work" for a few hours a week on a music project. The work consisted of providing feedback on the music of P Diddy (Puffy/Daddy/etc). Now just to provide some background, I don't know anything about music. I can't play an instrument. I don't have Diddy's cultural background. I don't listen to his music. I'm a financial coder who lives on a different continent. Apparently as long as we could document that we'd done this work, it there would be a way to deduct some sort of loss. I didn't take part. There will always be legal ways to do things that are wrong, because just like the corner cases in code, there are corner cases in tax code. You can exploit them to make an exception, but you know what the point of the code is.

So do you voluntarily pay more taxes than you are legally obligated to? Purposely fail to take deductions etc? Hopefully you’re walking the walk since you’re saying things like this.

danieldk 9y ago

The problem is that you can only make use of loopholes if you are large enough. You need foreign entities, an army of lawyers, etc. Consequently, rich companies can use loopholes, but the smaller local companies that they are competing with cannot use the same loopholes. Secondly, you would be surprised, there enough people who don't deduct everything possible. There are also enough people who don't take the cheapest energy, but choose a green option instead. Who don't buy the cheapest meat, but go for more expensive non-factory farm meat. Who don't take a plane, but take a train. Etc. (Before someone starts to criticise green energy, bio meat, etc., that's not the point: people are willing to spend more for a more ethnical lifestyle. Why shouldn't we expect the same from a company that always talks about its ethical virtues?)

hueving 9y ago
The green energy comparison is not apt because there isn't an ethical amount of taxes to pay. With green energy you are trying to minimize non renewable consumption. What is the ethical amount of tax deductions to take? All, some, or none of the ones offered by the tax law?

lordnacho 9y ago

Do you participate in every tax minimisation scheme you are presented with? A few years ago a guy came to me with a scheme to reduce my tax. It took him a two-page diagram to show me how it worked. The gist of it was that participants could "work" for a few hours a week on a music project. The work consisted of providing feedback on the music of P Diddy (Puffy/Daddy/etc). Now just to provide some background, I don't know anything about music. I can't play an instrument. I don't have Diddy's cultural background. I don't listen to his music. I'm a financial coder who lives on a different continent. Apparently as long as we could document that we'd done this work, it there would be a way to deduct some sort of loss. I didn't take part. There will always be legal ways to do things that are wrong, because just like the corner cases in code, there are corner cases in tax code. You can exploit them to make an exception, but you know what the point of the code is.