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No, you come on. You are not giving me the money in my bank account just because you say I don't have to give it to you.
by webXL 9y ago
No, you come on. You are not giving me the money in my bank account just because you say I don't have to give it to you.
- civilian 9y agoDude I'm as libertarian as they come; taxation is theft. But you're doing stupid things with semantics here. The company has more money to operate with; we're just talking about this from a business-operation point of view.
- ctdonath 9y agoThere's a substantive difference between being given money vs keeping your own money: one is theft, the other isn't. If we can't get tax cuts across the board, then I'm all for reducing taxes on whoever we can, however we can.
- daveguy 9y agoIf you appreciate roads, education, police, fire, private property, military, food safety, breathable air, safe drugs, etc, then you shouldn't be trying to cut taxes whenever and however you can as a base principle.
- webXL 9y agoIt looks like you listed every sacred cow of public finance, but I'll just pick on the first... sure, for the most part, roads are publicly financed/owned (although built by privately owned companies). But, conversely, if you appreciate all the privately financed/owned driveways, toll roads, parking lots, fueling infrastructure and vehicles(!!), then you shouldn't be trying to raise taxes as a base principle either. The truth is that there's plenty to appreciate and hate in both sectors, but there's only one that forces us to finance it, and we don't like being forced to finance something without having much say in the matter or if the results are suboptimal.
- clarky07 9y agoWhile I agree we should have some taxes, for some of these things, I think the above list could be paid for with far less than what we currently spend. Plenty of waste. Also, for example, we could likely get away with spending a bit less on some of these, like the military for one.
- JurgenKlein 9y agoNot good with math I see. If Foxconn has 10 apples and they decide to move to Wisconsin. When they arrive, Wisconsin decides to NOT take 4 Apples away. How many apples does Foxconn have left?
- dang 9y agoPersonal swipes will get you banned here, so please don't post like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ajnin 9y agoI'm curious, as a libertarian, how do you come to the conclusion that private property, which is a political construct, is a good thing, while taxation, which is also a political construct, established by the same set of laws, is a bad thing (If judging by your description of one being "theft" of the other) ?
- civilian 9y agoI think that private property can be easily derived from individual rights. The right to control my own life, the right to do what I want, the right not to be interfered with. Those set a pretty strong precedent for private property. If I create something out of nothing, shouldn't I be able to keep that? I could be down with taxation if someone actually offered me a contract to join the USA with all the provisions. But they didn't, they just implicitly assumed it, without my consent.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- intended 9y agoWhy would I care about individual rights if there is no government ? I mean if I have enough power and there’s no one to stop me, I may as well take your property AND your person and make you work for me. It’s just a matter of who has the most guns, and my willingness to cheat on the rules of the game.(you assume individual rights, I don’t) Do note this is more of a tongue in cheek question, than a serious one.
- justicezyx 9y agoindividual rights drive from government control law order etc., right?
- wav-part 9y agoConcept of private property is as old as civilisation. Whereas taxation (at current depth and scale) is barely 50yrs old and already showing cracks.
- sumedh 9y ago> taxation is theft. So who should pay for the US military so that your private property is safe from Russian attacks.
- aquadrop 9y agoThat one's easy, no one need to pay US military to safe your property from Russian attacks because there won't by any.
- powvans 9y agoThese incentives are often transferable tax credits. It isn’t unusual for a company to have little or no tax liability in the state offering the incentive. There are markets where the tax credits are sold to companies that do have tax liability in the state. It’s effectively putting cash directly into the pocket of the businesses you seek to attract.
- webXL 9y agoOther companies are putting that cash directly into those businesses, not the state. The ones with the tax liability just get to keep more of their cash, again not the state's!