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>This isn't the same thing. Where is the difference that would allow us to condemn the companies for maximizing profits by use labor laws but not condemn them
by PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
>This isn't the same thing.
Where is the difference that would allow us to condemn the companies for maximizing profits by use labor laws but not condemn them for maximizing profits using tax laws?
>Also nothing is that simple.
Yet the previous statement seemed to have been made quite simply, an idea that if you take advantage of any law in your favor, you cannot condemn someone who takes advantage of any other law in their favor.
- fixermark 8y ago> Where is the difference that would allow us to condemn the companies for maximizing profits by use labor laws but not condemn them for maximizing profits using tax laws? Money isn't people.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y agoTax budgets have a direct effect on people, and for people who have to work for a living, while it appears to be taking money, it is equivalently taking their time, a fraction of their life.
- fixermark 8y agoThere's an analogy, but it's a weak one. Again, money isn't people. Abusing labor laws gets people killed directly. Failure of a government to collect enough tax can get people harmed or killed indirectly, but it's the government's responsibility to set tax policy, not a corporation's.
- jakelazaroff 8y agoIt's also the government's responsibility to set labor laws, but this doesn't absolve companies for mistreating their workers.
- fixermark 8y agoIt is a company's responsibility to follow laws. It is not, however, a company's responsibility to build highways, or to figure out how to finance the building of said highways, or to set up and fund public education, or to hire and pay police, is the point. When it becomes a company's responsibility to do so, we march gleefully into one of several dystopian cyberpunk science fictions (pick your favorite) ;)
- falcolas 8y agoCompanies, however, do take full advantage of the infrastructure built by the government using tax dollars, both directly and indirectly. For example, Google takes advantage of government contracts and grants, paid for by taxes. They also take advantage of the highway, city, water, power, education, housing, copyright and trademark laws, unemployment insurance, and legal (that is, the court system) infrastructure largely built and paid for (directly, by grants, or subsidies) using taxes.
- fixermark 8y agoAnd they pay taxes for the privilege (either directly or indirectly, by paying employees who pay taxes).
- manigandham 8y agoThat's just circular logic. Google/people take advantage of things paid for by taxes, because they paid those taxes.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y agoIf I have to work 8 hours a day to make 6 hours of income because of tax, then 25% of the risk of me being killed in a day is because of the tax. Probably more, because the extra 2 hours of work will be while I'm more tired and will lead to me being more tired on the trip home than leaving after 6 hours of work.
- manigandham 8y agoNo, it's taking a portion of income. You choose how to spend your time and if you spend it earning an income then you're taxed to pay for the other things that let society function so that you can do so. How much you earn in a given time is irrelevant.
- simplify 8y ago> Yet the previous statement seemed to have been made quite simply Exactly; OP makes a simple, matter-of-fact statement, and then proceeds to say "nothing is that simple" when they get challenged? Seems like a double standard to me.
- manigandham 8y agoNobody said anything about being allowed to condemn them. You are free to do so. The difference beyond people vs money is that a company with shareholders is not obligated to use child labor but is obligated to reduce tax expenditures. It's not simple because what do you consider more ethical? Tax minimization or hiring children to increase profits?
- telchar 8y agoThey're certainly not obligated to reduce tax expenditures. This is the commonly repeated falsehood that the fiduciary duty of a company to its shareholders obligates them to do anything and everything within the law to maximize profit - but that's incorrect. The fiduciary duty is much broader and can be respected while not blindly maximizing profit.
- manigandham 8y agoSure best interests can cover a lot. However, using a well-known tax strategy that has its own name, is completely legal, has no risk, and can save billions for a multinational company worth over half a trillion is a sound business decision. Not doing so would definitely be against the interests of the company.