4 ms·

This is why we Yanks have the fourth amendment. So the government can't just arbitrarly take things from the citizens... And just ignore the civil forfeiture...

fao_ 7y ago
Rich people are rich because they have stolen from society. You don't think Jeff Bezos became the richest guy in the world by refusing to cut corners or underpay workers? No, amazon routinely does both of those (https://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html). There is always, always, a hidden human cost to large sums of money. I'm not scared of the government coming in and taking my stuff. What I am scared of is rich people taking my labour and not paying me for it, and rich people using their vast sums of money to pay for coverups that allow them to keep their vast sums of money and avoid paying their taxes. And, oh, wait. We have ample evidence that rich people all over the world are doing that en masse: https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-panama-papers https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-t... The poorest 10 per cent of households in the UK pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than the richest 10 per cent, new analysis has revealed. [...] Dr. Wanda Wyporska, Executive Director of The Equality Trust, said: “When the super-rich are paying less in taxes than their cleaners, you know something has gone disastrously wrong with our broken, regressive tax system. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lowest-earners-more-tax-richest-office-national-statistics-inequality-council-tax-vat-equality-trust-a7704331.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lowest-earne... The companies, which include tech giants such as Amazon and Netflix, should have paid a collective $16.4 billion in federal income taxes based on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's 21 percent corporate tax rate, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Instead, these corporations received a net tax rebate of $4.3 billion. The analysis is based on the corporations' annual financial reports, which were filed earlier this year to report their 2018 results. [...] Amazon won't pay a cent in federal income tax this year, despite its profits soaring to $11.2 billion in 2018, nearly double the $5.6 billion it earned the previous year, ITEP said. In fact, Amazon claimed a federal income tax rebate of $129 million, the study found. It would be the second year in a row Amazon paid no federal tax, giving the retail giant an effective tax rate of -1 percent. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-biggest-companies-paid-little-to-no-federal-income-tax-last-year/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-people-are-getting-away-not-paying-their-taxes/577798/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-pe... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/here-are-5-ways-the-super-rich-manage-to-pay-lower-taxes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/here-are-5-ways-the-super-ri...

fao_ 7y ago

Rich people are rich because they have stolen from society. You don't think Jeff Bezos became the richest guy in the world by refusing to cut corners or underpay workers? No, amazon routinely does both of those (https://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html). There is always, always, a hidden human cost to large sums of money. I'm not scared of the government coming in and taking my stuff. What I am scared of is rich people taking my labour and not paying me for it, and rich people using their vast sums of money to pay for coverups that allow them to keep their vast sums of money and avoid paying their taxes. And, oh, wait. We have ample evidence that rich people all over the world are doing that en masse: https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-panama-papers https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-t... The poorest 10 per cent of households in the UK pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than the richest 10 per cent, new analysis has revealed. [...] Dr. Wanda Wyporska, Executive Director of The Equality Trust, said: “When the super-rich are paying less in taxes than their cleaners, you know something has gone disastrously wrong with our broken, regressive tax system. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lowest-earners-more-tax-richest-office-national-statistics-inequality-council-tax-vat-equality-trust-a7704331.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lowest-earne... The companies, which include tech giants such as Amazon and Netflix, should have paid a collective $16.4 billion in federal income taxes based on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's 21 percent corporate tax rate, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Instead, these corporations received a net tax rebate of $4.3 billion. The analysis is based on the corporations' annual financial reports, which were filed earlier this year to report their 2018 results. [...] Amazon won't pay a cent in federal income tax this year, despite its profits soaring to $11.2 billion in 2018, nearly double the $5.6 billion it earned the previous year, ITEP said. In fact, Amazon claimed a federal income tax rebate of $129 million, the study found. It would be the second year in a row Amazon paid no federal tax, giving the retail giant an effective tax rate of -1 percent. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-biggest-companies-paid-little-to-no-federal-income-tax-last-year/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-people-are-getting-away-not-paying-their-taxes/577798/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-pe... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/here-are-5-ways-the-super-rich-manage-to-pay-lower-taxes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/here-are-5-ways-the-super-ri...