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I don't hate taxes. I like having education, roads, community services, a safety net for those less fortunate, a strong military, infrastructure and the myriad

I don't hate taxes. I like having education, roads, community services, a safety net for those less fortunate, a strong military, infrastructure and the myriad other things that governments (should) spend money on. What I do hate is the obsessive hatred of taxes. No wonder governments get into massive debt - they don't have money. I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay - I really hate that. Apple, Amazon etc etc all guilty of this - they want our money, they want profit from our community, they don't want to contribute back - at all, if they can possibly avoid it.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
whatshisface 7y ago
"Shirking tax" is one of the weirdest moral calls I see regularly. Everyone structures their finances to avoid tax - if you can blame companies for anything it's that they lobby for extra loopholes. Further, sending money to the government is far from an effective way to help society, this blog post argues well for that: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billionaire-philanthropy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio... Further, the government is one of the few entities that can spend money to make the world worse. You can donate to charities to help people in countries you haven't heard of, you can buy a yacht and leave them alone, but if you pay that money in taxes then part of it will go to blowing them up for some inscrutable reason. Again, it's not that companies are saints or that they couldn't do better, it's that hammering them for tax avoidance is probably not the best thing to pick from the long list of corporate ethical failures.
yodsanklai 7y ago
> I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay I agree with you, but I don't think we can blame "companies", but who should blame the politicians (or people who voted for them maybe, or the people who buy stuff from these companies). Politicians are the ones who set up the laws allowing companies to avoid taxes. I see corporations as complex autonomous entities whose behavior isn't dictated by any single person, but rather by a "system" that lets them operate.
malandrew 7y ago
> I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay - I really hate that. Apple, Amazon etc etc all guilty of this The method by which most of these companies avoid paying taxes does more to help their local and state communities than is appreciated. It's profits that are taxed and they reduce profits by reinvesting those profits. Reinvesting profits results in more jobs. More jobs allow those that are employed as a result to put food on the the table for their family and a roof over their heads. It also allows those people to pay local, state and federal taxes and participate in those communities. As a member of the communities where these companies operate, I'm happy that they do what they do to reduce federal taxes because much of what would have been federal taxes ends up in state and local coffers and increases employment opportunities for my neighbors and friends.
- nemo 7y ago
  >It's profits that are taxed and they reduce profits by reinvesting those profits. What percent of Apple's profits are reinvested in California?
- andrewstuart 7y ago
  There's any number of words that are used to rationalise companies paying little or no tax. I'm not interested in any of those words. It's a fair system if corporations are paying tax contributions proportional to their profit as reported to the stockmarkets. Anything else is just rationalisations and excuses. Citizens pay the money - companies should too.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Oh ho and remember -- companies ARE people now, at least with regards to political donations. If corps have people-ish rights then they absolutely have people-like obligations. Instead they're getting to have their cake and eat it.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  Reinvesting profits results in more jobs. This would be true, if companies actually did this when confronted with lower tax bills. However, with rare exceptions (like Amazon), companies haven't done this in decades. I'm happy that they do what they do to reduce federal taxes because much of what would have been federal taxes ends up in state and local coffers and increases employment opportunities for my neighbors and friends. Corporations also skip out on state and local taxes. In fact they probably skip out on a larger % of their SALT taxes than they do their federal taxes.
TallGuyShort 7y ago
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- andrewstuart 7y ago
  It's broken in the U.S. because government is not for the people - government is for the vested interests who have warped government policy by giving money to politicians and parties. That's why companies sometimes are in fact given money by the government in the U.S. rather than paying money to the government.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  What openly socialist country has lower income taxes in the US? I work in (international) tax, and I don't know of any, especially not once you take effective income tax rates into account (i.e., meaning the actual taxes paid as a % of income). I'm also unfamiliar with any socialist country having schools remotely as good as the University of California, VTech, UT, Ohio State, etc. I won't even try to list the many hundreds of amazing public K12 schools in this country. I'm also not familiar with any socialist country that has roads better than the US with anywhere close to the same level of utilization. Sure, roads in the US may be relatively bad, but they're also 1000x more utilized.
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
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    - gamblor956 7y ago
      In terms of universities, I'd agree the US has a very competitive edge, but in terms of the equivalent of K-12 I've seen a rather alarming lag across multiple states compared to the education I and my siblings had growing up. Every openly socialist country in the world is the size of a small state or middle-sized US city. You're literally comparing apples to carrots. If you were to name the country, I could pull the same type of statistics showing how bad the schools are in that country, how poor the roads are, how long the wait is for medical treatment. And in the elementary schools I work with (and mind you I live in a district with a good reputation in the region in a relatively wealthy area), I'd say it's less than 10% of the kids are reading even close to their grade level. Going to call bullshit on that one. My district wasn't all that great growing up and it was embarrassing when only 70% of my 5th grade class was reading at grade level. There are a few school district where less than half of students read at grade level, and they're almost all urban school district with large % of poor, ESL, immigrant student populations.
tracker1 7y ago
Individuals and companies cut back spending to match income when it comes down to it... some will leverage until they no longer can, but this is generally accounting hacks in practice. The government does not do so. The U.S. govt from the top down, and even state and local governments will create a LOT of bureaucracy that provides no added value. Beyond that, they create purchasing systems that force higher spending. When states have tried to create different systems to stop corruption in those lines, the corruption just shifts and it winds up about the same. There are usually solutions that can work at least as well as what we have with less government incursion and less bureaucracy. Personally, I'd rather see the gov't cut most programs, and allow taxpayers to take roughly half of their own tax burdens and direct them to charities directly. Let people fund what they actually care about directly and advocate themselves. Also, corporation shouldn't be paying taxes (except as part of trade). They should be limited in terms of holdings and un/underused asset terms and forced to payout to owners/shareholders who would then be liable for taxes. Likewise, non-living entities should have severely restricted "rights" ... this would take a constitutional amendment at this point though.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  The U.S. govt from the top down, and even state and local governments will create a LOT of bureaucracy that provides no added value. Beyond that, they create purchasing systems that force higher spending. When states have tried to create different systems to stop corruption in those lines, the corruption just shifts and it winds up about the same. There's a good episode of the West Wing about this. Everyone thinks that all of the government bureaucracy is useless until they confront the reason that it exists: to deal with specific issues within the government's scope of authority. Some bureaucracy is wasteful/far outlived it's purpose, but that is the exception not the norm. I'd rather see the gov't cut most programs, and allow taxpayers to take roughly half of their own tax burdens and direct them to charities directly. Let people fund what they actually care about directly and advocate themselves. If you think government is wasteful just wait until you see how much administrative overhead is wasted at charities and (for-profit) companies. You'd immediately demand for all of that spending to go back to the government.
  - 7y ago
opportune 7y ago
I also don't hate taxes. And I agree with all of your points. But I also hate when taxes are raised inefficiently. Don't make me pay taxes by sending me a fee in the mail and requiring me to send a check to some government office (sure, this is not a "tax" it is a "fee", whatever, get with the times). Use taxes to price in externalities. Use VAT instead of sales tax, if at all; use personal income tax in lieu of regressive sales taxes. Use land value tax rather than property tax. Redesign "well-intentioned" tax schemes which subsidize the rich like Prop. 13. Make inflation tax deductible on capital gains but also create higher capital gains brackets. Stop making people guess how much our taxes are and just tell us (specifically, the IRS already knows how much we owe so just charge us that!). Close tax avoidance loopholes. I also hate when my taxes are spent inefficiently. Stop with the pork barrel spending. Stop spending so much to subsidize the price of oil. Spend on transportation and renewable energy. Redirect military spending which theoretically could develop technology that could be useful for civilians, and instead fund the civilian-applicable technology directly. Fix the corrupt and broken government contracting system. Redesign welfare (for example, SSI) so that it's always in the recipient's benefit to work if they can. We need to make our system more efficient. We in the US often pay effective tax rates on par with countries that seem to get so much more bang for their buck when it comes how those taxes are spent. I don't mind taxes in theory at all but I want to feel like I'm getting my money's worth
- andrewstuart 7y ago
  The problems, inefficiencies and personal objections to the tax system and government expenditure are all valid. What is not valid is to use those objections to justify not paying tax. Too many people use these objections to justify avoiding tax.
  - opportune 7y ago
    I agree. I still pay my taxes even though I dislike the tax system. Half the politicians in this country, as the article notes, want people to look at the objections I listed and say "whelp, guess that means we ought to cut all the spending and taxes!" when that is not what I want at all. I just want it to be more efficient

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

whatshisface 7y ago

"Shirking tax" is one of the weirdest moral calls I see regularly. Everyone structures their finances to avoid tax - if you can blame companies for anything it's that they lobby for extra loopholes. Further, sending money to the government is far from an effective way to help society, this blog post argues well for that: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billionaire-philanthropy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio... Further, the government is one of the few entities that can spend money to make the world worse. You can donate to charities to help people in countries you haven't heard of, you can buy a yacht and leave them alone, but if you pay that money in taxes then part of it will go to blowing them up for some inscrutable reason. Again, it's not that companies are saints or that they couldn't do better, it's that hammering them for tax avoidance is probably not the best thing to pick from the long list of corporate ethical failures.

yodsanklai 7y ago

> I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay I agree with you, but I don't think we can blame "companies", but who should blame the politicians (or people who voted for them maybe, or the people who buy stuff from these companies). Politicians are the ones who set up the laws allowing companies to avoid taxes. I see corporations as complex autonomous entities whose behavior isn't dictated by any single person, but rather by a "system" that lets them operate.

malandrew 7y ago

> I also hate large companies avoiding and shirking tax and leaving it to people to pay - I really hate that. Apple, Amazon etc etc all guilty of this The method by which most of these companies avoid paying taxes does more to help their local and state communities than is appreciated. It's profits that are taxed and they reduce profits by reinvesting those profits. Reinvesting profits results in more jobs. More jobs allow those that are employed as a result to put food on the the table for their family and a roof over their heads. It also allows those people to pay local, state and federal taxes and participate in those communities. As a member of the communities where these companies operate, I'm happy that they do what they do to reduce federal taxes because much of what would have been federal taxes ends up in state and local coffers and increases employment opportunities for my neighbors and friends.

nemo 7y ago
>It's profits that are taxed and they reduce profits by reinvesting those profits. What percent of Apple's profits are reinvested in California?
andrewstuart 7y ago
There's any number of words that are used to rationalise companies paying little or no tax. I'm not interested in any of those words. It's a fair system if corporations are paying tax contributions proportional to their profit as reported to the stockmarkets. Anything else is just rationalisations and excuses. Citizens pay the money - companies should too.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Oh ho and remember -- companies ARE people now, at least with regards to political donations. If corps have people-ish rights then they absolutely have people-like obligations. Instead they're getting to have their cake and eat it.
gamblor956 7y ago
Reinvesting profits results in more jobs. This would be true, if companies actually did this when confronted with lower tax bills. However, with rare exceptions (like Amazon), companies haven't done this in decades. I'm happy that they do what they do to reduce federal taxes because much of what would have been federal taxes ends up in state and local coffers and increases employment opportunities for my neighbors and friends. Corporations also skip out on state and local taxes. In fact they probably skip out on a larger % of their SALT taxes than they do their federal taxes.

TallGuyShort 7y ago

andrewstuart 7y ago
It's broken in the U.S. because government is not for the people - government is for the vested interests who have warped government policy by giving money to politicians and parties. That's why companies sometimes are in fact given money by the government in the U.S. rather than paying money to the government.
gamblor956 7y ago
What openly socialist country has lower income taxes in the US? I work in (international) tax, and I don't know of any, especially not once you take effective income tax rates into account (i.e., meaning the actual taxes paid as a % of income). I'm also unfamiliar with any socialist country having schools remotely as good as the University of California, VTech, UT, Ohio State, etc. I won't even try to list the many hundreds of amazing public K12 schools in this country. I'm also not familiar with any socialist country that has roads better than the US with anywhere close to the same level of utilization. Sure, roads in the US may be relatively bad, but they're also 1000x more utilized.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  -
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    In terms of universities, I'd agree the US has a very competitive edge, but in terms of the equivalent of K-12 I've seen a rather alarming lag across multiple states compared to the education I and my siblings had growing up. Every openly socialist country in the world is the size of a small state or middle-sized US city. You're literally comparing apples to carrots. If you were to name the country, I could pull the same type of statistics showing how bad the schools are in that country, how poor the roads are, how long the wait is for medical treatment. And in the elementary schools I work with (and mind you I live in a district with a good reputation in the region in a relatively wealthy area), I'd say it's less than 10% of the kids are reading even close to their grade level. Going to call bullshit on that one. My district wasn't all that great growing up and it was embarrassing when only 70% of my 5th grade class was reading at grade level. There are a few school district where less than half of students read at grade level, and they're almost all urban school district with large % of poor, ESL, immigrant student populations.

tracker1 7y ago

Individuals and companies cut back spending to match income when it comes down to it... some will leverage until they no longer can, but this is generally accounting hacks in practice. The government does not do so. The U.S. govt from the top down, and even state and local governments will create a LOT of bureaucracy that provides no added value. Beyond that, they create purchasing systems that force higher spending. When states have tried to create different systems to stop corruption in those lines, the corruption just shifts and it winds up about the same. There are usually solutions that can work at least as well as what we have with less government incursion and less bureaucracy. Personally, I'd rather see the gov't cut most programs, and allow taxpayers to take roughly half of their own tax burdens and direct them to charities directly. Let people fund what they actually care about directly and advocate themselves. Also, corporation shouldn't be paying taxes (except as part of trade). They should be limited in terms of holdings and un/underused asset terms and forced to payout to owners/shareholders who would then be liable for taxes. Likewise, non-living entities should have severely restricted "rights" ... this would take a constitutional amendment at this point though.

gamblor956 7y ago
The U.S. govt from the top down, and even state and local governments will create a LOT of bureaucracy that provides no added value. Beyond that, they create purchasing systems that force higher spending. When states have tried to create different systems to stop corruption in those lines, the corruption just shifts and it winds up about the same. There's a good episode of the West Wing about this. Everyone thinks that all of the government bureaucracy is useless until they confront the reason that it exists: to deal with specific issues within the government's scope of authority. Some bureaucracy is wasteful/far outlived it's purpose, but that is the exception not the norm. I'd rather see the gov't cut most programs, and allow taxpayers to take roughly half of their own tax burdens and direct them to charities directly. Let people fund what they actually care about directly and advocate themselves. If you think government is wasteful just wait until you see how much administrative overhead is wasted at charities and (for-profit) companies. You'd immediately demand for all of that spending to go back to the government.
- 7y ago

opportune 7y ago

I also don't hate taxes. And I agree with all of your points. But I also hate when taxes are raised inefficiently. Don't make me pay taxes by sending me a fee in the mail and requiring me to send a check to some government office (sure, this is not a "tax" it is a "fee", whatever, get with the times). Use taxes to price in externalities. Use VAT instead of sales tax, if at all; use personal income tax in lieu of regressive sales taxes. Use land value tax rather than property tax. Redesign "well-intentioned" tax schemes which subsidize the rich like Prop. 13. Make inflation tax deductible on capital gains but also create higher capital gains brackets. Stop making people guess how much our taxes are and just tell us (specifically, the IRS already knows how much we owe so just charge us that!). Close tax avoidance loopholes. I also hate when my taxes are spent inefficiently. Stop with the pork barrel spending. Stop spending so much to subsidize the price of oil. Spend on transportation and renewable energy. Redirect military spending which theoretically could develop technology that could be useful for civilians, and instead fund the civilian-applicable technology directly. Fix the corrupt and broken government contracting system. Redesign welfare (for example, SSI) so that it's always in the recipient's benefit to work if they can. We need to make our system more efficient. We in the US often pay effective tax rates on par with countries that seem to get so much more bang for their buck when it comes how those taxes are spent. I don't mind taxes in theory at all but I want to feel like I'm getting my money's worth

andrewstuart 7y ago
The problems, inefficiencies and personal objections to the tax system and government expenditure are all valid. What is not valid is to use those objections to justify not paying tax. Too many people use these objections to justify avoiding tax.
- opportune 7y ago
  I agree. I still pay my taxes even though I dislike the tax system. Half the politicians in this country, as the article notes, want people to look at the objections I listed and say "whelp, guess that means we ought to cut all the spending and taxes!" when that is not what I want at all. I just want it to be more efficient