4 ms·
Over a decade ago, google used to offer benefits to their employees including those who were in a relationship that wasn’t marriage. In otherworldly gay couples
by ryanobjc 6y ago
Over a decade ago, google used to offer benefits to their employees including those who were in a relationship that wasn’t marriage. In otherworldly gay couples. The policy was neutral and straight couples could take advantage of it.
Well irs policy doesn’t allow tax free benefits in this fashion. So employees had to pay extra income tax that was “imputed” from these taxable benefits. And google paid the employees extra taxes.
Is this a political position? Would it make sense for google to cheer for sale sex marriage which reduces their own financial burden? Is it the right thing to do?
Or consider immigration... many high tech companies have substantial immigrant work forces. The thin wedge of the “Muslim ban” in 2017 was a threat to their businesses.
So it makes total sense that a company would engage in politics. Since some of the hot button political issues today boil down to “who is human and who gets full rights?”, yeah that’s a fight that one cannot turn a back to, and many companies cannot.
- mrec 6y agoI wouldn't consider paying extra taxes on behalf of employees political, no. Lobbying re immigration is a fair point though; I'd been considering this discussion in the context of companies pushing a political view onto their employees (per TFA) and lobbying is unrelated to that. I'm not sure what issues you're referring to in your last para; I don't see any disputes over who's human. (I'm not in the US and am trying not to follow its politics too closely, in case it's contagious.)
- lazyasciiart 6y agoIt's referring to abortion arguments.
- mrec 6y agoAh, OK, slightly confusing choice of word then. As I see it the crucial question re abortion is when a clump of cells becomes a person; I don't think there's ever a stage where it's not (biologically) human.
- lazyasciiart 6y agoPeople seem to use the noun (a human) fairly interchangeably with "a person".
- dane-pgp 6y agoLanguage and law both become very strange when we have non-person humans and non-human persons. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/animal-news/orangutan-granted-legal-personhood-settles-new-florida-home-n1079261 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/animal-news/orangutan-granted-l...