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Be mad at politicians for writing tax codes that work like this rather than companies for taking advantage of them.

by nceqs3 5y ago

jelling 5y ago
Nah let’s do both. If a company wants to spin a pro-social image - Uber is currently asking consumers to donate vaccine rides - then they sure as hell can take the heat for avoiding pro-social taxes. At a minimum, they should pay that tax savings towards vaccine rides. I won’t hold my breath.
pstuart 5y ago
That makes it sound like the companies are innocently stumbling upon these opportunities when in fact they're actively lobbying/buying these changes.
quantified 5y ago
You don’t need to choose one or the other.
happytoexplain 5y ago
Why not both? Dissatisfaction drives change. Yes, companies are expected to take advantage of legal means of increasing value, but there is a spectrum of behavior between "shrewd" and "immoral" that still falls entirely within "legal", and the individual human beings in the affected society reasonably have opinions about where the line is. When the numbers are too disgusting, it's OK for people to express dissatisfaction with both lawmakers and the company in question, market forces be damned. And let's not forget that the companies frequently play an outsize role in influencing the written laws. The line between "playing the game" and "cheating" is very fuzzy in real world systems.
- rattray 5y ago
  > Why not both? It's hard to be mad at someone once you realize you'd do the same thing if you were in their shoes. Loopholes like this should be illegal, but their existence ~obligates executives to take advantage of them (fiduciary duty). You'd just be bad at business if you didn't. As someone who wants to be good at business, I can't get mad at the players here – just the game.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ruined 5y ago
    >It's hard to be mad at someone once you realize you'd do the same thing if you were in their shoes. this is projecting. your comment goes on a bit more like this but i'm not going to quote all of it there has been a cultural failure of some sort that rewards people that think like this, and encourages this kind of behavior. maybe we should expect people, especially people in positions of responsibility, to not loot our lives out from under us
    - rattray 5y ago
      I expect (well, I don't expect, but I WANT) my government to stop it from happening. It's foolish to expect people who are in a position of responsibility _to their shareholders_ to act like they're responsible _to you_. They're not. Close the loopholes, raise the taxes (wealth, cap gains, high-earner income, corporate, etc) and stop vilifying people for making money.
      - burkaman 5y ago
        Becoming a CEO does not magically make your responsibility to society disappear. Shareholders are an additional thing you need to worry about, not the only thing. > stop vilifying people for making money Why? They're doing it in a vile way.
        esyir 5y ago
        I'll put it a different way. Most people don't see issues with that, they see issues with shit legislation. You want an effective method? Provide a negative incentive to correct that. Its far more effective to do that. Talking about how we should get them to change their morality may give us the feel goods, but that's about all it'll do.
        happytoexplain 5y ago
wolfretcrap 5y ago
I just ask one question: Who do you think politicians have their dinner with? Is it a middle class tax paying person or some rich businessmen friends? Who will get his sympathy? Extrapolate from there.
rhizome 5y ago
Whether you take advantage of those codes in these ways is a question of ethics. Nobody's forcing them to do this, "do it all for the shareholders" isn't a law and shareholder suits for fiduciary mismanagement against executives are basically nonexistent in the US. It's a choice, and it's the choice of assholes.

Be mad at politicians for writing tax codes that work like this rather than companies for taking advantage of them.

by nceqs3 5y ago

Be mad at politicians for writing tax codes that work like this rather than companies for taking advantage of them.

Nah let’s do both. If a company wants to spin a pro-social image - Uber is currently asking consumers to donate vaccine rides - then they sure as hell can take the heat for avoiding pro-social taxes. At a minimum, they should pay that tax savings towards vaccine rides. I won’t hold my breath.

pstuart 5y ago

That makes it sound like the companies are innocently stumbling upon these opportunities when in fact they're actively lobbying/buying these changes.

quantified 5y ago

You don’t need to choose one or the other.

happytoexplain 5y ago

Why not both? Dissatisfaction drives change. Yes, companies are expected to take advantage of legal means of increasing value, but there is a spectrum of behavior between "shrewd" and "immoral" that still falls entirely within "legal", and the individual human beings in the affected society reasonably have opinions about where the line is. When the numbers are too disgusting, it's OK for people to express dissatisfaction with both lawmakers and the company in question, market forces be damned. And let's not forget that the companies frequently play an outsize role in influencing the written laws. The line between "playing the game" and "cheating" is very fuzzy in real world systems.

rattray 5y ago
> Why not both? It's hard to be mad at someone once you realize you'd do the same thing if you were in their shoes. Loopholes like this should be illegal, but their existence ~obligates executives to take advantage of them (fiduciary duty). You'd just be bad at business if you didn't. As someone who wants to be good at business, I can't get mad at the players here – just the game.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ruined 5y ago
  >It's hard to be mad at someone once you realize you'd do the same thing if you were in their shoes. this is projecting. your comment goes on a bit more like this but i'm not going to quote all of it there has been a cultural failure of some sort that rewards people that think like this, and encourages this kind of behavior. maybe we should expect people, especially people in positions of responsibility, to not loot our lives out from under us
  - rattray 5y ago
    I expect (well, I don't expect, but I WANT) my government to stop it from happening. It's foolish to expect people who are in a position of responsibility _to their shareholders_ to act like they're responsible _to you_. They're not. Close the loopholes, raise the taxes (wealth, cap gains, high-earner income, corporate, etc) and stop vilifying people for making money.
    - burkaman 5y ago
      Becoming a CEO does not magically make your responsibility to society disappear. Shareholders are an additional thing you need to worry about, not the only thing. > stop vilifying people for making money Why? They're doing it in a vile way.
      - esyir 5y ago
        I'll put it a different way. Most people don't see issues with that, they see issues with shit legislation. You want an effective method? Provide a negative incentive to correct that. Its far more effective to do that. Talking about how we should get them to change their morality may give us the feel goods, but that's about all it'll do.
        happytoexplain 5y ago

wolfretcrap 5y ago

I just ask one question: Who do you think politicians have their dinner with? Is it a middle class tax paying person or some rich businessmen friends? Who will get his sympathy? Extrapolate from there.

rhizome 5y ago

Whether you take advantage of those codes in these ways is a question of ethics. Nobody's forcing them to do this, "do it all for the shareholders" isn't a law and shareholder suits for fiduciary mismanagement against executives are basically nonexistent in the US. It's a choice, and it's the choice of assholes.