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This is a PR piece for politicians, yellow-journalism for uneducated people. Lots of adjacent color cultivating reader biases and eliding basic economics and ac

This is a PR piece for politicians, yellow-journalism for uneducated people. Lots of adjacent color cultivating reader biases and eliding basic economics and accounting. But thumbs up, great journalism! Reminds me of how the same US pols that fundamentally drive infrastructure policy with the tax code chided companies for “not paying taxes” based on the very incentives they had designed.

quantified 5y ago
Can you enumerate some of the accounting issues? Also, “they” is not accurate. I suspect you already realize that lawmakers and the population governed by their laws have very different incentives and outcomes.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  Yes. They’ve conflated the idea of the tax basis on transfer with the tax losses due to remediation. They’ve also mixed in remediation costs vs penalties. We also lack meaning attached to the word “income” used right up front. If it’s not taxable income, it’s not taxable income. Many of these concepts are not only entirely economically distinct, but also potentially functionally causal. For example, depending on when the environmental liability was introduced and to what responsible party, the woman may well have had an asset worth more than 1.2B, then has to sell it for less because of the very liability they decry. Is this an article about the tax consequences of direct environmental remediation? About the tax basis of inheritance? Of the environmental remediation reserves? Of the tax codes relationship to the continuation of the leak? Since they enlisted an expert tax consult, why didn’t the author let him explain what this article is supposed to be about, instead of writing about wall paper and Horatio Nelson. Perhaps only an excellent example of the Talebian perspective that one should not read journalism; when conveyed through the minds of non-experts, it often produces a sense of knowledge while failing to deliver understanding.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  “They” above was intended to reference individual politicians designing legislation but publicly castigating citizens who follow the very intent of the same code.
deleted 5y ago
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quantified 5y ago

Can you enumerate some of the accounting issues? Also, “they” is not accurate. I suspect you already realize that lawmakers and the population governed by their laws have very different incentives and outcomes.

the_optimist 5y ago
Yes. They’ve conflated the idea of the tax basis on transfer with the tax losses due to remediation. They’ve also mixed in remediation costs vs penalties. We also lack meaning attached to the word “income” used right up front. If it’s not taxable income, it’s not taxable income. Many of these concepts are not only entirely economically distinct, but also potentially functionally causal. For example, depending on when the environmental liability was introduced and to what responsible party, the woman may well have had an asset worth more than 1.2B, then has to sell it for less because of the very liability they decry. Is this an article about the tax consequences of direct environmental remediation? About the tax basis of inheritance? Of the environmental remediation reserves? Of the tax codes relationship to the continuation of the leak? Since they enlisted an expert tax consult, why didn’t the author let him explain what this article is supposed to be about, instead of writing about wall paper and Horatio Nelson. Perhaps only an excellent example of the Talebian perspective that one should not read journalism; when conveyed through the minds of non-experts, it often produces a sense of knowledge while failing to deliver understanding.
the_optimist 5y ago
“They” above was intended to reference individual politicians designing legislation but publicly castigating citizens who follow the very intent of the same code.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]