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Someone want to explain to me why my tax dollars should go towards protecting target and Walgreen’s inventory? When they have one security guard in their entire

Someone want to explain to me why my tax dollars should go towards protecting target and Walgreen’s inventory? When they have one security guard in their entire store? When police could instead be spending that time finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away?

spinach 3y ago
Because Walmart also pays taxes.
- sgarland 3y ago
  Do they, though?
- jliptzin 3y ago
  There is no way Walmart pays more per sq foot in local taxes than I do.
scarface_74 3y ago
Because those businesses also pay taxes and probably more than you do?
- jliptzin 3y ago
  Are you sure that's true? https://qz.com/1701404/walmart-allegedly-created-fictitious-chinese-jv-to-avoid-us-tax https://qz.com/1701404/walmart-allegedly-created-fictitious-... https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinion/2017/04/08/walmart-tax-every-american-taxpayer-pays/100188002/ https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinion/2017/04/08/wa... https://americansfortaxfairness.org/files/ATF-Key-Findings-One-Pager-orange-header.pdf https://americansfortaxfairness.org/files/ATF-Key-Findings-O...
  - pandaman 3y ago
    Police is funded with the local taxes: business, property and sales. Your articles show no evidence of Walmart not paying those, just the US taxes, which do not fund the police (at least directly, there are some federal grants to local police forces but those are: a) small fraction of the budget b) are given to pushing the federal partisan polices and not the actual enforcing of the laws).
    - jliptzin 3y ago
      https://goodjobsfirst.org/report-walmart-state-and-local-tax-avoidance-exceeds-400-million-annually/ https://goodjobsfirst.org/report-walmart-state-and-local-tax... They also don’t seem to make an effort to actually stop shoplifting. They take out regular check out lanes and replace them with self check outs that are unbelievably frustrating to use and make it very easy to shoplift accidentally. One time I apparently shoplifted an item by accident while using the self checkout lane, the only reason I realized is because I went back to return the item and it wasn’t on the receipt. The clerk helping me with the return just laughed and said it happens all the time. If their only response to shoplifting is to just jack up prices and then go on TV and blame democrats for “crime” while doing literally nothing to stop shoplifting then I have little to no sympathy for them.
      - pandaman 3y ago
        That article does not say that Walmart does not pay local taxes but suggests that it should not have used legal allowances it was given and pay more than it should by law. Your shopping experience in Walmart does not seem to be relevant at all, if you don't like it - don't go there, it in no way justifies allowing crime against Walmart to go unpunished.
        eesmith 3y ago
        Are you really so focused on just this one sort of crime, or does your opinion extend equally to all other crimes? We accept that some crimes go unpunished, yes? We don't hire enough traffic police to detect and punish all speeders, even though that's a crime, and that's only one of many crimes I can think of which are underprosecuted. Nor is there much of a cry to increase the number of traffic police and bring traffic speed down to the posted limits. So why must all shoplifting by punished, with the police doing most of the work at the store? We've long said that if an organization needs a higher level of security they can have their own security force, which may be private guards or a private police force, as with some campus police, transit police, and railroad police forces. Just like there is no law saying a store must pay more than is legally required, there is also no law saying the government is required to supply a police force for the store. Nor does it make economic sense for broadly trained police to handle a specialized task like providing security for a store. One of the biggest crimes is wage theft. The total cost of wage theft is estimated at 100x that of every robbery: https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-billion-crime-against-workers/ https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-bil... We know Walmart has committed that crime. ("According to a 2018 report by Good Jobs, between January 2000 to 2018, Walmart paid over $1.4bn in fines and settlements over wage theft violations, FedEx paid over $500m during the same period, and Bank of America paid over $380m." - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/wage-theft-us-workers-employees https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/wage-theft-u... ). Will these police officers assigned to Walmart also be charged with investigating and preventing wage theft at those stores? No, of course that hasn't been part of the general discussion. What, in your opinion, justifies allowing wage theft by Walmart to go unpunished?
murderfs 3y ago
Why should my tax dollars go towards investigating damage to your car, when you don't even have a single security guard?
- eesmith 3y ago
  What sort of investigation do you think they'll do? My experience is the cops aren't able to do much, and won't investigate for something equivalent to taking toothpaste from a Target. When someone did a dent-and-run into my car in a parking lot, the police didn't investigate. I got an incident report from them, to send to my insurance. In that case the police report gives the insurance company a way to handle possible fraud on my part. During the night someone went down the street and poked a hole in car tires, including one of mine. I didn't bother calling the police since I didn't think they could do anything. I needed to get going, so put on the spare and left. You think a police investigation could have done something? Flipping it around, when I was a kid on a bike I ran into someone's side view mirror and knocked it off. I was so scared about getting punished by my parents that I left. If the police investigated, they never caught me, and more importantly, my parents never found out. The only time we ever called the cops was when visiting friends in a small town. I came out to find a car window had been shattered, and we found a BB among the broken glass. The cops came for that one. Turns out some bored teens were going around shooting things with a BB gun. That one actually went to trial and I got court-ordered compensation. But that was car damage plus serial gun crime, and not typical car damage.
  - jliptzin 3y ago
    I gave police the license # of the truck that hit me, but they said it was an out of state plate so they said there was "nothing they could do." Translation being that they didn't feel like dealing with it.

spinach 3y ago

Because Walmart also pays taxes.

sgarland 3y ago
Do they, though?
jliptzin 3y ago
There is no way Walmart pays more per sq foot in local taxes than I do.

scarface_74 3y ago

Because those businesses also pay taxes and probably more than you do?

jliptzin 3y ago
Are you sure that's true? https://qz.com/1701404/walmart-allegedly-created-fictitious-chinese-jv-to-avoid-us-tax https://qz.com/1701404/walmart-allegedly-created-fictitious-... https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinion/2017/04/08/walmart-tax-every-american-taxpayer-pays/100188002/ https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinion/2017/04/08/wa... https://americansfortaxfairness.org/files/ATF-Key-Findings-One-Pager-orange-header.pdf https://americansfortaxfairness.org/files/ATF-Key-Findings-O...
- pandaman 3y ago
  Police is funded with the local taxes: business, property and sales. Your articles show no evidence of Walmart not paying those, just the US taxes, which do not fund the police (at least directly, there are some federal grants to local police forces but those are: a) small fraction of the budget b) are given to pushing the federal partisan polices and not the actual enforcing of the laws).
  - jliptzin 3y ago
    https://goodjobsfirst.org/report-walmart-state-and-local-tax-avoidance-exceeds-400-million-annually/ https://goodjobsfirst.org/report-walmart-state-and-local-tax... They also don’t seem to make an effort to actually stop shoplifting. They take out regular check out lanes and replace them with self check outs that are unbelievably frustrating to use and make it very easy to shoplift accidentally. One time I apparently shoplifted an item by accident while using the self checkout lane, the only reason I realized is because I went back to return the item and it wasn’t on the receipt. The clerk helping me with the return just laughed and said it happens all the time. If their only response to shoplifting is to just jack up prices and then go on TV and blame democrats for “crime” while doing literally nothing to stop shoplifting then I have little to no sympathy for them.
    - pandaman 3y ago
      That article does not say that Walmart does not pay local taxes but suggests that it should not have used legal allowances it was given and pay more than it should by law. Your shopping experience in Walmart does not seem to be relevant at all, if you don't like it - don't go there, it in no way justifies allowing crime against Walmart to go unpunished.
      - eesmith 3y ago
        Are you really so focused on just this one sort of crime, or does your opinion extend equally to all other crimes? We accept that some crimes go unpunished, yes? We don't hire enough traffic police to detect and punish all speeders, even though that's a crime, and that's only one of many crimes I can think of which are underprosecuted. Nor is there much of a cry to increase the number of traffic police and bring traffic speed down to the posted limits. So why must all shoplifting by punished, with the police doing most of the work at the store? We've long said that if an organization needs a higher level of security they can have their own security force, which may be private guards or a private police force, as with some campus police, transit police, and railroad police forces. Just like there is no law saying a store must pay more than is legally required, there is also no law saying the government is required to supply a police force for the store. Nor does it make economic sense for broadly trained police to handle a specialized task like providing security for a store. One of the biggest crimes is wage theft. The total cost of wage theft is estimated at 100x that of every robbery: https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-billion-crime-against-workers/ https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-bil... We know Walmart has committed that crime. ("According to a 2018 report by Good Jobs, between January 2000 to 2018, Walmart paid over $1.4bn in fines and settlements over wage theft violations, FedEx paid over $500m during the same period, and Bank of America paid over $380m." - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/wage-theft-us-workers-employees https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/wage-theft-u... ). Will these police officers assigned to Walmart also be charged with investigating and preventing wage theft at those stores? No, of course that hasn't been part of the general discussion. What, in your opinion, justifies allowing wage theft by Walmart to go unpunished?

murderfs 3y ago

Why should my tax dollars go towards investigating damage to your car, when you don't even have a single security guard?

eesmith 3y ago
What sort of investigation do you think they'll do? My experience is the cops aren't able to do much, and won't investigate for something equivalent to taking toothpaste from a Target. When someone did a dent-and-run into my car in a parking lot, the police didn't investigate. I got an incident report from them, to send to my insurance. In that case the police report gives the insurance company a way to handle possible fraud on my part. During the night someone went down the street and poked a hole in car tires, including one of mine. I didn't bother calling the police since I didn't think they could do anything. I needed to get going, so put on the spare and left. You think a police investigation could have done something? Flipping it around, when I was a kid on a bike I ran into someone's side view mirror and knocked it off. I was so scared about getting punished by my parents that I left. If the police investigated, they never caught me, and more importantly, my parents never found out. The only time we ever called the cops was when visiting friends in a small town. I came out to find a car window had been shattered, and we found a BB among the broken glass. The cops came for that one. Turns out some bored teens were going around shooting things with a BB gun. That one actually went to trial and I got court-ordered compensation. But that was car damage plus serial gun crime, and not typical car damage.
- jliptzin 3y ago
  I gave police the license # of the truck that hit me, but they said it was an out of state plate so they said there was "nothing they could do." Translation being that they didn't feel like dealing with it.