5 ms·

Actually it's even more insidious than that, at least in Australia Facebook (I refuse to call them Meta) is obligated to pay NewsCorp for articles posted Face

Actually it's even more insidious than that, at least in Australia Facebook (I refuse to call them Meta) is obligated to pay NewsCorp for articles posted Facebook then writes this off as a tax deduction Meanwhile Facebook pays effectively $0 in tax as-is because of all the various loopholes they exploit As a result the Australian tax payer effectively is paying Newscorp to continue existing

_heimdall 3y ago
If Facebook is avoiding taxes via legal loopholes but aren't taking any kind of government subsidies, is it really as though tax payers are paying Newscorp? No tax dollars are being spent to cover anything, the money is just never being paid by Facebook to the government because the government created carve-outs that let Facebook to reduce their liability. Caveat here, I'm neither a fan of Facebook or tax loop holes. In my opinion tax law should be exceedingly simple and easy to calculate. I don't want to defend Facebook here, but saying the public is paying for this feels like a slight of hand.
- arrosenberg 3y ago
  Taxes not paid by private entities are, by definition, money out of the public coffer.
  - ars 3y ago
    How far will you take that? Do buisiness owe all of their profit as tax? At some point you say "this is your tax", that doesn't mean that all other profit is money out of the public coffer. Governments do not tax all money.
    - arrosenberg 3y ago
      > Governments do not tax all money No one said they did. I said all private money is money not available to the public. If Facebook bribes legislators to carve out tax loopholes for them, that money stays private, therefore it's denied to the public coffers. Aside from any offended libertarian sensibilities, what part of that do you disagree with?
      - ars 3y ago
        I don't understand what the bribe has to do with anything. Did you just put that in there for an emotional response? According to you, all money belonging to everyone is really tax money that has been stolen from the people. There are some people who think like that but it's definitely an unusual approach. I'm sure you know what that form of society is called.
        arrosenberg 3y ago
        > I don't understand what the bribe has to do with anything. I'm responding to a thread about Facebook "lobbying" legislators for tax carve outs. I choose to call it what it is - a bribe. > According to you, all money belonging to everyone is really tax money that has been stolen from the people. Im not going to argue for a position I never took. I said that taxes avoided is money denied to the public. You called it theft, because thats your libertarian ideology poking through.
        ars 3y ago
        > I'm responding to a thread about Facebook "lobbying" legislators for tax carve outs. Yah, that's not what the thread said. Facebook is simply deducting a business expense, there was no carve out. > I choose to call it what it is - a bribe. Except there was no bribe, you just made something up. > You called it theft, because thats your libertarian ideology poking through. I did not call it theft and I'm not a libertarian. > I said that taxes avoided is money denied to the public. I said that there is no such concept as "taxes avoided". That not something that exists. You can't "avoid" taxes, either you need to pay them or you don't. It's not a thing to be able to just "avoid" them. You are arguing imaginary thing that never happened, and using concepts that don't exist to make your point.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - _heimdall 3y ago
        If elected legislators pass laws creating legal means to lower one's tax burden, the means in which the law was passed only matters to ensure it was legal. Our system is much too complicated and corruptible today. It shouldn't be so easy to effectively buy legislation, but as long as it is legal we can't really fault anyone with the means from taking advantage. If Facebook bribes legislators in an illegal way they should be held to account, otherwise laws should be changed and legislators should be resigned in through both elections and checks and balances.
  - johngladtj 3y ago
    Sure, in the same way that you not donating your home to the state is money out of the public coffers as well.
    - arrosenberg 3y ago
      That is true. You understand that right? Like, a donation is voluntary, taxes aren't and you think that makes them theft, I get all that. If I choose not to donate my house to the state, it is literally money denied to the public coffers. In the case of my home, the state has no expectation or entitlement to receive it. One could argue the same in the case of Facebook bribing legislators to get tax carve outs. I wouldn't (because it's very corrupt), but one could.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    Only if the taxes are actually owed. If an entity lowers their tax burden legally then the public was never owed the money. I don't agree with this model and would much prefer a simple tax code. But as-is, its disingenuous to say that taxes unpaid because one finds a legal way to avoid owing them is taking out of the public coffers. One can't take money that was never owed in the first place.
CydeWeys 3y ago
> Facebook then writes this off as a tax deduction I'm not sure you know what a write off is. If Facebook is paying fees for licensing content then that is an expense, which is deducted from overall gross revenue in calculating profit, and businesses are taxed on the profit they make.
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  I may be using the incorrect term. Regardless, they're happy to claim it as an expense as far as taxation goes, but given they pay no tax to begin with, the "cost of doing business complying with the regulation" is effectively passed on to the tax payer
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > I may be using the incorrect term. Regardless, they're happy to claim it as an expense as far as taxation goes That's how business expenses work. Tax revenue goes down as a percentage of the expense. How else would you want it to work? And for 30% tax rate, for every $30 in reduced taxes facebook is paying $100, so they still lose $70. And all else equal that money becomes profit for the news companies so the taxes still get paid. > but given they pay no tax to begin with, the "cost of doing business complying with the regulation" is effectively passed on to the tax payer If they pay no tax even before this law, then what's the problem? If they go from $0 to $0 then the tax payer isn't losing out on anything. And in that situation, even a single dollar of news company profit means a reduction in tax payer burden.
wredue 3y ago
If they’re already paying 0, then paying even more 0 probably isn’t going to change much. Unless this is a refundable credit, where they can actually get that money back the same year regardless if they’ve already gotten to 0. I don’t really agree with Canadas “link sharing” payment (people have only told me it is the case that links alone cause payment. I have not read the law. I don’t care enough to look). I do agree with Facebook having to pay for scraping and/or summarizing articles when links are posted, however.
ars 3y ago
That's an incorrect understanding of the accounting. First of all it's not a tax deduction, it's a business expense which reduces profit. Second when you have a tax deduction only a portion (around 20%) of the amount actually reduces taxes, the rest is simply a loss for the business. > As a result the Australian tax payer effectively is paying Newscorp to continue existing By that logic the tax payer is paying the electric bill and janitorial services. That's really not how accounting works.
lmm 3y ago
This is completely backwards non-logic. If Facebook weren't avoiding tax, you could say that making Facebook pay News Corp means we lose out on tax revenue (because they can claim what they pay as an expense). But if they were already not paying tax, then the money they're paying News Corp is coming 100% from their profits and 0% from taxes they would've paid. (And indeed, assuming News Corp doesn't manage to avoid taxes as efficiently as Facebook, the public actually ends up better off, because News Corp does have to pay tax on their profits)

_heimdall 3y ago

If Facebook is avoiding taxes via legal loopholes but aren't taking any kind of government subsidies, is it really as though tax payers are paying Newscorp? No tax dollars are being spent to cover anything, the money is just never being paid by Facebook to the government because the government created carve-outs that let Facebook to reduce their liability. Caveat here, I'm neither a fan of Facebook or tax loop holes. In my opinion tax law should be exceedingly simple and easy to calculate. I don't want to defend Facebook here, but saying the public is paying for this feels like a slight of hand.

arrosenberg 3y ago
Taxes not paid by private entities are, by definition, money out of the public coffer.
- ars 3y ago
  How far will you take that? Do buisiness owe all of their profit as tax? At some point you say "this is your tax", that doesn't mean that all other profit is money out of the public coffer. Governments do not tax all money.
  - arrosenberg 3y ago
    > Governments do not tax all money No one said they did. I said all private money is money not available to the public. If Facebook bribes legislators to carve out tax loopholes for them, that money stays private, therefore it's denied to the public coffers. Aside from any offended libertarian sensibilities, what part of that do you disagree with?
    - ars 3y ago
      I don't understand what the bribe has to do with anything. Did you just put that in there for an emotional response? According to you, all money belonging to everyone is really tax money that has been stolen from the people. There are some people who think like that but it's definitely an unusual approach. I'm sure you know what that form of society is called.
      - arrosenberg 3y ago
        > I don't understand what the bribe has to do with anything. I'm responding to a thread about Facebook "lobbying" legislators for tax carve outs. I choose to call it what it is - a bribe. > According to you, all money belonging to everyone is really tax money that has been stolen from the people. Im not going to argue for a position I never took. I said that taxes avoided is money denied to the public. You called it theft, because thats your libertarian ideology poking through.
        ars 3y ago
        > I'm responding to a thread about Facebook "lobbying" legislators for tax carve outs. Yah, that's not what the thread said. Facebook is simply deducting a business expense, there was no carve out. > I choose to call it what it is - a bribe. Except there was no bribe, you just made something up. > You called it theft, because thats your libertarian ideology poking through. I did not call it theft and I'm not a libertarian. > I said that taxes avoided is money denied to the public. I said that there is no such concept as "taxes avoided". That not something that exists. You can't "avoid" taxes, either you need to pay them or you don't. It's not a thing to be able to just "avoid" them. You are arguing imaginary thing that never happened, and using concepts that don't exist to make your point.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      If elected legislators pass laws creating legal means to lower one's tax burden, the means in which the law was passed only matters to ensure it was legal. Our system is much too complicated and corruptible today. It shouldn't be so easy to effectively buy legislation, but as long as it is legal we can't really fault anyone with the means from taking advantage. If Facebook bribes legislators in an illegal way they should be held to account, otherwise laws should be changed and legislators should be resigned in through both elections and checks and balances.
- johngladtj 3y ago
  Sure, in the same way that you not donating your home to the state is money out of the public coffers as well.
  - arrosenberg 3y ago
    That is true. You understand that right? Like, a donation is voluntary, taxes aren't and you think that makes them theft, I get all that. If I choose not to donate my house to the state, it is literally money denied to the public coffers. In the case of my home, the state has no expectation or entitlement to receive it. One could argue the same in the case of Facebook bribing legislators to get tax carve outs. I wouldn't (because it's very corrupt), but one could.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  Only if the taxes are actually owed. If an entity lowers their tax burden legally then the public was never owed the money. I don't agree with this model and would much prefer a simple tax code. But as-is, its disingenuous to say that taxes unpaid because one finds a legal way to avoid owing them is taking out of the public coffers. One can't take money that was never owed in the first place.

CydeWeys 3y ago

> Facebook then writes this off as a tax deduction I'm not sure you know what a write off is. If Facebook is paying fees for licensing content then that is an expense, which is deducted from overall gross revenue in calculating profit, and businesses are taxed on the profit they make.

IntelMiner 3y ago
I may be using the incorrect term. Regardless, they're happy to claim it as an expense as far as taxation goes, but given they pay no tax to begin with, the "cost of doing business complying with the regulation" is effectively passed on to the tax payer
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > I may be using the incorrect term. Regardless, they're happy to claim it as an expense as far as taxation goes That's how business expenses work. Tax revenue goes down as a percentage of the expense. How else would you want it to work? And for 30% tax rate, for every $30 in reduced taxes facebook is paying $100, so they still lose $70. And all else equal that money becomes profit for the news companies so the taxes still get paid. > but given they pay no tax to begin with, the "cost of doing business complying with the regulation" is effectively passed on to the tax payer If they pay no tax even before this law, then what's the problem? If they go from $0 to $0 then the tax payer isn't losing out on anything. And in that situation, even a single dollar of news company profit means a reduction in tax payer burden.

wredue 3y ago

If they’re already paying 0, then paying even more 0 probably isn’t going to change much. Unless this is a refundable credit, where they can actually get that money back the same year regardless if they’ve already gotten to 0. I don’t really agree with Canadas “link sharing” payment (people have only told me it is the case that links alone cause payment. I have not read the law. I don’t care enough to look). I do agree with Facebook having to pay for scraping and/or summarizing articles when links are posted, however.

ars 3y ago

That's an incorrect understanding of the accounting. First of all it's not a tax deduction, it's a business expense which reduces profit. Second when you have a tax deduction only a portion (around 20%) of the amount actually reduces taxes, the rest is simply a loss for the business. > As a result the Australian tax payer effectively is paying Newscorp to continue existing By that logic the tax payer is paying the electric bill and janitorial services. That's really not how accounting works.

lmm 3y ago

This is completely backwards non-logic. If Facebook weren't avoiding tax, you could say that making Facebook pay News Corp means we lose out on tax revenue (because they can claim what they pay as an expense). But if they were already not paying tax, then the money they're paying News Corp is coming 100% from their profits and 0% from taxes they would've paid. (And indeed, assuming News Corp doesn't manage to avoid taxes as efficiently as Facebook, the public actually ends up better off, because News Corp does have to pay tax on their profits)