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I always find "fair share" to be an odd argument. Who decides what's a fair share?
by bobxmax 1y ago
I always find "fair share" to be an odd argument. Who decides what's a fair share?
- kristopolous 1y agoIt means they're not exercising loopholes and legal sleight of hand to pay less.
- loloquwowndueo 1y ago*sleight
- tekla 1y agoDamn, people who pay into their 401Ks are fucking evil.
- kristopolous 1y agohttps://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-tax/ https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-t... Some examples: > Food conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland enjoyed $438 million of U.S. pretax income last year and received a federal tax rebate of $164 million. > The delivery giant FedEx zeroed out its federal income tax on $1.2 billion of U.S. pretax income in 2020 and received a rebate of $230 million. > The shoe manufacturer Nike didn’t pay a dime of federal income tax on almost $2.9 billion of U.S. pretax income last year, instead enjoying a $109 million tax rebate. If you think this is the same as someone putting $7k into a 401k then you are acting in bad faith and we have nothing productive to discuss.
- tekla 1y agoHow is it a loophole when it was literally legally allowed, not even as a slight of hand.
- robinson7d 1y agoLoopholes are by definition legally allowed.
- shermantanktop 1y agoSome loopholes are an accident. Some are intentionally put in place by parties interested in traveling through the loophole, benefiting from doing that, and then claiming they would be stupid not to do so. Those cases are different, even though the legal status of them may be the same.
- gruez 1y agoWhat counts as a loophole though? IRA, almost by design is a way to shelter your investments from taxes. Is it a loophole to put your investments in an IRA to avoid taxes? What about when Peter Thiel puts his paypal stock in an IRA, and paid no taxes on his paypal exit?
- kristopolous 1y agoCan you honestly say when the people were drafting how IRAs would work they were thinking this as an intended use-case?
- sneak 1y agoThe rule of law, and the democratic lawmaking process is based on text, not mind reading.
- kristopolous 1y agoWell I can pull up exactly what proponents of The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which introduced the Roth IRA, stated their intentions were since this is very easy to find and widely documented but I strongly suspect you don't actually give a fuck about reality. So my time spent on this ends now.
- sneak 1y agoThe intentions of lawmakers when making laws do not matter; the thing that is voted on and passed is the text of the law, not their intentions.
- gruez 1y ago"intended use-case" is just more fuzzy language. They probably thought everyone would buy mutual funds, rather than 3X leveraged Nvidia ETFs. Does that mean buying such ETFs (and making bank) mean you're not paying "your fair share"? Or for something more down to earth, what about meme stocks and bitcoin treasury companies, both of which are technically companies, but are definitely not what the authors of the bill had in mind.
- asadotzler 1y agoFair means the same playing field, the same rules, the same consistent outcomes from all the corporations subject to these laws and regulations, and not just one of them who does the right thing. Exercizing loopholes is the opposite of fair. It puts those with the best cheating strategies ahead of those who play by the rules. Because you can catch the ref with his back turned doesn't make you a fair player.
- bobxmax 1y agoWhat is a loophole? Legally avoiding taxes isn't cheating. What you're describing is tax fraud, and that's different from corporations using legal strategies to mitigate their tax burdens.
- mupuff1234 1y agoSo is using cheat codes in a game also not cheating? It's part of the game after all.
- paulcole 1y agoYes, that’s correct. But if I’m playing a multi-player game, there can be rules of that game that ban the use of cheat codes. Breaking those rules would be cheating.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jodrellblank 1y ago> "What is a loophole?" "A way of avoiding or escaping a cost or legal burden that would otherwise apply by means of an omission or ambiguity in the wording of a contract or law." - The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition. What they're describing is corporations using legal strategies to mitigate their tax burdens that you or I cannot do. Lobbying is legal, but you or I cannot lobby to any useful degree. Big-box store companies build their stores to be short-lived buildings, then will only sell them with a contract that says the next occupant cannot be a big-box store, then argue that since value is determined by what someone else will pay and nobody will pay much for the end of life of a short-lived store intended to be a shop but which now cannot be a shop, so their stores are low value and comparable to empty stores, therefore they shouldn't pay much tax on them. "In Wisconsin, new Gov. Tony Evers says his budget proposal will close the dark stores loophole in the state"[1]. > "Legally avoiding taxes isn't cheating." Try arguing that you would only sell your houses with a stipulation that nobody can live in it, therefore you should pay the same taxes and rates that an empty lot would pay, and see if you still think that "legal is the same as right and fair". [1] https://slate.com/business/2019/02/dark-store-theory-big-box-stores-property-taxes.html https://slate.com/business/2019/02/dark-store-theory-big-box...
- mulmen 1y agoCongress.
- ceejayoz 1y agoThat the line is hard to perfectly define does not mean “none is fine”.
- sneak 1y agoThe bought-and-paid-for legislature and the military-industrial complex that both parties serve ceaselessly and unflinchingly.
- paulcole 1y agoIt’s very easy. If I think I pay a lot then I’m paying more than my fair share. If I think you’re not paying enough then you’re not paying your fair share.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y agoPareto optimality would be ideal, but across an entire economy, that's almost impossible to measure. In reality, there is no objective definition of "a fair share", there is only the intent expressed in the tax code (and people of course argue over what the intent "really is"). If people and/or corps. are paying taxes following that intent, then for all practical purposes, they are paying their "fair share".
- csoups14 1y agoA realistic fair share is probably some colloquial measure of people and corporations being equally angry about their taxes and equally angry about others not paying their fair share. It's my personal opinion that corporations have it way too good in the current system, specifically because they've spent millions to find ways to save billions, which people cannot reasonably do, and because they've also spent millions buying our political processes off to ensure tax laws don't meaningfully change.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y agoYes, and in fact the entire purpose of a progressive marginal tax system is that "everyone feels the pain of taxation" equally. It recognizes that a fixed percentage, even with a threshold, feels very different if you earn poverty-level wages than if you earn 10000 times that. And that's what our tax system is designed around. Corporations, and specifically their status (or otherwise) as "persons" complicates the picture quite a bit.