12 ms·

Taxation is theft. Especially given that surely Microsoft hasn't consumed anything even remotely close to 1 billion in Danish goverment services. Hopefully Mi

by aoetr 14y ago

Taxation is theft. Especially given that surely Microsoft hasn't consumed anything even remotely close to 1 billion in Danish goverment services. Hopefully Microsoft will be able to resist this armed robbery attempt. Otherwise, they could simply use half that amount, $500 million, to purchase missiles and drone planes to defend themselves and counterattack (they can buy 500-1000 tomahawk cruise missiles or 10-20 MQ-9 Reaper drones with that amount).

pc86 14y ago
That'll teach me to upvote after reading two sentences...
frogpelt 14y ago
Taxation is to be expected. How much or how little can be debated. The part I am missing is how, if MS bought an entire company for $1.8B+ and then sold a software title from that company to a subsidiary, that they should owe $1B+ in taxes. I would assume the company Navision had many more assets than just the rights to this software: property, cash, etc. At best, it sounds like major overreach by the Danish government. At worst, as you say, it is attempted armed robbery just because it is MS and they have money.
mpyne 14y ago
> Taxation is theft. I sincerely hope you've never driven on a paved road or been able to drink clean water. For that matter I'm sure that the public had absolutely nothing to do with your successfully being delivered, educated, and able to complain on the former APRANET/NSFNET about how taxes are by definition theft.
- ahallock 14y ago
  You're forced to use the roads. There is no practical way around government services since they're so pervasive. Just because someone benefited from a government service does not make it morally justifiable to steal.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    You're also forced to breathe and drink water, are you not? Do you plan on blaming that on the government too?
    - Silhouette 14y ago
      I think you're missing the point some of the earlier posters were trying to make. It's difficult to justify taxation by saying that it's spent on public services that everyone uses if you can't also demonstrate that the same money spent voluntarily by the taxpayer on private provision of the same services couldn't have achieved the same or better results. The provision-of-services argument alone doesn't allow for the opportunity cost of all that tax money. However, if the government is the only provider of a service and doesn't allow for private competition, as is often the case with the kinds of service being mentioned in this thread depending on where in the world you are and what your system of government is, then clearly it's difficult or even impossible to measure how well private competition would have done instead. Some cases of large-scale privatisation of important services have worked very well, yet other cases have failed horribly, so there's no obvious, black-and-white case for whether tax-funded public services are better or worse than privately funded commercial ones.
      - mpyne 14y ago
        For air and water at least it's not a 'provision of services' argument. Those are shared resources and as such require a way to ensure that assholes don't ruin it for everyone. I mean, right? We can't even make safe concurrent algorithms for a single computer where we control all the code without using primitives like CAS, locks, etc. Whether it's the guy with the largest club or government as we know it, that control of shared resources is done by government by definition. Without control of those shared resources it's uneconomical to re-clean the air or water sufficient to provide for it. Additionally even if private companies can do it cheaper that may not be better overall. What would the poor do if there were no sources of clean water? Would they just sit there and die? Or would they gang up and take it by force from those who can afford it? People pay these costs all the time, whether they realize it or not. More importantly, people often require services in the future that they refuse to plan for ahead of time, which wouldn't be a big deal except for when their failure to plan starts to affect other people. For example, you can let a house burn down out in the sticks if someone doesn't pay into a fire-fighting fund (whether public or private). In a city it is simply unacceptable to let a building burn; it would catch the buildings around it on fire. Those residents have to contribute whether they think it's a good idea or not. I mean shit, I wish it were as easy to have a functioning and vibrant society as simply blaming the government for everything but people always seem to miss that they'd simply end up subservient to whoever the next despot is who decided to wield force. As long as you live in a world with other people you are never completely free of politics or government; someone will always have a bigger club than the other and so you can either deal with the world as it is or fall prey to those with less idealistic principles.
kaoD 14y ago
Taxation is not theft. You're free to leave, but as long as you stay in our territory, you'll have to stick to our community rules, and that includes taxation. There's a social contract which you implicitly sign. Take it or leave it, but stop trying to impose your ideals upon society. It's funny how liberals can't stop ranting about impositions but fail to realize they're denying society the right to assemble as a state.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- pc86 14y ago
  You do realize that "Taxation is theft" is about the least liberal thing a person could say, right?
  - kaoD 14y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism "Economic liberalism contrasts with ideologies like social liberalism and social democracy as well as economic orders such as socialism, market socialism, welfare capitalism, mercantilism and state capitalism [...] opposes government intervention on the grounds that the state often serves dominant business interests, distorting the market to their favor and thus leading to inefficient outcomes" Et cetĕra. See also: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire
    - pc86 14y ago
      And prior to FDR the Democratic party was the party of small government. I'm referring the United States in the present day, where (generally speaking) the word liberal refers to Democrats more often than Republicans, and the idea that taxation is theft is an order of magnitude more closely associated with the latter than the former. Classical liberalism : The word "liberal" in common discourse :: Classical literature : Harry Potter

by aoetr 14y ago

pc86 14y ago

That'll teach me to upvote after reading two sentences...

frogpelt 14y ago

Taxation is to be expected. How much or how little can be debated. The part I am missing is how, if MS bought an entire company for $1.8B+ and then sold a software title from that company to a subsidiary, that they should owe $1B+ in taxes. I would assume the company Navision had many more assets than just the rights to this software: property, cash, etc. At best, it sounds like major overreach by the Danish government. At worst, as you say, it is attempted armed robbery just because it is MS and they have money.

mpyne 14y ago

> Taxation is theft. I sincerely hope you've never driven on a paved road or been able to drink clean water. For that matter I'm sure that the public had absolutely nothing to do with your successfully being delivered, educated, and able to complain on the former APRANET/NSFNET about how taxes are by definition theft.

ahallock 14y ago
You're forced to use the roads. There is no practical way around government services since they're so pervasive. Just because someone benefited from a government service does not make it morally justifiable to steal.
- mpyne 14y ago
  You're also forced to breathe and drink water, are you not? Do you plan on blaming that on the government too?
  - Silhouette 14y ago
    I think you're missing the point some of the earlier posters were trying to make. It's difficult to justify taxation by saying that it's spent on public services that everyone uses if you can't also demonstrate that the same money spent voluntarily by the taxpayer on private provision of the same services couldn't have achieved the same or better results. The provision-of-services argument alone doesn't allow for the opportunity cost of all that tax money. However, if the government is the only provider of a service and doesn't allow for private competition, as is often the case with the kinds of service being mentioned in this thread depending on where in the world you are and what your system of government is, then clearly it's difficult or even impossible to measure how well private competition would have done instead. Some cases of large-scale privatisation of important services have worked very well, yet other cases have failed horribly, so there's no obvious, black-and-white case for whether tax-funded public services are better or worse than privately funded commercial ones.
    - mpyne 14y ago
      For air and water at least it's not a 'provision of services' argument. Those are shared resources and as such require a way to ensure that assholes don't ruin it for everyone. I mean, right? We can't even make safe concurrent algorithms for a single computer where we control all the code without using primitives like CAS, locks, etc. Whether it's the guy with the largest club or government as we know it, that control of shared resources is done by government by definition. Without control of those shared resources it's uneconomical to re-clean the air or water sufficient to provide for it. Additionally even if private companies can do it cheaper that may not be better overall. What would the poor do if there were no sources of clean water? Would they just sit there and die? Or would they gang up and take it by force from those who can afford it? People pay these costs all the time, whether they realize it or not. More importantly, people often require services in the future that they refuse to plan for ahead of time, which wouldn't be a big deal except for when their failure to plan starts to affect other people. For example, you can let a house burn down out in the sticks if someone doesn't pay into a fire-fighting fund (whether public or private). In a city it is simply unacceptable to let a building burn; it would catch the buildings around it on fire. Those residents have to contribute whether they think it's a good idea or not. I mean shit, I wish it were as easy to have a functioning and vibrant society as simply blaming the government for everything but people always seem to miss that they'd simply end up subservient to whoever the next despot is who decided to wield force. As long as you live in a world with other people you are never completely free of politics or government; someone will always have a bigger club than the other and so you can either deal with the world as it is or fall prey to those with less idealistic principles.

kaoD 14y ago

Taxation is not theft. You're free to leave, but as long as you stay in our territory, you'll have to stick to our community rules, and that includes taxation. There's a social contract which you implicitly sign. Take it or leave it, but stop trying to impose your ideals upon society. It's funny how liberals can't stop ranting about impositions but fail to realize they're denying society the right to assemble as a state.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
pc86 14y ago
You do realize that "Taxation is theft" is about the least liberal thing a person could say, right?
- kaoD 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism "Economic liberalism contrasts with ideologies like social liberalism and social democracy as well as economic orders such as socialism, market socialism, welfare capitalism, mercantilism and state capitalism [...] opposes government intervention on the grounds that the state often serves dominant business interests, distorting the market to their favor and thus leading to inefficient outcomes" Et cetĕra. See also: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire
  - pc86 14y ago
    And prior to FDR the Democratic party was the party of small government. I'm referring the United States in the present day, where (generally speaking) the word liberal refers to Democrats more often than Republicans, and the idea that taxation is theft is an order of magnitude more closely associated with the latter than the former. Classical liberalism : The word "liberal" in common discourse :: Classical literature : Harry Potter