OT Tax Rant

On Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 5:01:57 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 20:12:32 +0200, David Brown 
> <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote: 
> 
> >On 06/04/2021 17:38, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: 
> >> 
> >> https://theweek.com/articles/975735/janet-yellens-proposal-revolutionize-corporate-taxation 
> >> 
> >> My counter-offer to Yellin is zero corporate tax rates. 
> >> 
> > 
> >Why not start your own religion, like L. Ron Hubbard? He too had lots 
> >of fanciful ideas with no grounding in reality, and felt he didn't make 
> >enough money from his normal work. Someone suggested he started his own 
> >religion - no restrictions on what you can say and do, no taxes, no 
> >limits. Tell the tax man you believe electronics works by trapping 
> >little pixies inside boxes, and you'll get state subsidies and can start 
> >your own university in Alabama. 
> >
> If creating businesses and jobs and food and stuff is religion, I'm a 
> believer. 
> 
> Tax consumption, not production. There's nothing mystical about that.

It is a regressive tax. The poor spend more of what they get on stuff that they consume.

If you want a more egalitarian distribution of income, you do need some progressive taxation. The US has a remarkably inegalitarian income distribution for a moderately advanced industrial society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level_(book)

talks about this at some length, and the unfortunate social problems that seem to be worst in places with the highest inequality.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 12:46:33 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 16:12:19 +0000 (UTC), 
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote: 
> 
> >Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote in 
> >news:7ff76f0d-bacd-de94...@electrooptical.net: 
> > 
> >> jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: 
> >>> 
> >>> https://theweek.com/articles/975735/janet-yellens-proposal-revolut 
> >>> ionize-corporate-taxation 
> >>> 
> >>> My counter-offer to Yellin is zero corporate tax rates. 
> >> 
> >> Why not reincorporate as an LLC? 
> >> 
> >> Cheers 
> >> 
> >> Phil Hobbs 
> >> 
> > 
> > That would certainly limit his liabilities.
> A C corp protects shareholders from corporate liabilities.

But not company officers.  You can't make bad decisions and then expect to be protected by the courts just because you made those decisions as a corporate officer. 

-- 

Rick C.

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On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 12:54:14 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 09:36:46 -0700, John Robertson <sp...@flippers.com> 
> wrote:
> > 
> >On 2021/04/06 8:38 a.m., jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: 
> >> 
> >> https://theweek.com/articles/975735/janet-yellens-proposal-revolutionize-corporate-taxation 
> >> 
> >> My counter-offer to Yellin is zero corporate tax rates. 
> >> 
> > 
> >You want zero corporate taxes, then be willing to lose all legal 
> >corporate protections. You do realize that a lot of government is 
> >devoted to supporting the corporations, protecting them with copyrights, 
> >ensuring the legal fiction of a corporation having a 'person' status, 
> >trademark protection, import controls, clean up after companies go 
> >bankrupt and leave a toxic mess behind... 
> > 
> >Can't have your cake and all that! 
> > 
> >John :-#)# 
> >PS, my businesses are incorporated
> The greater good of the population should be the goal of government. 
> Companies create jobs and stuff, but don't consume for pleasure; 
> people do that. If we had no corp taxes but taxed people, we'd have 
> more industries and jobs here and *more* tax revenue. 

That literally makes no sense.  None.  Businesses exist to supply demand.  Abolishing corporate tax does nothing to boost demand and so will not create a single business or job.  Shifting the tax burden to individuals will result is less of the paycheck being available for consumers to spend reducing demand resulting in fewer businesses and fewer jobs reducing demand further...  See where this goes? 


> A national sales tax would be better than a corporate tax. That way, 
> Chinese products would be taxed the same as domestic ones. 

But it would have to be so large that people work hard to avoid it.  Government will feel obligated to provide loopholes and we are back where we started with unfair taxation because a reasonable idea was perverted by too many special interests.  


> The Yellin thing is an expression of governments wanting absolute 
> power over everything, and not wanting to compete for industries and 
> jobs. I don't think it will work; all the industries would flock to a 
> few holdouts; and the reactions would be huge tariffs. It would be a 
> mess.

Huge tariffs like were so popular under Trump?  So are you saying they were a bad idea? 

-- 

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
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On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 1:09:10 PM UTC-4, amdx wrote:
> On 4/6/2021 11:54 AM, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: 
> > On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 09:36:46 -0700, John Robertson <sp...@flippers.com> 
> > wrote: 
> > 
> >> On 2021/04/06 8:38 a.m., jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: 
> >>> https://theweek.com/articles/975735/janet-yellens-proposal-revolutionize-corporate-taxation 
> >>> 
> >>> My counter-offer to Yellin is zero corporate tax rates. 
> >>> 
> >> You want zero corporate taxes, then be willing to lose all legal 
> >> corporate protections. You do realize that a lot of government is 
> >> devoted to supporting the corporations, protecting them with copyrights, 
> >> ensuring the legal fiction of a corporation having a 'person' status, 
> >> trademark protection, import controls, clean up after companies go 
> >> bankrupt and leave a toxic mess behind... 
> >> 
> >> Can't have your cake and all that! 
> >> 
> >> John :-#)# 
> >> PS, my businesses are incorporated 
> > The greater good of the population should be the goal of government. 
> > Companies create jobs and stuff, but don't consume for pleasure; 
> > people do that. If we had no corp taxes but taxed people, we'd have 
> > more industries and jobs here and *more* tax revenue. 
> > 
> > A national sales tax would be better than a corporate tax. That way, 
> > Chinese products would be taxed the same as domestic ones. 
> > 
> > The Yellin thing is an expression of governments wanting absolute 
> > power over everything, and not wanting to compete for industries and 
> > jobs. I don't think it will work; all the industries would flock to a 
> > few holdouts; and the reactions would be huge tariffs. It would be a 
> > mess. 
> >
> No one has mentioned that the corporation adds the taxes into it's 
> price so when you buy your Clorox. 
> 
> you are the one paying the corporate tax. If corporate taxes were 
> reduced to zero. there would be some 
> 
> huge profits made until competition settled thing down to normal operations. 
> 
> I had a customer that had a business with employees, He paid the 6.2% 
> FICA tax share for the employees. 
> 
> When he retired his argument was that he should get a larger SS check 
> because he paid in over $1M in SS taxes. 
> 
> (his plus his employees 6.2%.) 
> 
> I could never convince him that if he and his competition didn't have 
> to pay that 6.2%, that everyone's prices 
> 
> would have come down and he would have never seen that money. So it was 
> a moot point. 

Larkin seems to think the game is zero sum with it being "us" vs. "them", the foreign hordes.  You seem to think it is zero sum internally to the US with perfect competition.  In many industries the price competition is limited with competitors not wanting to start a downward spiral in prices with them all losing.  If they get together and discuss it, that is illegal.  If they just watch the market and everyone make sure they don't initiate negative price pressure, they all win.  

I remember when most yogurt companies sold 8 ounce cups with a $0.50 price.  One company started selling 6 ounce cups at the same price.  Within a year they all were selling 6 ounce cups at a $0.50 price.  Anti-competition.  I don't know they did this, but I've read the way they can all communicate they want to do things like this is to use trade journal interviews to "discuss trends" in the industry.  

Reduce corporate taxes and the past evidence has shown very little of that ends up in the consumer's pocket.  Most of it ends up in the stockholders' capital gains. 

-- 

Rick C.

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On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 2:52:29 PM UTC-4, Phil Hobbs wrote:
> John Robertson wrote: 
> > 
> > On 2021/04/06 8:38 a.m., jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: 
> >> 
> >> https://theweek.com/articles/975735/janet-yellens-proposal-revolutionize-corporate-taxation 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> My counter-offer to Yellin is zero corporate tax rates. 
> >> 
> > 
> > You want zero corporate taxes, then be willing to lose all legal 
> > corporate protections. You do realize that a lot of government is 
> > devoted to supporting the corporations, protecting them with copyrights, 
> > ensuring the legal fiction of a corporation having a 'person' status, 
> > trademark protection, import controls, clean up after companies go 
> > bankrupt and leave a toxic mess behind... 
> > 
> > Can't have your cake and all that! 
> > 
> > John :-#)# 
> > PS, my businesses are incorporated
> You might do a search on "LLC" before you spout stuff like that.
> Cheers 
> 
> Phil Hobbs 

An LLC is different from a C corp and an S corp in many ways.  Don't compare them as if there's only one issue involved. 

-- 

Rick C.

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On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 3:11:36 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 11:41:20 -0700, John Robertson <sp...@flippers.com> 
> wrote: 
> 
> >
> >On 2021/04/06 11:24 a.m., Don Y wrote: 
> >> On 4/6/2021 10:09 AM, amdx wrote: 
> >>> No one has mentioned that the corporation adds the taxes into it's 
> >>> price so 
> >>> when you buy your Clorox. 
> >> 
> >> Exactly. As property taxes are paid by *renters* (not property owners). 
> >> And, the property owners usually benefit more from the services that those 
> >> taxes provide (as their *building* is not likely to get up and move to 
> >> a different town/state) 
> >> 
> >> Duties on Chinese imports come out of US customers' pockets. It rarely 
> >> moves business onto US companies' ledgers -- cuz they often raise their 
> >> prices to follow the new "effective" price of their now penalized 
> >> competitors. 
> >> 
> >> And, of course, they run the risk of market losses in other places as their 
> >> product is now so much more "expensive"! 
> >> 
> >>> you are the one paying the corporate tax. If corporate taxes were 
> >>> reduced to 
> >>> zero. there would be some huge profits made until competition settled 
> >>> thing 
> >>> down to normal operations. 
> >>> 
> >>> I had a customer that had a business with employees, He paid the 6.2% 
> >>> FICA tax share for the employees. 
> >>> 
> >>> When he retired his argument was that he should get a larger SS check 
> >>> because he paid in over $1M in SS taxes. (his plus his employees 6.2%.) 
> >> 
> >> I make a similar argument to clients when they cringe at my hourly rate. 
> >> They look at it as "salary" and compare it to what they "pay" *their* 
> >> employees. 
> >> 
> >> "OK, and what about your share of their FICA? And, unemployment insurance 
> >> to cover for 'loss of business' layoffs?" 
> >> 
> >> "And, what about the ~10 paid holidays that you likely give them? 
> >And 
> >> another 10+ days (for new hires) of paid vacation? Any 'personal days'?" 
> >> 
> >> "What's your contribution to their health insurance? And 401k? Company 
> >> christmas party? Bonuses?" 
> >> 
> >> "What about their share of the rent, liability insurance, utilities?" 
> >> 
> >> Suddenly, the ~125K they're paying their employee (salary) looks like 
> >> $250k! And, their employees are "guaranteed" some work, tomorrow. 
> >> 
> >>> I could never convince him that if he and his competition didn't have 
> >>> to pay 
> >>> that 6.2%, that everyone's prices would have come down and he would have 
> >>> never seen that money. So it was a moot point. 
> >> 
> >> The same can be argued for "universal income". Give everyone a base pay 
> >> and prices will rise to consume it. <shrug> 
> >> 
> >> People see/hear what they want to see/hear. 
> >> 
> >> I had a friend who was a staunch advocate for nationalized health care. 
> >> He lived in an affluent area, had "all the best" doctors, etc. I simply 
> >> offered: 
> >> 
> >> "Of course, then ANYONE willing to drive to this area should be able 
> >> to avail themselves of these (your!) best doctors! Right? And, there 
> >> would be no DISincentive for those (your!) doctors to provide their 
> >> services to these folks; even if it came at the cost of making it harder 
> >> (less convenient) for YOU to get an appointment to see them!" 
> >> 
> >> "No, they should use the doctors in THEIR areas!" 
> >> 
> >> "Why? Why wouldn't I want to have access to The Best? After 
> >all, 
> >> my taxes are paying for healthcare regardless of where I *consume* it!" 
> >> 
> > 
> >You don't live in a country with Universal Health Care so don't know 
> >what you are talking about. Here in Canada people do not go bankrupt due 
> >to medical bills, and have a longer lifespan than you do south of our 
> >border. 
> >
> We have Kaiser; fixed monthly fee no matter what. I smashed my 
> shoulder skiing last month, had a non-Kaiser clinic visit with x-rays, 
> and it cost me nothing.

Yeah, that's how insurance works.  Don't think that's not priced into your rate.  Not very many people actually live where an HMO exists in sufficient numbers to be useful.  They are pretty much an all or none thing.  Otherwise their rates are too high to be competitive. 

I can guarantee you if you walked into a random doctors office on the same block as your HMO they would not pay that.  

-- 

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 11:10:06 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 14:12:28 -0700, Don Y <blocked...@foo.invalid> 
> wrote:
> >On 4/6/2021 2:02 PM, bitrex wrote: 
> >> Letting corporations live large and do whatever they want, while having the 
> >> religious police and regular police up your ass everywhere you go and sending a 
> >> bajillion dollars a year of the public's money to the military to buy defective 
> >> toys, plays well in America. Hell, some people even call it "freedom." 
> > 
> >"Corporations are people". Why should one group of "people" not have 
> >to pay taxes while others do? Perhaps we should eliminate some 
> >of the *rights* those "people" have as we reduce their tax burden?
> They are not people. If a corp pays someone a salary, it's taxed. If 
> it pays someone a dividend, it's double taxed.

What an absurd view of income and taxes.  If you pay someone a salary it's double taxed.  

Corporations *are* people.  They have the right to manipulate elections by funding campaigns.  

-- 

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209 

On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 8:12:11 PM UTC-7, Bill Sloman wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 4:22:10 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote: 
> > On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 13:00:25 -0400, bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote: 
> > 
> > >On 4/6/2021 12:54 PM, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: 
> > >> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 09:36:46 -0700, John Robertson <sp...@flippers.com> 
> > >> wrote:
> > >> 
> > >>> 
> > >>> On 2021/04/06 8:38 a.m., jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: 
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> https://theweek.com/articles/975735/janet-yellens-proposal-revolutionize-corporate-taxation 
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> My counter-offer to Yellin is zero corporate tax rates. 
> > >>>> 
> > >>>
> > >>> You want zero corporate taxes, then be willing to lose all legal 
> > >>> corporate protections. You do realize that a lot of government is 
> > >>> devoted to supporting the corporations, protecting them with copyrights, 
> > >>> ensuring the legal fiction of a corporation having a 'person' status, 
> > >>> trademark protection, import controls, clean up after companies go 
> > >>> bankrupt and leave a toxic mess behind... 
> > >>> 
> > >>> Can't have your cake and all that! 
> > >>> 
> > >>> John :-#)# 
> > >>> PS, my businesses are incorporated 
> > >> 
> > >> The greater good of the population should be the goal of government. 
> > >> Companies create jobs and stuff, but don't consume for pleasure; 
> > >> people do that. If we had no corp taxes but taxed people, we'd have 
> > >> more industries and jobs here and *more* tax revenue.
> > > 
> > >Consume for pleasure? No one consumes only for pleasure, consumption is 
> > >the sine qua non of industrialized society, you must do so. Or you will die. 
> >
> > People in pre-industrial societies die of starvation a lot more than 
> > we do. So much food in developed countries is unprecedented in 
> > history. Our biggest health problem is obesity. 
> > 
> > It takes communism to create famines. 
> 
> A singularly stupid claim. We had famines long before we had communism. 
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India 
> 
> highlights the fact that famines there happened when the monsoons didn't deliver as much rain as usual. 
> 
> Communist governments do have the tools to alleviate famines, if they can be bothered to use them, but the problem with communism is that it is totalitarian, and if you have a lunatic in charge, they won't bother to use them. You can have the same problem in a nominal democracy. Donald Trump knew about the tools that other nations used to minimise deaths from Covid-19, but wasn't interested enough to apply the kind of pressure that might have seen them used. 
> 
> US Covid-19 deaths are now at 1,715 per million. Thirteen - much smaller - countries have done worse - Gibraltar is at 2,791 deaths per million but New Jersey has got to 2,781 deaths per million, so Trump probably performed as poorly as he could have. 
> 
> Australia is at 35 Covid=19 deaths per million, and Taiwan is at 0.4. 
> 
> > Corporations don't eat much, so don't compete with people for food. 
> 
> But they have a nasty habit of shipping what food there is to the customers who will pay most for it, even if those customers are struggling with obesity, like much of the US population. 
> 
> -- 
> SL0WMAN, Sydney

Hey SL0WMAN, the "problem" with communism is that it doesn't work. Early colonial settlers, the Pilgrims, tried communism and literally starved:
https://www.heritage.org/markets-and-finance/commentary/pilgrims-beat-communism-free-market
The returned to free market competition and thrived.

On 4/6/2021 8:09 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 14:12:28 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
> wrote:
> 
>> On 4/6/2021 2:02 PM, bitrex wrote:
>>> Letting corporations live large and do whatever they want, while having the
>>> religious police and regular police up your ass everywhere you go and sending a
>>> bajillion dollars a year of the public's money to the military to buy defective
>>> toys, plays well in America. Hell, some people even call it "freedom."
>>
>> "Corporations are people".  Why should one group of "people" not have
>> to pay taxes while others do?  Perhaps we should eliminate some
>> of the *rights* those "people" have as we reduce their tax burden?
> 
> They are not people. If a corp pays someone a salary, it's taxed. If
> it pays someone a dividend, it's double taxed.

If *I* pay a wage/salary, it's also taxed.  Even if I'm hiring some
guy to pull my weeds as a "private individual".

>> Amusing that a human person commits a crime (e.g., something leading to
>> loss of life) and he goes to prison.
> 
> Officers and employees of corporations, if they commit crimes, are
> legally, and criminally, liable.

But the corporation isn't.  Ever seen anyone go to jail for
corporate actions  that killed, maimed, harmed others?
Billions in opiod profits -- probably hundreds of thousands of lives
ruined and countless ancillary crimes (stealing to fund your addiction),
and the Sackler's get to PAY their way out of it.  Which of them
are "doing time" for that?

> Of course, you can't put a corporation in prison so corporate
> violations are usually resolved with other means.

Why can't you take away the corporation's "freedom" in much the same way that
you take away a murderer's freedom?

"Hi!  You can't do business for 20 years.  We'll give you back that
ability at that time.  Oh, too bad for your employees.  Too bad for
your stock holders.  We'll sort out what you owe with your creditors
while you are thusly constrained."

Good luck when you get 'out'!  You (the principles associated with your
malfeasance) might find it hard finding folks who want to give you
positions of responsibility -- pay! -- at their organizations, given
that your conviction is a matter of public record.  Sort of like
ex-cons trying to find a job...

Imagine what would happen to stock price the day it became public that
your firm had been "indicted" for a crime.  Kinda mirrors what happens
to the value of an individual when *he* is indicted!

Just change the definition of how crimes are handled when the
defendant is a corporation -- to bring the penalty in line with how
they are handled when committed by *people*.

[Why is it that a corporation-person can OWN another corporation-person
but a human-person can't own another human-person?  Why can't they be
compelled to serve in the military?]

Or, tell corporations "No, you're NOT a person.  You don't have the rights
that we afford to human-persons."

A corporation is an artificial entity.  We can choose to treat it
however we want -- with laws defining its role and reponsibilities
in our society.

On 4/6/2021 8:03 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 17:02:38 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
> 
>> On 4/6/2021 4:01 PM, David Brown wrote:
>>> On 06/04/2021 21:01, John Larkin wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 20:12:32 +0200, David Brown
>>>> <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 06/04/2021 17:38, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://theweek.com/articles/975735/janet-yellens-proposal-revolutionize-corporate-taxation
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My counter-offer to Yellin is zero corporate tax rates.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Why not start your own religion, like L. Ron Hubbard?  He too had lots
>>>>> of fanciful ideas with no grounding in reality, and felt he didn't make
>>>>> enough money from his normal work.  Someone suggested he started his own
>>>>> religion - no restrictions on what you can say and do, no taxes, no
>>>>> limits.  Tell the tax man you believe electronics works by trapping
>>>>> little pixies inside boxes, and you'll get state subsidies and can start
>>>>> your own university in Alabama.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If creating businesses and jobs and food and stuff is religion, I'm a
>>>> believer.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I had hoped it was obvious that I was joking - mocking the absurdity of
>>> the support the USA (and many other countries) have for anything as long
>>> as it is called a "religion".  (Though this is exactly why Hubbard
>>> started Scientology - it was a scam to make money.)
>>>
>>>> Tax consumption, not production. There's nothing mystical about that.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Usually you (i.e., a country) get best results from taxing a range of
>>> things, avoiding taxing any of the them too much or too little.  If you
>>> concentrate taxation too tightly, people will just find more ways to
>>> avoid paying it.  Crucially, you have to figure a way to make people
>>> feel the taxation is approximately fair, and the returns they get for
>>> their taxes are approximately fair (while realising that people's idea
>>> of "fair" are often wildly different).
>>
>> Letting corporations live large and do whatever they want,
> 
> People can live large. Corporations can't.

Nonsense!  Corporations can do whatever the hell they can get
away with as long as their stockholders don't know *or* don't
care.

Note that a corporation can be closely held.  If everyone in
the corporation (stockholder) is benefiting from that living large,
why would they object?  If they are making foolish decisions,
but none the wiser, what's to stop them?