How Google Avoided Paying $60 Billion In Taxes 1193
bonch writes "Google only pays a 2.4% tax rate using money-funneling techniques known as the 'Double Irish' and the 'Dutch Sandwich,' even though the US corporate income tax is 35%. By using Irish loopholes, money is transferred legally between subsidiaries and ends up in island sanctuaries that have no income tax, giving Google the lowest tax rate amongst its technology peers. Facebook is planning to use the same strategy."
Are you going to say they're just being smart? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The widespread use of loopholes by companies/"rich" people always really pissed me off. They constantly complain so much of their wealth is being taken, yet they pull crap like this.
I would bet you that if my wife and I tried to do something similar, we would almost certainly be "caught". I don't know if loopholes are due to the complexity of the system, or because the big guys can afford to pay folks who know how to exploit them...but regardless of the reason, it's fucked up.
Technically Legal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
It should also be noted that the official position of the government and the IRS is that tax avoidance, which this is, if done legally, which this is, is perfectly fine. It is not Google's fault that the tax code is so screwed up that they can avoid paying 90% of what, on the surface, appears to be their tax liability. Now, if Google had an army of lobbyists in Washington pushing to extend those loopholes or create more of them, that would be evil.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Only poor people pay taxes.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Who's "they"? And, assuming you're referring to google, how are they shafting you?
It's not your money.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Another option: loopholes are there because the rich bribed government officials to put them there.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a lot of textbooks, teacher's salaries, roads to be paved, police/fire stations to NOT be closed etc etc etc..
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The US is one of the few countries, maybe the only one, which charges domestic taxes on income earned overseas. Everywhere else, that money is taxed only once, but here we expect it to be taxed twice.
It's like the politicians are trying to get them to play accounting games, or simply pick up and leave, in order to have something to decry.
What a ridiculous system. It's a wonder we have any multinationals based here at all.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's "they"? And, assuming you're referring to google, how are they shafting you?
It's not your money.
I disagree. The taxes they are avoiding paying would be used to pay for infrastructure, services, etc, so, in a very real way, it *is* his money because without those taxes, the system is not as well funded and projects/services/infrastructure have to be cut
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
If X tax revenue needs to be raised, and Y pays less, then Z must pay more. And having one of the richest companies in the world pay 2.4% when most of us are paying an order of magnitude more lacks justice.
This is true for any plausible value of X, so simply saying "there shouldn't be as much tax" is irrelevant.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Who's "they"? And, assuming you're referring to google, how are they shafting you?
It's not your money.
They're shafting you if you're a much smaller corporation or an individual that can't afford these tax dodges. Then you're bearing a disproportionately large share of the tax burden. And no, getting rid of corporate income taxes doesn't make this better, it makes it worse.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
We're being shafted because they aren't shouldering their fare share of the tax burden. Common people don't have any such loopholes. If we try and play a shell game to get out of paying taxes, we get audited and our lives get ruined. They get a cover story about how genius they are and how other companies who make money by selling information about us are going to start doing the same thing.
If they're going to make money selling our personal data to other people who intend to exploit it to try and trick us into buying stuff, the least the can do is cough up the extra $1bn a year or whatever to help pay for infrastructure, social programs and wars. Fuck their money. As soon as it gets labeled taxable income it becomes government money, and that means everyone's money, so they are screwing us over.
Exactly! (Score:5, Insightful)
The ridiculously complex tax code is to blame. It's time to flush it and start again. That's one of the concepts behind H.R.25 [loc.gov], also known as the FairTax [fairtax.org].
It's a misconception that corporations pay taxes. They don't. They get all their money from their customers (and some from investment). If you raise corporate taxes, the corporation raises prices to cover the tax. Why hide it like this? Just tax the customer, so we can all SEE how much tax we're paying. It's the only way to keep people involved in the battle to lower government spending, which is out of control.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Bless'em
I Am Not a Fan of Unfair Taxation (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's "they"?
"They" are Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. Any company that uses this method.
And, assuming you're referring to google, how are they shafting you? It's not your money.
No, it's not my money. It's the communal money that is under so much debate by politicians. And the fact that Google and everyone else has a hundred goddamned lawyers and accountants sitting around saving them billions of dollars does upset me. Because I don't have that. I don't have the option to employ the "double Irish" tactic when trying to save thousands of dollars in taxes each year so I can afford a simple house. Nope, they get that privilege and I don't because I'm poorer than them. So who's being screwed over? Every tax payer that doesn't have or employ those options. If you live in America, that's you. Why is your public education so lacking? Why do your taxes go up? Well, part of it is that companies employ tax evasion methods like the ones listed in the article. I'm not singling out Google, I'm expressing equal anger toward all who employ these methods.
You can call me a socialist, you can call me a communist. That's fine because I know I'm neither of those. I'm just someone that wants a fair playing field when it comes to aggregating X amount of resources so that our government and public services continue to function properly.
The men and women who founded this country cited 'taxation without representation' as one of the reasons. Like them, I'm not okay with lobbyists and tax loopholes that are apparently legal and okay to anyone who has tons and tons and tons of money. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer just because.
Good for Google (Score:5, Insightful)
""Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as
possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the
treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.
Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister
in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone
does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any
public duty to pay more than the law demands."" - Judge Learned Hand
Of course, if we'd reign in corporate taxes, we'd bring a lot of capital back home [wsj.com]. The US has one of the highest rates of corporate taxes in the world [wikipedia.org], trailing only Japan and Cameroon. Even France... bastion of Euro-Socialism Lite... has a lower top corporate tax.
Re:And yet they provide lots of jobs and services (Score:1, Insightful)
The moral of the story is that by saving that money, Google is able to hire more people to produce more products and make more profit. Those people in turn pay more taxes which, in toto, is greater than the supposed evaded amount.
It's sometimes counterintuitive how economics works.
It's counterintuitive how economics works if you're going by base models and forgetting that the system doesn't work perfectly like that. You're assuming google will hire more people instead of just keeping the cash and giving it as bonuses to the CEO and using it for shareholders
a.k.a. "ECONOMICS SURE IS COUNTERINTUITIVE WHEN I DON'T UNDERSTAND IT!"
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:0, Insightful)
I guess I'm poor then. I also guess that all poor people that actually turn a profit from government programs, as well as the taxes returned at the end of the year are still in your list.
I don't begrudge people from getting assistance when they need it, but I do begrudge people from demanding that the rich pay even more taxes.
With that said, I do begrudge the rich (companies included) that use tricks to hide their money from the government. That's what this is: hiding money. It should be illegal.
Tax rates should be lower. And those evading taxes should be fined and corrected. Microsoft, Facebook, and Google included. I wonder how well the current administration will like to hear this considering how deeply embedded Google is with them. This will almost certainly be ignored, or only referred to generically.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they are not paying their share, and that means you and I have to make up for it. Further: this nation generally supports a progressive tax where the more wealthy pay a greater share, not less.
Not that Google is the slightest bit wrong for doing this! If I owned their stock I'd expect them to do whatever is legal to reduce non-productive expenses, which taxes are. I'd prefer them to invest it new products and technologies, or pay me a dividend.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Tax evasion: illegal, not paying tax you owe.
Tax avoidance is perfectly legal and is where you don't pay tax you're not required to pay.
people need to understand that the 2 are not the same.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not a tax expert, however, I have heard that yes, you and your wife COULD do something similar, except the costs to get it going would greatly outweigh the benefits. Many of these tax "loopholes" have high fixed costs to get going, so they aren't useful for the kind of income most any household would have.
Re:Exactly! (Score:0, Insightful)
And then a really big black market will come into being.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
because the big guys can afford to pay folks who know how to exploit them...
Its because they can afford to pay folks who write the rules in the first place.
Re:Technically Legal (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically Google has committed no crime, and their tax avoidance is entirely legal. While it is normal to feel a moral outrage, I think your anger should be focused on those who created the loopholes in the first place. Washington.
Technically Washington has committed no crime, and their acceptance of massive quantities of cash in exchange for favorable tax legislation is entirely legal. While it is normal to feel a moral outrage, I think your anger should be focused on those who paid for the loopholes in the first place. Google. And Microsoft. And a few hundred other large corporations.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/20/google-spends-1-38-million-on-lobbying-in-q1-up-57-percent-from-last-year/ [techcrunch.com]
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Imagine how much better our economy would be if our tax system encouraged corporations instead of discouraged them to move capital to our country.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
What makes you, or anyone else feel entitled to income from someone else? The only fair "taxation" is voluntary "taxation" where you purchase a good or service. For example, if you drive a car, you would have to pay a fee to drive on government-provided roads. The problem is, what has the government done that entitles themselves to Google's income? Very little. Something tells me that the US government didn't spend $60 billion to help Google.
Google hasn't taken anything from me, Google has taken a little bit from the government, yes. But very little, not $60 billion worth. This idea that somehow Google owes the US government or the people of the US money, is silly to say the least and borders on theft at the most.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
"Only poor people pay taxes."
If counting "taxes" paid by sales/service excises, that may be true, although the rich don't get out of these taxes either. The average tax return from people under the median income usually garners a rebate. That means they get money back they didn't pay in to the system. The people getting shafted are the medium income earners, not the poor. Its called "wealth redistribution". And its bullshit. Companies/corps usually pay low taxes because state and local governments make deals with them to come into the municipality and provide jobs, not simply because of loopholes. The real question you should be asking yourself is; why do we (and I mean everyone, rich and poor alike) need to pay so much to a government that simply wastes that money, for the most part. Vilifying people for being successful may feel good, but only up to the point that you aren't successful. This is assuming most people aspire to be successful, of course. If you're happy staying poor and grousing about "the rich", then I don't know what to tell you. Enjoy being poor I guess.
Re:And yet they provide lots of jobs and services (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no Economist, but the arguments for trickle-down theory seem pretty good to me.
I thought by this point history had pretty well demonstrated that it's never worked out in practice.
It's a nice-sounding idea that falls apart completely in reality -- just like communism.
Re:Corporations shouldn't pay any taxes. (Score:5, Insightful)
If corporations were not recognized as individuals in a number of other annoying contexts (political contributions, "personal" rights, etc) then I *might* be inclined to agree. But as it stands, they've got the best of both worlds; no meaningful taxation like individuals are burdened with, but all the same protections and "rights" as well.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
The widespread use of loopholes by companies/"rich" people always really pissed me off. They constantly complain so much of their wealth is being taken, yet they pull crap like this.
I would bet you that if my wife and I tried to do something similar, we would almost certainly be "caught". I don't know if loopholes are due to the complexity of the system, or because the big guys can afford to pay folks who know how to exploit them...but regardless of the reason, it's fucked up.
This is why need to scrap the entire tax code and replace it a federal sales tax. This shifts the taxes not on what people make, but what they spend. Suddenly everyone would pay taxes including the rich, poor, illegal whoever. No one would be taxed for money saved or invested.
Of course, there would still be loopholes. Medicine, unprocessed food, children's clothes etc can be made tax exempt as to not tax what people need to survive. All other "loopholes" and complexities would disappear instantly. No more extraordinarily wealthy people claiming everything as a loss or business expense in order to avoid taxes on it. If it's purchased, it's taxed.
(and yes, rich people will still pay more in taxes. Even if they just put the money in the bank, it will be spent eventually.)
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps if Google paid up more taxe you would pay less ?
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem is, what has the government done that entitles themselves to Google's income?
Invented the Internet and then gave it away for companies like Google to make hundreds of billions dollars?
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, what has the government done that entitles themselves to Google's income?
You mean besides building the internet in the first place?
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Technically Legal (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. The situation seems like a problem, but Google's playing by the rules here. Don't hate the player - hate the game (God I never though I'd be able to say that in a serious conversation . . .).
Just further evidence as to why we need a simpler tax system. Corporate rate is 35%? Lets simplify that and remove the loopholes. Same goes for personal income taxes as well. I don't want to fill out a 1040EZ in one case or a A, B, C, D, or ZEKD (all with different lengths and complexities - and a gazllion pages of explanations referenced by all of them). Give me a table that I can lookup my income bracket and then find the appropriate percentage I owe. Mulply my wages on my W4 by that percentage and poof - taxes done.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
who in the hell marked the parent post "troll"
Perhaps someone who knows how to read and follow the links to the actual story. Google did noting wrong. That money was all earned overseas, and kept overseas and spent overseas.
Its perfectly legal, and they paid all the required taxes in the country where it was earned. No laws were violated.
So what's your beef?
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually that's true of many areas, not just taxes; it's basically impossible for a productive citizen to know what's legal and what's not.
Re:So what. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or...it just sits in a war chest somewhere so the CEO can jump in for a refreshing dip in the morning.
Re:So? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
If the SEC knows about it, it's clearly not "secret" (any more than a CEO reporting his company stock sale to the SEC is "secret") and if the IRS approved it, it's not tax evasion.
Re:Corporations shouldn't pay any taxes. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to make that argument then you would need a corollary to go along with it that any law that treats a corporation like an individual would have to be abolished as well.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
(and yes, rich people will still pay more in taxes. Even if they just put the money in the bank, it will be spent eventually.)
More in absolute terms, but proportionally much less. Sales taxes are regressive - they make poorer people pay a greater percentage of their income as tax. A poor person can't afford to save, they spend everything that they earn on essentials. A rich person has numerous investments and savings that would not be taxed - they spend a much smaller proportion of their income.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Wich just goes to show how messed up our legal system is. If you can't learn all of criminal law (that applies to individuals not acting on behalf of someone else) in a one semester class in high school, it's merely a tool for oppression. If the government doesn't teach you those laws in the government-run (aka "public") high schools, WTF?
Re:Technically Legal (Score:2, Insightful)
Their motto is Do No Evil not Do Nothing Illegal
Now, we can argue whether they actually follow that, but using tactics so convoluted that you have to have a team of lawyers and get approval from the IRS to set them up in order to avoid supporting the society that makes your business possible is evil.
Re:Technically Legal (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely agreed. The anger toward tax evasion is entirely misdirected. If you want to point fingers, you can aim them straight at the supreme court, who made the decision that money == speech, and therefore bribary == simply exercising one's rights, and then proceeded to rape the corpse of the American system of democracy in their "Citizens United v Federal Election Commission" ruling.
Re:Legally Avoiding Taxes != Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you believe that all money ultimately belongs to the government, I fail to see how this is evil.
I look for every deduction I can grab as well. So does almost everyone else. This isn't wrong.
I disagree. Legal and moral aren't synonymous. As one of the country's largest technology companies, Google has a moral obligation to pay their fair share of taxes whether they're legally obligated to or not. They also have a moral obligation to lobby against these unfair tax codes. You cannot take a neutral stance on moral issues and avoid being evil. Doing good is the only way to avoid being evil because by taking a neutral stance is usually just as bad as being intentionally evil.
It goes back to the old murder issue: If someone is drowning and you have the ability to save them but don't, have you just murdered the person? My answer is: it doesn't matter because regardless, inaction was evil. Our government is drowning in debt and Google is intentionally contributing to the problem. Their attitude is, "I don't want to get wet, someone else can dive in."
They bought consumer trust with their "don't be evil" slogan, it's about time they started living up to it again.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
The purpose of an income tax is the use of carrot-and-stick methods to (financially) control behavior. It represents a lot of power. Unlike say criminal law, it can both reward and punish specific behaviors. This is why the income tax is so dear to the politicians and why they would fight like hell to avoid giving it up. It's also why the tax law is enormously complex: it's the product of many different special interests, politicians, lobbyists, all vying for special treatment.
It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that "funding the operations of the U.S. Federal Government" is only a secondary purpose. It's really a system designed for the handing out of favors and the manipulation of behavior. The U.S. Federal Government managed to fund itself just fine prior to the establishment of an income tax.
That great complexity is why there are such loopholes. It's a little like a computer program. The larger and more complex a program is, the more bugs it is likely to contain. The larger and more complex a law is, the more loopholes it is likely to contain.
That's not the self-contradiction you seem to think it is. They pull crap like this because they perceive that so much of their wealth is being taken.
It probably doesn't help that about 40% of all US citizens have no federal tax liability at all because of various credits, yet still enjoy the benefits and services provided by the government. Some of those even have a negative tax liability meaning the government pays them money when they file taxes. Now, if we want 40% of the entire population to be on some kind of welfare, then we can discuss the merits of that position, but first we need to call things what they are.
At any rate, somebody has to pick up the tab that those 40% are not paying. Whether it's popular or not, a lot of wealthy people feel that they are paying their own fair share plus someone else's. And the numbers back up that position. Of course they're going to look for ways to avoid that. This is basic human nature, a predictable pattern. It's true no matter how much you hate or love "the rich".
Now, here's some facts: we've been doing this "progressive taxation" thing for quite a while now, at least a few generations or so. Yet the gap between the rich and the poor in the USA has only increased. In fact, what's happening is that the middle class is shrinking, the upper class is staying relatively stable, and the poor are growing.
I believe this is just like the War on (some) Drugs, where collectively we just don't want to admit that it doesn't work and that it's time to try something different. Of course by "we" I mainly mean political forces which would lose power if either the War on (some) Drugs or the tax code were radically changed.
Probably. The federal income tax code is something like 3.7 million words. That's an awful lot of legalese to sort through and figure out exactly how it might apply to you. You probably wouldn't hire the accountants or tax attorneys necessary to do that job competently. It would be prohibitively expensive. However, if you're Google and there is a billion dollars at stake that you can save, then you'll hire them. Almost any price they charge would be a bargain if it lets you save a billion dollars.
Yes, the loopholes are due to the sheer mind-bog
Re:Corporations shouldn't pay any taxes. (Score:2, Insightful)
So you're saying we should protest in favor of "No Representation without Taxation!"
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Its perfectly legal, and they paid all the required taxes in the country where it was earned. No laws were violated.
So what's your beef?
That was my entire point...it shouldn't be legal, and when a company does this, laws should have been violated.
Ok, lets take your (implied) assumption, that Google should pay taxes on its world wide earnings regardless of the country in which it was earned.
Ok? Sound reasonable so far?
Now, google has to follow the law in every country where they have an office and a corporate structure. So same rules apply to all those countries. Earnings in France, US, Japan, etc, all have to have taxes paid in Britain, and again in Norway, and again in China. Never mind that the money was earned in, and kept in the USA.
Has the flaw of your assumption dawned on you yet?
You earn a dollar in the US, and just because you have a post office box in Australia you have to pay their taxes too?
You drove thru another state on your summer vacation. Are you going to file income tax in that state? You used their facilities, roads, etc. How bout paying your fair share?
Any bells going off yet?
CmdrDickTaco (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the biggest trolling post I have seen in a long time. You should be ashamed of yourself CmdrAssTaco. Shit like this is killng /.
Summing it up (Score:3, Insightful)
I've heard that somewhere before...
I'm getting so tired of people saying that "fair" means "you pay, I benefit". Almost half of Americans pay NO federal income tax at all (http://www.businessinsider.com/only-half-americans-actually-pay-income-tax-2010-4), and these are the ones screaming loudest that the ones who DO pay taxes should pay even more... with that money to be paid to (you guessed it) the people who already pay nothing, directly or indirectly.
"I want your money, I don't want to have to work for it, so I voted that you have to give me your money. That's my definition of 'fair' and 'democratic'."
Maybe it's time I looked into creating an overseas-based tax structure for myself.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
What these companies are doing is completely, perfectly, entirely legal. If you had the wherewithal, you could do it, too (assuming it made sense for your income level), and there would be no legal or financial repercussions. In short, the system is working as designed.
Why would I emulate an act that I hate? I realize that some tax dollars are wasted, but not all of them are. I like driving on paved roads. I like having a police and fire department. I like having a military. I like having all the services that a modern government could and can provide.
What I don't like are people cheating the system, making that government more expensive/more corrupt by not only breaking the system, but gloating about it and night encouraging the behavior.
Don't like it? Elect a government that isn't in bed with the corporations. *shrug*
The very nature of politics and business in this country prevents that from realistically happening.
Shorter version: (Score:4, Insightful)
It's solidly rigged in favor of the rich and the corporations.
Nothing new here; vote with and for the republicans to keep things this way.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
In a word, teabaggers.
Re:Legally Avoiding Taxes != Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
First, last I checked, governments were awash in revenue. They just have spent even more. You are essentially arguing that the gambling addict has too much debt so we should give him more money. No thanks.
And what exactly is their "fair share"? There is none that can be objectively ascertained.
Btw, did you overpay your taxes? You're allowed to and not take your deduction.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe I'm being cynical, but I see more articles about Google doing things to improve the world than I do our own governments.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
The widespread use of loopholes by companies/"rich" people always really pissed me off
The existance of taxes for companies should really piss you off. No company has ever paid a single penny in taxes of their own money. All their taxes are built into what they charge for their goods and services. At 35% income tax level, every $100 you spend at the store means you paid $35 of corporate income tax. Any company who can find a way to wiggle out of some tax quickly uses the savings to undercut their competitors' prices.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The widespread use of loopholes by companies/"rich" people always really pissed me off. They constantly complain so much of their wealth is being taken, yet they pull crap like this.
I would bet you that if my wife and I tried to do something similar, we would almost certainly be "caught". I don't know if loopholes are due to the complexity of the system, or because the big guys can afford to pay folks who know how to exploit them...but regardless of the reason, it's fucked up.
This is why need to scrap the entire tax code and replace it a federal sales tax. This shifts the taxes not on what people make, but what they spend. Suddenly everyone would pay taxes including the rich, poor, illegal whoever. No one would be taxed for money saved or invested.
Of course, there would still be loopholes. Medicine, unprocessed food, children's clothes etc can be made tax exempt as to not tax what people need to survive. All other "loopholes" and complexities would disappear instantly. No more extraordinarily wealthy people claiming everything as a loss or business expense in order to avoid taxes on it. If it's purchased, it's taxed.
(and yes, rich people will still pay more in taxes. Even if they just put the money in the bank, it will be spent eventually.)
That is quite possibly one of the most stupid and naive things I've ever read. However, as a person whose household income is over $250k, I'd like to thank you for your efforts to make me wealthier. As you note, I'll put all that money I save in the bank, and then it will be spent eventually when I retire in Europe. Spent in Europe, that is. Resulting in 0 sales tax in the US. Cheers.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
All of this depends on your definition of "poor". According to some, if you make $50000 per year you are poor. According to others any household making under $100000 is poor. Then there are those that look at either number and classify people making that much to be rich.
Everything is relative, so to speak.
Income taxes are regressive (Score:5, Insightful)
So are income taxes.
There is no tax-free situation for the poor with income tax in place.
Assume 30% average tax rate. Poor person pays zero. Then buys a service, such as plumbing. Plumber pays 30%. Poor person pays $100; Plumber gets $70, government takes $30; poor person gets (maybe) $70 worth of plumbing. Effective tax rate for poor person: 30%.
Of course, it's higher if you're middle class: You earn $142; taxed at 30%, you keep $100; you pay plumber $100; government takes $30; you get $70 worth of plumbing. Effective tax rate for middle class: 50%.
Whereas if you're Google, you pay 2.4%, so you earn $102.45, keep $100, pay the plumber $100, govt gets $30, Google gets $70 worth of plumbing. Effective tax rate for Google: 31.6%
By taxing incomes, the government ensures that everyone, most definitely including the poor, pays taxes by catching you (often again) when you spend your money on anything that is taxed. The only way to avoid paying is to only buy things that themselves are not taxed in any way. And good luck with that.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
6th grade math: if the tax rate on rich people goes down and the percentage of total income tax revenue from them goes up, what does that imply about the relative worth of all groups? The rich are getting richer. A LOT richer. Despite all this economic downturn I've heard so much about.
1st grade logic corollary: given that money is an imaginary metric with a constantly changing but constantly FINITE global quantity, the lower and middle classes are paying for it.
Raising the tax rate on the rich would not be starting a class war. It would be the bottom 90% finally getting around to fighting the class war that the rich started long ago. I know, I know, I'm a heretic, Reagan was the best president ever, and deregulation makes everything all better.
Re:Good for Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
I never got why someone who makes less than $250K/yr would vote/support republican policies. If you make under that amount, *you're interests are not aligned with theirs*.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
Obviously this is a little over your head....
Individual "poor people" pay minimal taxes. The problem is, right now, that millions of poor people paying very little + millions of middle-Americans paying a little more then very little collectively are paying WAY MORE tax proportionatly compared to these giant corporate entities that fuck their way out of paying billions of dollars a year.
The thing is, these teabaggers are also advocating essentially no regulations on business, that the "free market" will ultimately fix itself & rule all. They would never even remotely consider passing anything which would result in corporate America paying more taxes...which means either massive deficit spending like today or no tax cuts for us poor people either.
Basically, they're a bunch of fucks paying the lowest tax rates in decades pissed off that taxes are too high & that corporate america is the holy mother of all. NOT a good combination.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of total federal taxes in 2007. The lower 90% of taxpayers paid the other 45%.
In 2007, the top 10% of the population owned [ucsc.edu] 73% of total assets and 83% of financial wealth in the US. If they're only paying 55% of the total taxes than the adage that "only the poor pay taxes" does in fact ring true.
Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it so disheartening that people will bitch vehemently about taxes without a fucking clue about the truth. I was hoping someone would point out that your return is a portion of the money already taken out of your taxes. I know people well into the "bottom half" of earners who didn't have their taxes set up right and they ended up owing money to the government come tax season.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
For the most part, it is very obvious what is illegal and what is not. Many of the complications are there to ensure that the punishment is just. You would not like a system that was teachable to high school students in a semester.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but that's just the thing - by what standard do you get to claim they're "cheating" the system, when they are following the rules that are written? I take a deduction for mortgage interest; is that "cheating" becasue it reduces what I pay, or is it just making use of the favorable (to me) provisions of the law? If it's the latter (and I fail to see how it could be otherwise), then how is what Google is doing any different?
If the IRS doesn't intend this to be legal, then they need to change the statutes and/or regulations; otherwise any money "lost" in this way is their fault.
At least to me, TFA's mention of the rather large budget gap faced by the U.S. backfired. I suppose it was meant to say "why are they avoiding making payments that are so badly needed", but what it really conveys is "this is a meaningless drop in the bucket compared to the overall problem, and the government needs to focus on the real issues that have it so short-funded". I mean really, if you subtract 60B from 1.4T, do you know what you get? You get 1.4T.
Re:Corporations shouldn't pay any taxes. (Score:3, Insightful)
But corporations are people!
And the top people in these corporations hide the majority of their income under the corporations. They use all sorts of legal tomfoolery to avoid paying taxes at all.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Most tax returns are because you have overpaid, not because you are getting net income from the government.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
It sure is convenient to forget the existence of sales taxes, state income taxes, and the various payroll taxes that everyone collecting a paycheck pays. Poor people actually pay quite a bit in taxes, and it tends to hit them a lot harder.
Income taxes != taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition, the article is about the 2009 tax year. During the 2009 tax year, Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit disproportionately benefited the poor. That tax credit is now expired, and (unlike with the Bush tax cuts) there is absolutely zero discussion in Washington about extending it.
Anyone who supports extending the Bush tax cuts but fails to support extending the Making Work Pay tax cut is doing exactly what we are accusing you of doing, namely, wanting to keep poor people as the only ones who pay taxes. Presumably this is your stance as well, since I see you favor extending the Bush tax cuts, but not the Making Work Pay tax cut. If this assessment of your position is wrong, please feel free to correct it.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
The "Fair Tax"... isn't.
Of course, you have to define what "fair" means in the first place. Regardless, the "Fair Tax" and all other forms of consumption tax are pretty regressive and don't address the true problems with tax burden. If you really want to tax the wealthy, you have a savings tax (negative interest rate) which discourages keeping large sums of wealth (note that property tax is a kind of negative interest rate because it's a fee you have to pay on the "stored value" inherent with owning a piece of real property).
There's some devil in the details there, though, because you don't want to encourage zero savings, because that makes for a fragile economy - a better system than the fair tax would be to have zero income tax, then tax all property (including deposit accounts) valued at more than some threshold (say, $1M, indexed to inflation of course) at some fixed rate. This way, people with a modest home, vehicle, and reasonable cash savings would have no tax burden, but entities that tried to maintain large piles of wealth would have to pay. You could still get richer, but it would eliminate one of the institutional reasons why it's hard for the poor to become middle class.
This is also much simpler to implement than the Fair Tax, which has complex bookkeeping and exemption mechanisms.
Re:Summing it up (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that the bottom doesn't pay taxes, and the top pays a lot less relative to the value they have and consume than the middle. This is not communist thought. It is simply outrage that the rich and corporations pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes, which is even worse when they need such a low percentage of their income in the first place for necessities.
It's easy to claim "communism!" when you've never had to budget $1000 a month take-home pay for food, rent and transportation.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, here's some facts: we've been doing this "progressive taxation" thing for quite a while now, at least a few generations or so. Yet the gap between the rich and the poor in the USA has only increased.
Wow, talk about a load of bullshit. Plenty of other nations have far *more* progressive tax codes, and have a much smaller income gap. But clearly, because you're an insane libertarian, the problem is those damned progressives...
But, hey, don't let reality get in the way of your hilariously misguided ideology.
PS. If you hadn't noticed, the tax code in the last 20 or so years, during which the income gap has grown the fastest, became far *less* progressive than it's ever been.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not terribly concerned about income vs assets. If you're sitting on a fat sack of cash and not earning anything, but enjoying the stability and convenience of our great nation, you should be paying your fair share.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
No, corporate mon/oligopoly is the most inefficient way to distribute resources or run anything. And that's the alternative to big government.
No, this is not true. Reducing the tax rate has been proven time and time again to have a positive effect on the economy when coupled with deficit spending. Reducing the tax rate AND government expenditures has been shown time and time again to further depress the economy.
Who pays the organizers of the events? Who paid to train those organizers? Who paid for the advocacy institutes that the "educated" tea partiers use to justify their beliefs?
You just don't want to believe that you've been had. Well, you have been had. You're dancing to the tune of millionaires and billionaires who are laughing their way to the bank as they are seeing limitations to their amassing of wealth disappear.
You know what the saddest thing is? That you don't even realize that the policies you advocate are detrimental to YOU.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
That's income tax. When you look at all tax, which includes sales tax, the poor pay more.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
, who do you think will provide investments that create jobs if you tax the rich at 90%? Government?
The same kinds of people who created them from 1954 to 1980 when the top tax brackets was 91%.
Your entire argument fails when I point at the 1954 tax code, signed into law by Eisenhower. There were still rich people. There was still investment. There was still job creation. There was still opposition to the government.
You're crazier than Glen Beck if you actually think a 90% tax bracket would have any of the consequences you're hinting at.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
That assumes the taxes collected would be spent on such matters, vs. on wars, bridges to nowhere, monuments to government leaders, etc.
Given that you have a democracy, your vote, ultimately, decides that. Of course, if no taxes are collected, then there's nothing to decide.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm right around the median income in the US and I most certainly pay a significant income tax.
Then you're doing it wrong.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that our system is designed (first unintentionally, then intentionally) to be a two-party system. Third parties will always be on the fringe.
In a case like the Tea Parties, they are being absorbed into the Republican party. Why? Because they don't have a snowball's chance in hell outside of it. They did (rather, are doing) exactly what I am advocating... picking the side that better matches their views and then working to implement their views within that side.
Or if there is no audience for your ideas who have any power to accomplish anything in line with your ideas.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Diminishing the reward for success isn't the same as punishing success.
Do No Evil. (Score:2, Insightful)
Do No Evil. Yay for hypocrisy!
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, here's some facts: we've been doing this "progressive taxation" thing for quite a while now, at least a few generations or so. Yet the gap between the rich and the poor in the USA has only increased.
Wow, talk about a load of bullshit. Plenty of other nations have far *more* progressive tax codes, and have a much smaller income gap. But clearly, because you're an insane libertarian, the problem is those damned progressives...
But, hey, don't let reality get in the way of your hilariously misguided ideology.
PS. If you hadn't noticed, the tax code in the last 20 or so years, during which the income gap has grown the fastest, became far *less* progressive than it's ever been.
What you're doing there is called "pigeonholing". You are deciding to label me a member of a group or ideology just because my words sound vaguely like something that group might say. That belongs to the realm of soundbites and radio commercials. It is a pathology when you do that here in a reasonable discussion.
It is my belief that progressive taxation is designed to remove a symptom. That symptom is the incredible disparity between the rich and the poor in the USA. It isn't working because that disparity is getting worse, not better. Therefore, if we want to do something about the wealth gap, we need to examine what is actually causing it and address that.
You can seek the root cause of this problem and attempt to solve it while retaining progressive taxation. What I was saying there, in the previous post, is that whether or not you have a progressive tax is irrelevant to the problem of the wealth gap. The fact that both the USA and other nations have progressive taxation, yet some of those have huge wealth gaps and others don't only reinforces my belief that such gaps have causes that have little or nothing to do with methods of taxation. That means all of the "tax the rich!" cries are a red herring, because we already do that and it isn't helping. It logically follows that trying harder to do something that isn't helping won't help either.
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Except that it doesn't. You forgot the part where everyone but the richest guy is working for a living, and the richest guy doesn't, since he gets a cut off of everyone else's work. This is known as "capitalism", and it has attained somewhat of a religious status in Western world. One of the results is the current depression.
The powerful usually get the most benefit of anything, especially things devised by their equally powerful friends.
They aren't being attacked for being wealthy. They are being attacked for complaining that their free ride isn't fancy enough.
Thus leaving more beer for the rest of us, while no more forcing us to give up most the fruits of our labour to him. I'm all for it.
Re:Good for Google (Score:3, Insightful)
That graph shows the US as having a 40% corporate tax rate.
This tells the reader that the graph is meaningless because no corporation actually pays their statutory rate (That'd wipe out the entire tax accounting profession!). The US tax code relatively speaking, is jam-packed with tax breaks. A lot of companies do business in the US because the actual tax they pay is not that scary.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08950.pdf [gao.gov]
The GAO estimates average corporate income tax to be ~25%.
Corporations know what their effective tax rate is (because they have to pay it!). Part of the due diligence in setting up a corporation in the US is tax planning to determine what the actual tax impact will be. Any corporation large enough to have an accountant (i.e just about any corporation larger than one-person) is taking advantages of these tax breaks. Perhaps not all, depending on the experience of their accountant(s), but they will have no problem identifying the majority of their tax savings.
So if someone tells you that the US has high corporate tax and says that it's at 40%, they are either unaware of the effective tax rate, or they are deliberately trying to spin the issue with misleading information.
IAAA (I am an accountant).
Sounds a bit like Microsoft and ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the part where everyone but the richest guy is working for a living, and the richest guy doesn't, since he gets a cut off of everyone else's work.
I hear this a lot. Can you back it up. And no Bill Gates and co don't count. These guys worked bloody hard and took big risks to get their respective companies started and keep them going. They didn't just sit around collecting everyone else's "tax".
I think its just jealously. You think you deserve to be "rich" more than the next fellow. Well you don't. Some are rich because they worked hard and got a little bit lucky, some are rich because they got lucky and some are rich cus daddy was lucky. But that makes them no less deserving of wealth than you.