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 qman
Stranger
Registered: 12/07/06
Posts: 3,480
Last seen: 8 minutes, 36 seconds
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Quote:
zappaisgod said:
Quote:
Diploid said:
They can change their strategies and location at will
This is a strong argument.
Decades ago when the wealthy paid 70% or more, there was no internet or globalization. But today, anyone with even modest means can just pack up and move somewhere else, taking all their marbles with them.
Of course, there are studies that say this won't happen... and others that say it will.
/sigh
 "Studies"
There are obvious facts. When tax rates were atrocious the uber-rich made different kinds of income. It happened. It isn't speculation. I can also tell you right now that if I get taxed 70% on my last dollar I won't be showing up to make it.
That is what the liberals don't understand, if you tax business or individual too much, they just shut down shop, or they can change their investment capital with one press of a button. The net result is more damaging to the "workers", which they were trying to help.
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 zappaisgod
horrid asshole
Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 42,267
Last seen: 13 hours, 58 minutes
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Quote:
sonamdrukpa said:
Tariffs are almost uniformly economically bad for all countries involved, and a 0% American corporate tax is a de facto tariff on all international goods from countries with corporate taxes...so we should tax corporations at the rate their biggest international competitor gets taxed at. 
 Not taxing domestic production is an international tariff? Where the fuck did you get that notion?
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sonamdrukpa
Wayfarer
Registered: 10/18/11
Posts: 1,791
Last seen: 28 days, 8 hours
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Quote:
zappaisgod said:
Quote:
sonamdrukpa said:
Tariffs are almost uniformly economically bad for all countries involved, and a 0% American corporate tax is a de facto tariff on all international goods from countries with corporate taxes...so we should tax corporations at the rate their biggest international competitor gets taxed at.
Not taxing domestic production is an international tariff? Where the fuck did you get that notion?
Imagine you had two identical companies in two identical countries. The corporate tax in both countries is 10%. If country A lowers their corporate tax to 0%, then the cost of making widgets in country A is effectively subsidized compared to country B, and effectively country B has imposed a tariff on itself for exporting to country A. See what I mean?
That was not meant to be a serious argument, btw.
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sonamdrukpa
Wayfarer
Registered: 10/18/11
Posts: 1,791
Last seen: 28 days, 8 hours
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 Re: The Buffet Rule  [Re: qman]
#16104098 - 04/17/12 11:26 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
qman said:
Quote:
zappaisgod said:
Quote:
Diploid said:
They can change their strategies and location at will
This is a strong argument.
Decades ago when the wealthy paid 70% or more, there was no internet or globalization. But today, anyone with even modest means can just pack up and move somewhere else, taking all their marbles with them.
Of course, there are studies that say this won't happen... and others that say it will.
/sigh
"Studies"
There are obvious facts. When tax rates were atrocious the uber-rich made different kinds of income. It happened. It isn't speculation. I can also tell you right now that if I get taxed 70% on my last dollar I won't be showing up to make it.
That is what the liberals don't understand, if you tax business or individual too much, they just shut down shop, or they can change their investment capital with one press of a button. The net result is more damaging to the "workers", which they were trying to help.
Some will, and some won't. The extent to which that happens is based on the price of hiring a sufficiently-skilled accountant, how much the taxes increases are, how difficult it turns out to be to avoid the taxes, whether or not it is practical to outsource overseas, etc. I imagine it's extremely difficult to accurately predict what squeeze will get the most juice out of the orange. I don't think empirical studies on the matter can just be dismissed out of hand.
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Led Zeppelin
Tripper
Registered: 05/17/10
Posts: 2,713
Last seen: 11 hours, 1 minute
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the way I look at it is everyone should be taxed equally.
I dont hate the rich because they are wealthy. I hate them because they influence the government with their money and power and they can get away with anything because of their money and power. its bullshit. but everyone should be taxed equally.
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If acid puts you in the drivers seat, and mushrooms put you in the passenger seat...then DXM puts you in the trunk
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 Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 18,206
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Phred]
#16127743 - 04/23/12 11:20 AM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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So I was thinking about this last night and something occurs to me that seems on the surface of it as a double standard.
First, let me reiterate that I know next to nothing about the topic and am here not to argue a position so much as to learn in an area where I have a knowledge deficit. My geekness leans toward science and engineering not economics and actuary.
Now to the point.
an income of, say, a million might pay income tax at a lower rate in a given year than someone else with an income of say $50k is because the majority of the income in that year was through capital gains. But the corporations sold in order to generate those capital gains were already themselves taxed
My problem with this argument is that corporations are considered persons re the 14th Amendment and as persons they are accorded the freedom of speech rights codified in the First Amendment, per Citizens's United. Therefore they are entitled to contribute the enormous sums to political campaigns we've recently seen. Alright then, corporations are persons.
But this should work both ways. If corporations are persons, then they SHOULD be taxed every bit like any other person. And when they pay a salary or give a gift or other remuneration to others (like shareholders), then those others SHOULD also pay tax on that money just like they would if any other natural person gave them money. This is no different than my grandfather paying income tax, then leaving me his estate on which I will AGAIN have to pay income tax. It's double taxation, but so what? All tax is multiple taxation if you follow the audit trail backward. Every single dollar taxed was at some point in the past already taxed repeatedly. That's how tax works.
So then why should it be that a corporation-person pays tax, then the capital gains recipient natural-person should NOT pay tax (or pay reduced tax) on the justification that it was already taxed at the corporate level? If that argument is valid, I shouldn't have to pay tax on my inheritance for the same reason: my grandfather (a natural-person much like a corporation-person) already paid tax on that money.
It's a double standard. Corporations shouldn't be allowed to claim personhood re the First Amendment right to political contributions, then change their mind and become non-persons to claim double taxation when they distribute taxable dividends.
It doesn't seem fair. Am I missing something in this argument?
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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Phred
Fred's son
Registered: 10/19/00
Posts: 12,646
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 1 day, 11 hours
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Diploid]
#16127993 - 04/23/12 12:37 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
But this should work both ways. If corporations are persons, then they SHOULD be taxed every bit like any other person.
But they aren't. They are taxed at substantially higher rates than are, say, assembly line workers or managers of Best Buy. The US corporate income tax is the highest in the world at 35%.
Again, corporate profits are double taxed. If you and I and ten others get together and form a corporation which grows and sells edible mushrooms, for example, then if and when our new corporation is ever profitable, the government takes 35% of that money. But it really isn't its (the corporation's) money, its our money. We are the only shareholders, and the corporation is our full time job and only source of income. So the government has already taken 35% of our money before it ever gets into our pockets. Then - of the money which has made its way into our pockets, the government takes another 15 to 30% in personal income tax.
If our corporation generates $700,000 profit one year due to the ten of us working our nuts off, then assuming we split out the profits equally each of us ends up with not $70,000 of gross income, but just $45,500 (65% of $70,000) out of which we each must still pay federal income tax of... I really dunno, and it varies depending on your deductions. Let's say 19% for the sake of example. That leaves us each with $36,855 after we have paid the federal tribute. So the federal government snarfs $331,450 of our $700,000, or 47.35%.
I have bookmarked somewhere an article that explains this much more articulately than I do, but my bookmarks file is thousands of links in size and not organized to any extent. I can't be bothered combing back through them all to find the one I have in mind. Doesn't really matter - there are hundreds of thousands of similar links you can find with a properly phrased Google search. The bottom line is - as literally tens of thousands of non-partisan, impeccably credible tax attorneys can tell you - if your money comes from capital gains rather than salary or wages, it is double taxed. This being the case, only a moron or a degenerate gambler (but I repeat myself) would choose to make his money through capital gains unless at least part of the inherent risk were offset by the fact that one of the two tax bites was lower than other forms of making money.
Phred
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 18,206
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Phred]
#16128279 - 04/23/12 02:10 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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But they aren't. They are taxed at substantially higher rates than are, say, assembly line workers or managers of Best Buy. The US corporate income tax is the highest in the world at 35%.
Well, maybe that's too high. I dunno. But you're ignoring the fact that a corporation, despite being a "person" gets to deduct ALL it's "living expenses", so to speak... all the costs of existing.
Corporations deduct rent, mortgage, electricity, water, vehicles, salaries, and all sorts of things a natural-person can't. If a corporation can deduct electricity as a cost of doing business (the cost for a corporate-person to exist), why can't a natural-person deduct the cost of electricity and groceries on the same grounds? Or the cost of a car, insurance, and gasoline to get to a natural-person's workplace. Or the cost of a housekeeper to maintain my home the same way corporate-persons deduct the salary of their housekeeping staff?
The fact that natural-persons can't deduct these expenses required for them to exist seems to balance the corporate-person paying a higher fraction in tax in exchange for the right to deduct those same things.
And yes, I know that I can deduct business expenses for a home office, for example, but I can't deduct groceries required for me to exist and run my home business in the first place. Corporate-persons can deduct everything, including the cost of simply existing (the equivalent of groceries for a natural-person).
I'd agree with you if corporate-persons could no longer deduct salaries or business expenses, then paid the same tax as natural-persons who can't deduct their living expenses either. But the expense deduction field is tilted in favor of the corporate-person, so the high tax rate seems fair in balance.
If corporations were not "persons", I think I'd have to agree with you. But they can't have it both ways, denying personhood re deducting its "living expenses" and demanding personhood re political activism and the right to spend unlimited amounts doing so under guise of the First Amendment right granted all persons.
If you and I and ten others get together and form a corporation which grows and sells edible mushrooms, for example, then if and when our new corporation is ever profitable, the government takes 35% of that money.
That seems fair given that corporate-persons get to deduct the cost of living: electricity, rent, hired help before what's left is taxed.
But it really isn't (the corporation's) money, its our money
No, it's not. Not if the corporation is a person. It's that person's money, not the shareholders'. You and I are akin to family members and friends who either get a salary for work performed, or get an inheritance or stipend from our wealthy benefactor who happens to be a corporate-type of person instead of a natural-type of person. And taxes should be due on that money we get from our benefactor just like it should be if it came from any other "person".
So again, if things are the way you paint them, then the corporation can't be a person and doesn't have First Amendment rights a-la Citizens United.
You can't have it both ways, and corporations and wealthy people want it both ways.
I have bookmarked somewhere an article that explains this much more articulately than I do
I know Phred. I've been reading and have probably seen most of your bookmarks by now. I'm just pretty convinced that a double standard is at play here with corporations being persons when it suits them and abstract legal entities when it doesn't.
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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Phred
Fred's son
Registered: 10/19/00
Posts: 12,646
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 1 day, 11 hours
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Diploid]
#16128605 - 04/23/12 03:36 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
But you're ignoring the fact that a corporation, despite being a "person" gets to deduct ALL it's "living expenses", so to speak... all the costs of existing.
You are conflating two entirely different concepts here. I forget which thread that is currently running contains a link by zappaisgod to a really good little article explaining the reason why treating corporations as people - from a legal perspective - makes sense. But it is merely a legal convention. It isn't the reality. A corporation isn't a person. It is merely a mechanism by which humans produce goods or services.
Costs aren't living expenses. They are costs. People are taxed on their income. Corporations are taxed on their profits.
Quote:
Corporations deduct rent, mortgage, electricity, water, vehicles, salaries, and all sorts of things a natural-person can't.
They don't "deduct" them in the sense of a tax deduction. Those things aren't deductions, they are expenses. Profit is inflow minus outflow. Revenue minus costs. Income minus outgo. Sales minus expenses. However you want to express it.
Quote:
No, it's not. Not if the corporation is a person.
It isn't. That's where you are getting hung up.
Quote:
I'm just pretty convinced that a double standard is at play here with corporations being persons when it suits them and abstract legal entities when it doesn't.
You are mistaken. It doesn't work that way. They don't get to play by one set of rules one day and a different set of rules the next. They always play by the same set of rules.
I really don't know how I can get you over your blind spot on this issue. You either grasp it or you don't. Maybe someone else can rephrase it in a way that I am too unimaginative to think up. To me, it is simplicity itself to see the double taxation going on here. And that doesn't make me any different from hundreds of thousands of accountants, businessmen, economists, and politicians who have noted this double taxation for decades and decades. Hell, maybe even centuries by now. If you choose not to see it that way, it won't affect my life in any way shape or form.
The Buffet rule is not just useless in fixing the fiscal problems of the US government, it is fundamentally unfair to people who have done nothing wrong. They are being singled out for punishment not for anything they have done, but for what others have not done.
And it doesn't matter anyway - the bill (to no one's surprise) is dead.
Phred
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 18,206
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Phred]
#16128688 - 04/23/12 04:00 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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A corporation isn't a person. It is merely a mechanism by which humans produce goods or services.
Well, alright then. I'm down for that. Corporations aren't people, they're legal instruments.
But then corporations don't have First Amendment rights to unlimited political contributions in the guise of free speech. That is a social construct that applies to people, not legal instruments.
They can't have it both ways, but they currently do have it both ways.
Maybe my argument is more anti-Citizens United than it is pro Buffet Rule.
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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Phred
Fred's son
Registered: 10/19/00
Posts: 12,646
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 1 day, 11 hours
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Diploid]
#16128731 - 04/23/12 04:12 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
But then corporations don't have First Amendment rights to unlimited political contributions in the guise of free speech.
Yeah, they do. Because the people who comprise the corporations don't give up any of their rights by forming that corporation any more than people who join a labor union give up any of their rights by joining that labor union. You will of course remember that Citizens United covered the free speech rights of unions, too.
You have the whole idea of the Constitution reversed. The Constitution doesn't give rights to anyone or to anything. The Constitution lays out what the federal government may do. If the Constitution doesn't specifically say "Congress may restrict the speech of Institution X and of Organization Y", then the federal government may not restrict their speech. Note the wording of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law..."
The McCain Feingold act was just that: a law. A law that the Constitution specifically declared that Congress couldn't make. Therefore SCOTUS struck it down. It was a no-brainer. In the absence of that law, groups of individuals cannot be punished for speaking collectively.
Phred
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 18,206
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Phred]
#16128770 - 04/23/12 04:21 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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the people who comprise the corporations don't give up any of their rights by forming that corporation
And nothing stops those human people from contributing as individuals to political campaigns.
But you want corporations to be people vis-a-vis free speech, but abstract non-people legal instruments vis-a-vis taxation.
Heads I win, tails you lose. It's a double standard.
If an entity has personhood free speech rights, it has personhood tax responsibilities too, IMO.
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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Phred
Fred's son
Registered: 10/19/00
Posts: 12,646
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 1 day, 11 hours
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Diploid]
#16128827 - 04/23/12 04:41 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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And nothing stops those human people from contributing as individuals to political campaigns.
True. What has that to do with anything?
Quote:
But you want corporations to be people vis-a-vis free speech, but abstract non-people legal instruments vis-a-vis taxation.
The two issues are fundamentally different: the federal government has constitutional authorization to tax. They do not have constitutional authorization to restrict political speech.
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Heads I win, tails you lose. It's a double standard.
But it isn't a double standard. You are conflating two fundamentally different concepts. That's sloppy thinking.
Quote:
If an entity has personhood free speech rights, it has personhood tax responsibilities too, IMO.
Again, you conflate two fundamentally different concepts: rights and responsibilities. Worse, you seem unable to grasp that what Citizens United was all about: government overreach. The Constitution says the feds may not restrict speech. In this case, political speech. From the point of view of the Constitution, it doesn't matter who is uttering the speech - a copywriter hired by a corporation or a translator hired by an immigrant whose English is comically rudimentary. Speech is speech. As a matter of fact, SCOTUS has ruled that posters are speech also. So are movies. So are television programs and advertisements in magazines.
Note the precision of the language of the Founding Fathers. The First Amendment doesn't say, "The People have the right to freedom of expression... yada yada," they instead frame it as "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, yada yada." This is a profound and essential difference, and it was framed that way on purpose, not accidentally.
Phred
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 18,206
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Phred]
#16128963 - 04/23/12 05:11 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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They do not have constitutional authorization to restrict political speech.
*of people
Before Citizens United, the political speech of legal instruments known as corporations was restricted for decades precisely because they're not people. This recent SCOTUS decision turns all that on its ear and the practical result is that wealthy people get far more influence than their theoretical one vote.
It's not fair, and it's why you see the populist wave against the wealthy.
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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Phred
Fred's son
Registered: 10/19/00
Posts: 12,646
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 1 day, 11 hours
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Diploid]
#16129007 - 04/23/12 05:26 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
Before Citizens United, the political speech of legal instruments known as corporations was restricted for decades precisely because they're not people.
No, it wasn't. The right of corporations (and individuals and other types of organization as well) to give money directly to a politician was restricted. That is not the same thing at all.
Provisions of the McCain Feingold act went further than just prohibiting money transfers from individuals or corporations to politicians, it prohibited individuals and organizations from airing their own thoughts on the good and bad points of various candidates running for office within a certain specified period of time before an election. So now not only could General Electric not buy a fifteen second slot on NBC explaining why the American voter should make every effort possible to make it to the polls and pull the lever for Obama, neither could the Sandusky Teachers Union Local 338 urge folks to vote for John McCain on their Community Programming cable channel.
Phred
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole
Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 42,267
Last seen: 13 hours, 58 minutes
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Diploid]
#16129019 - 04/23/12 05:30 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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How is it fair for one collective group, media corporations, to be allowed to endlessly publish in one form or another political advocacy ads while others are not? And how is it not fair for people to pool resources to broadcast their political advocacy ads just because they are a large group and thus have funds at their disposal?
I know why the NY Times hates Citizens United. It threatens their precious monopoly and jeopardizes their special status. Why anybody else does is a mystery to me.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 18,206
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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How is it fair for one collective group, media corporations, to be allowed to endlessly publish in one form or another political advocacy ads while others are not?
I don't think that's fair either.
Well, maybe fair/unfair isn't the right word. Maybe what I mean is "in the best interests of our civilization". I can't help but feel that there is something wrong when wealth gives one person disproportionate influence over political processes in excess of their theoretical one vote.
And how is it not fair for people to pool resources to broadcast their political advocacy ads just because they are a large group and thus have funds at their disposal?
Maybe I agree that wealthy people should be able to pool resources to their political aims, and tough cookies for the middle class if they don't like it.
Alright then. Now tell me why the middle-class can't do the same thing and pool THEIR resources in a populist move against the power given by virtue of wealth via high taxes on the wealthy?
If the wealthy can push their interests by pooling resources to influence the law of the land, then you have to accept that the middle-class can do it too. And if they (the middle-class) manage to pass populist laws like Buffet Rule effectively hyper-taxing the wealthy, well, this time it's tough cookies for the wealthy, no? Just like when it worked the other way.
But what I'm reading is that there's nothing wrong when the wealthy influence our system with their pooled power, but somehow there IS something wrong when the middle-class does the same thing by influencing our system to hyper-tax the wealthy.
It cuts both ways, man. Or it should.
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole
Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 42,267
Last seen: 13 hours, 58 minutes
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Diploid]
#16129628 - 04/23/12 07:42 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said:
How is it fair for one collective group, media corporations, to be allowed to endlessly publish in one form or another political advocacy ads while others are not?
I don't think that's fair either.
Well, maybe fair/unfair isn't the right word. Maybe what I mean is "in the best interests of our civilization". I can't help but feel that there is something wrong when wealth gives one person disproportionate influence over political processes in excess of their theoretical one vote.
Why do you make a distinction between wealthy people who own media corporations and wealthy people who don't. Any asshole, even me, can get up on a soapbox and spew his message. "Best interests of our civilization"? Do you really want to go there? Quote:
And how is it not fair for people to pool resources to broadcast their political advocacy ads just because they are a large group and thus have funds at their disposal?
Maybe I agree that wealthy people should be able to pool resources to their political aims, and tough cookies for the middle class if they don't like it.
Alright then. Now tell me why the middle-class can't do the same thing and pool THEIR resources in a populist move against the power given by virtue of wealth via high taxes on the wealthy?
If the wealthy can push their interests by pooling resources to influence the law of the land, then you have to accept that the middle-class can do it too. And if they (the middle-class) manage to pass populist laws like Buffet Rule effectively hyper-taxing the wealthy, well, this time it's tough cookies for the wealthy, no? Just like when it worked the other way.
But what I'm reading is that there's nothing wrong when the wealthy influence our system with their pooled power, but somehow there IS something wrong when the middle-class does the same thing by influencing our system to hyper-tax the wealthy.
It cuts both ways, man. Or it should.
Why do you assume that it is only wealthy people who own corporations. I;m not going to look it up but I suspect that pension funds are the single biggest bloc of corporate stock ownership. Middle class, mostly.
If the middle class can garner the votes to tax the shit out of the wealthy then they can. I got a bulletin for ya. They wealthy will fucking leave. Because they can.
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sonamdrukpa
Wayfarer
Registered: 10/18/11
Posts: 1,791
Last seen: 28 days, 8 hours
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Quote:
zappaisgod said:
Quote:
Diploid said:
How is it fair for one collective group, media corporations, to be allowed to endlessly publish in one form or another political advocacy ads while others are not?
I don't think that's fair either.
Well, maybe fair/unfair isn't the right word. Maybe what I mean is "in the best interests of our civilization". I can't help but feel that there is something wrong when wealth gives one person disproportionate influence over political processes in excess of their theoretical one vote.
Why do you make a distinction between wealthy people who own media corporations and wealthy people who don't. Any asshole, even me, can get up on a soapbox and spew his message. "Best interests of our civilization"? Do you really want to go there?
Obviously the Supreme Court has a lot better handle on the constitutionality of the issue than I, but there is a big difference between the legal rights that Citizens United recognized and traditional free speech. When corporation X gives money to candidate Y's Super PAC, that's not speech in any ordinary sense - that money is one part bribe and one part two-faced lie by misdirection. Companies aren't paying for ads about political causes they support - they pay for ads that talk up a candidate, generally on issues the company doesn't give a shit about. If Exxon wants to pay to put its CEO on tv to argue why his company deserves a tax break, then I say let him. But don't pretend that the current political stage involves anything like that.
Yes, the NY Times, Rupert Murdoch, the Wall Street Journal, etc. all have disproportionate influence on the news. But disproportionate influence over public opinion isn't the problem - the problem is disproportionate and secret influence over politicians covered up with legal smoke and mirrors.
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sonamdrukpa
Wayfarer
Registered: 10/18/11
Posts: 1,791
Last seen: 28 days, 8 hours
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Re: The Buffet Rule [Re: Diploid]
#16130546 - 04/23/12 11:08 PM (1 year, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said:
Corporations deduct rent, mortgage, electricity, water, vehicles, salaries, and all sorts of things a natural-person can't. If a corporation can deduct electricity as a cost of doing business (the cost for a corporate-person to exist), why can't a natural-person deduct the cost of electricity and groceries on the same grounds?
I'm not really good at tax code, but I believe the first $13000 or so (heavy emphasis on the "or so") of your income has a marginal tax rate of 0%, which is basically the same thing as allowing you to deduct electricity, gas, water, etc. from your salary and taxing the rest (it's actually more generous even, since $13000 is far above the bare minimum needed to live in the US).
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Or the cost of a car, insurance, and gasoline to get to a natural-person's workplace. Or the cost of a housekeeper to maintain my home the same way corporate-persons deduct the salary of their housekeeping staff?
If you're a private contractor, you can get a lot of expenses like these deducted from your taxes, actually.
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