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from the wish-we-were-in-the-one-percent dept.
Due to completely messed up U.S. tax policies, some even got a rebate check. Only small businesses pay taxes. Big companies often pay nothing at all.
Look at a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice ( http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/04/fifteen_of_many_reasons_why_we_need_corporate_tax_reform.php#.VSbihhPF8QY ), a Washington, D.C. group. It finds that some of nation's most famous brands have paid remarkably little to the government over the last five years. In fact, many actually enjoyed a negative tax rate: They received a nice rebate check from the U.S. Treasury.
The 15 giants highlighted by CTJ were chosen to represent a wide range of industries among Fortune 500 companies. They include CBS, Mattel, Prudential, and the California utility PG&E. Together, they paid no federal income tax in 2014, despite profits totaling $23 billion. CTJ's point is that these companies are not anomalies, they are examples.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 15 2015, @01:00AM
I thought you were describing the labor market .. ;-)
Taxes suck but they usually only apply when you actually have something to tax. The real problem with taxes is the unequal burden from them and lack of proper negative feedback loop from mismanagement either by incompetence or fraud.
Labor market works in that it eats your finite time for boundless profit making. And most people can't quit, only change who is their master and not be their own master. By eating your time, you are prevented from actually doing something efficient about your situation.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 15 2015, @01:11AM
While there is an element of truth in your above observation, I note that much of the underlying reason for that situation's existence is that government guns are used to try to trap people in that situation.
Start your own business? You'll need licenses (enforced at gunpoint), need to comply with our demands and conditions (at gunpoint), and give us a cut ala taxes (at gunpoint). If you try to save up excess capital, we'll steal much of it via official counterfeiting ala inflation (and we'll enact our fraud and theft under the protection of government agents' guns).
These barriers and others are not insurmountable, but are indeed formidable enough that most people will not choose to tackle them. Do note, though, that "the market" is not the evil you detect. "The market" is merely voluntary buyers conducting voluntary transactions with voluntary sellers; how can that be faulted for anything?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 15 2015, @02:57AM
It's not the market itself that is evil. It's the implicit rules that runs it that is insidious. Not all created by laws but rather systematic effects not mitigated by government. When these anti-poaching agreements came around it's just another indication of what's going on.
Regarding savings. Seems it's not the inflation that is the devil in the details but taxes which affect multiplier effects which usually are more powerful than inflation.
Business isn't that hard to start. It's just that you have to make the money to keep them around ;) But when barrier to entry is raised by stuff like EMC directives etc. It's a direct punishment for startup actors. While large corporation can just hire professionals on full time and just play with the regulation. This last systematic effect, that some can hire professionals to shield themselves from regulations while others has to dwell in the mud also narrows the escape path.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:11AM
I again note that the problems you rightly observe appear to originate in government, rather than as unaddressed problems for government to solve.
Individuals are free to negotiate their own contracts. As a small-fry IT-centric individual working in the corporate world when IP-assignment clauses were all the rage, I personally struck out every clause that claimed that my employer would own any idea/software/product I happened to come up with and replaced it with plain English clause that said much the same but only if said idea/software/product was worked on during paid business hours or using employer equipment. As it happens, I never was turned down employment due to such re-negotiations. I acknowledge some people will be, most likely. Well, that's the hazard of seeking employment with someone else: your only real recourse is to say "no" and go elsewhere. Once you start trying to use "law" to force others to bend to your will, you'll find you're standing in the evil gun-pointing shoes of government.
If a business makes a scummy-sounding employment agreement with competitors, that's probably a good sign that a principled individual really shouldn't be working for such businesses anyway.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:27AM
The problem is proving that you came up with the idea/software/product outside employee hours and without employer equipment. And the lengths they will go is proportional to the estimated profit.
You will not find out about no-poaching agreements as a normal person.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:42AM
True, a fight in civil court can be more trouble than it's worth. However, there still (in theory) needs to be a preponderance of evidence to support a claim that employer's resources were used. (The reverse isn't directly true, as you cannot "prove a negative".)
I did find out about no-poaching agreements between Google, Yahoo, et al, and I'm a "normal person". ;) Your point is noted, though, and I will state that I am not a fan of corporations in their current form, as they are effectively the private half of the exploitative mercantilist form of government (a more accurate description of the US fedgov than the more common "capitalist").
My primary point remains, however, in that there are choices available to any given individual. They may not all be the choices the individual wants, but they are available and the number of choices is largely limited only by human creativity.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 15 2015, @10:09AM
Perhaps you should specify that any lawsuit has to be payed by the employer? such that they can't bet against your private economy.
Choices are also limited by human bargaining leverage. If your skills is in demand you can pretty much say take it or leave it. Otherwise you may have to suck up the conditions that the employer offers. Guess why Facebook, Google and others are so obsessed with coding as a subject in school.. *whistle*
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:57PM
Choices made as an individual that require the participation of another individual can only justly proceed if the other individual also consents to the conditions of my choice, that is true. Voluntary participation still appears to me to be vastly superior model than one that relies upon the use of violence to coerce cooperation.
Such a blanket proclaimation would likely be yet another obstacle to the creation of small businesses. I wish I had all the answers, but I don't. It does seem that "law" is not meant to be the hammer for every problem nail, though, as the Founders of the United States repeatedly stated that their new government was fit only for a "religious and moral" people. Regardless of your views of the morality of the Creator YHWH, it should be obvious to everyone that law cannot successfully force people to be moral.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @12:07AM
I know that trying to psychoanalyze someone over the internet is fraught with peril, but I can't help but notice that you seem to see government as nothing more than a big, scary bunch of bullies. I think you may have emotional issues that are best dealt with in the care of a trained professional. Just sayin'.
Another blind side I see in you is an almost child-like trust in "the free market". While I also prefer a free market to a centralized command economy, I think that your adoration of the free market ignores the darker side of said market, such as manipulation by monopolies. Someone recently told me that even John Locke understood the importance of market regulation to stave off market manipulation by monopolies. Again, just sayin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @03:37AM
He can't help it, conservatives are hard-wired to be scared [psychologytoday.com] of everything.