
Amazon is a master of tax avoidance - Jerry2
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/04/09/trump-is-right-amazon-is-a-master-of-tax-avoidance/33653439/
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awalton
...as is any multibillion dollar public corporation. They're literally
chartered to avoid taxes, and are willing to pay accounting firms millions of
dollars to find new and innovative loopholes.

The tax code could be simpler and eliminate the holes, but these companies
_love_ the complication because it allows them to invent these things, so they
actually lobby for even more complicated, convoluted rules at any given
chance.

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Clubber
You can swap Amazon for any company or individual large enough to hire an
accountant. A good one is worth their weight in gold.

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craftyguy
Exactly. Since this article is meant to repeat Trump's rhetoric, how about we
look at his companies and their history of avoiding taxes, or his (presumable)
avoidance of paying taxes?

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lemoncucumber
If only there were some sort of well-established norm requiring presidential
candidates to publicly disclose their tax returns...

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SpikeDad
If only we had a president who cares about well-established norms of integrity
and truthfulness.

~~~
gt_
If only we had a democracy and campaign process that valued informed voters
more than monied interests

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gringoDan
Any business that doesn't do everything it (legally) can to minimize its tax
burden is doing a disservice to its shareholders.

Follow the incentives - no individual or business knowingly pays _more_ taxes
than it is obligated to.

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lovich
I mostly agree with you, but some point, say for instance if 75% of the
population hokds your shares through 401ks, is the company doing more harm to
shareholders by hurting society for short term gain?

Everyone joining in on funds like vanguard is making this question become less
of an academic one

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whb07
This is in itself is very short in analysis. What do you think people do when
they get more money? They spend it.

If they don't directly spend it either by cashing out, borrowing against it,
etc. The fund manager controlling that savings fund will deploy some of that
capital and put it to work.

If the money is saved and then put to work like just established, then it
becomes a multiplier. If the money is taken as a tax and spent by the
government it doesn't become a multiplier.

Take $10 sitting in savings. It can be spent/invested buying a good and that
circulates to all the intermediaries and suppliers around the economy. That is
not what happens when you tax Peter to pay Paul.

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lovich
Have you ever heard of junkies breaking into empty houses and stripping all
the copper wiring out to sell at scrappers? It destroys 10s to 100s of
thousands of dollars of value in the form of a completed home to get the
scrapper a few hundred at most.

If you dont think that companies are capable of doing the same sort of thing
to society but at a larger scaled I don't think we can have a discussion on
it.

Not every transaction is zero sum at worst and growing the pie at best

Also, you're saying what do people do with the money "they spend it", but when
the government takes the money and uses jt, that just dissapears? I actually
believe that can happen because I think individuals/corporations/governments
can engage in destructive actions but the way you are arguing it is talking
out of both sides of your mouth. When the government spends money it goes to
people too

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whb07
I don’t know anything about junkies. But you’re missing the point, taxed money
doesn’t come from creation rather than from someone else directly.

Assume an economy valued at $100. If you taxed it and passed that money to
another party, it’s not going to grow the $100 at all. Because all you’re
doing is shifting that ownership of that money around and in between steps
losing some to intermediaries.

So taxing $10 and passing it around is really some value less than $100.
Meanwhile that $100 could be used to grow to $300 and everyone is vastly
better off.

Now these are extremes, if you took some extreme tax like 90% then the whole
thing falls apart and you have the state running things and we know how that
goes.

Same for the opposite side, at 0% tax then things like national defense and
the like wouldn’t be supported and we’d have things like other nations/parties
trying to invade etc.

Clearly there’s a middle ground but I’d say it’s definitely not at the current
ratio of tax burden which is what 30% roughly of GDP? Might be more with
future liabilities

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lovich
You are still valuing all government actions at zero dollars. When the
government takes ten dollars of tax money and then spends it on a plane, how
is that purchase different than if Delta spent 10 dollars on a plane? It's
still a transaction and it goes into the economy to create something.

On the flip side youre also valuing all private transactions as being a
multiplier. How is it a multiplier when a monopoly just charges higher prices
one day with no improvement to their product? That's just extracting money out
with no equivalent increase in value, which does not make it a multiplier

~~~
paulddraper
whb07 is not valuing all government actions at zero dollars.

They are valuing all government actions at substantially less than the
original value in private hands.

