Ballmer, Bezos Fund Effort To Undermine Bill Gates 866
theodp writes "You know what they say — it takes money to avoid paying money. TechFlash reports that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos have contributed $100,000 each to an effort to defeat an income tax on individuals in Washington state making more than $200,000. The backers of Initiative 1098, which is set for the November ballot, include Bill Gates (Sr.), who has emerged as one of the most vocal proponents of the income tax. Under the proposal, which has drawn the ire of the Bezos and Ballmer-backed Defeat 1098, no tax would be due on the first $200K of income, 5% tax would be owed on income between $200K and $500K, and everything above $500K would be subject to a 9% tax (cutoffs are doubled for joint returns)."
Re:Whither 9%? (Score:2, Interesting)
Parent is just a right-wing nutjob who'll blame *everything* on Obama. His car didn't want to start this AM, so it must be Obama's fault... because he's black! Or a democrat. Or a muslim. Only Glenn Back can make everything right by... .... ... what is the Glenn Beck can do? Or Palin? Or any of those other teabaggers? They have no plan. Other than get elected. Or make noise.
I really, really hope that Obama *doesn't* win the presidential election next time around. Heck, if Obama is as smart as I hope he is, he won't even run. Because the Republican who gets in, in 2012 will face the same problems Obama did, and that guy isn't going to make a miracle happen either. And then you people, who blame everything on Obama will finally have to admit that the turkey you voted for aint any better.
Next year you would not know. (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, if corporations are people too, then isn't stock market really buying and selling people? So owning stock of a corporation makes you a slave owner?
Re:Just pay the tax (Score:3, Interesting)
While CEO of Microsoft in 2009, Ballmer earned a total compensation of $1,276,627
so that would be 5% of 300.000 = 15000 dollar + 9% of 776627 = 69896 making a total of 76779 in taxes, so he would more than recoup his 100.000 in less than 2 years....
and of course in relation to his fortune of roughly 14.5 billion the 100.000 is peanuts but so is the tax....
Re:This is a STATE tax, not a federal tax (Score:3, Interesting)
Complaining about having to pay to support the poor? Then help them stop being poor!
Most taxes go to pay the salaries of government employees, who are certainly not poor.
Henry Ford knew it - when he was asked why he paid his workers more than the competition, he said "I want them to be able to buy my cars."
No, Ford paid his workers more because he wanted the best employees and he was losing vast amounts of money having to continually train new ones as the experienced employees left for jobs that paid better.
Do you really think that Ferrari pay the guy who bolts the doors on enough to buy a Ferrari?
Re:Seattle COL (Score:5, Interesting)
Washington has the most regressive tax in the nation. The poorest are paying the majority of the taxes. The poorest pay 17% of their income to taxes, while the richest pay less than 3%. This law will even it out a bit, but the poorest will still be paying more as a percentage than the richest.
The people most likely to put the money back into the economy are the people that need it most. The poorest are most likely to spend whatever money they have at local businesses. The richest people don't need to spend the money, and are very likely to spend it outside the state anyway. Remember, this is a state tax. We want the money to be spent here, to stimulate the state economy. Buying stocks with the money in some foreign company (something the rich might do) does nothing for the state. Buying a beer at the local pub does.
This Republican idea of giving all the money to the rich and they will take care of everything is complete bullshit. It doesn't work.
Knee-Jerk Slashdotters (Score:3, Interesting)
We (Washington) passed Initiative 960 a few years ago, which required a 2/3 vote to increase taxes. Two years later our Legislature simply struck out those provisions... by majority (not 2/3) vote of them, no public ballot.
The income tax initiative would enable an income tax and limit it to the very rich, but only for two years. Then the tax-hungry reps would almost certainly again overturn the voters and lower the rates by simple majority. They cannot put an income tax in, due to our Constitution, but if WE put one in, they can subvert it in two years.
For once, the rich are fighting for all of us.
I'm opposed to 1098 (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not making enough money to have to pay this tax, I live in Washington State and I'm opposed to this. Why? Washington State has no income tax at all right now. Unless you require everyone to file you will have low compliance.
This initiative may be cost neutral by getting rid of the Washington Business and Occupation tax, which means the resources directed toward that can be used for processing the income tax returns. It does not require that all citizens file. Instead it only requires those that would actually have to pay the tax to file.
I think it's clear where this is going. The state will end up generating less revenue than expected due to this non-compliance. It will then either have to raise the tax or extend the filing requirement to more people to identify the people who are not complying.
Finally, it is very likely that this income tax will expand beyond the limits that it has now, either by no action on the part of the legislature as inflation raises the amount of money that people earn over time or by direct action of the legislature to raise more funds.
Rather, as a former business owner in this state and a citizen I support the state simply effectively enforcing the Business and Occupation taxes we have now. Microsoft has been avoiding paying this tax on a huge proportion of their revenue by running the revenue through an office in Nevada. I'm sure there are other companies in the area that have been evading this tax.
If the state is unable to force a large and very well known tax evader to comply with tax law, it's unlikely that they'll be able to force a large number of individuals to comply when they don't even have the information to determine who they are.
Re:Whither 9%? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess I just don't understand this. I grew up in the more unpopulated areas of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. We never had to lock our doors and never experienced any kind of crime. It's only as I've lived in more populated areas that I've had to lock up the house when we leave and the car any time I walk into a store, worry about vandalism, lock up the lawnmower and yard tools to keep them from being stolen, etc.... My experience has always been that the fewer people there are around, the smaller the community, the fewer security concerns there are. Small communities tend self-police because everybody knows everybody and it's very hard to keep theft of property or money a secret for very long. It always comes out, and when it does, being a thief in a small community is a very uncomfortable position to be in. Nobody will trust that person, do business with them, talk to them, they will probably lose their job, etc... They become a pariah and they either leave the area or make things right and change their ways. In fact, just being a major jerk in a small community will bring about enough consequences that either the behavior changes or the person ends up moving away.
That's security that police can never provide in heavily populated areas because it's people policing themselves, and that's always the preferable solution to any problem.
Re:Question, adjusted, remains (Score:5, Interesting)
When these guys build new houses for themselves they create jobs. When they hire help to maintain those big homes they create jobs. When they buy new cars they create jobs. When they invest their money they create jobs.
I believe it was Napoleon Hill who gave the advice that if you want to get wealthy yourself you need to hang around with rich people, because just the opportunities they let slide because they might think they are "too small" will be enough to give you a good start on your way to wealth if you're ambitious enough to go after them. It wasn't stated in those exact words, but the meaning was the same.
Re:Cry me a river, billionaires (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't even need to ship them to Bora Bora. Just take away copyright and patent protection, and see how Microsoft and Amazon fare.
Re:Cry me a river, billionaires (Score:3, Interesting)
"A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it."
--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. I, 1835
Re:Cry me a river, billionaires (Score:2, Interesting)
From another point of view, rich people employ people who pay their taxes which is of benefit to the government.
Furthermore, the reduction in employment is of benefit to society as a whole. I believe that we should salute our rich capitalist overlords!
Re:Cry me a river, billionaires (Score:4, Interesting)
Treating the rest of the community as a collective commons with no need to give bad leads to the tragedy of the commons.
In our system, without correct, you end up with a tiny group with all the resources and no one else can buy anything.
To make it obvious, let's say that 20 people start working a collective farm and through hard work, 1 person comes to own everything.
Now, those 19 people are going to something besides stand aside and die. So does the 1 person want it to be a peaceful robbery where they still get to keep most of their stuff or a violent robbery where they lose everything and possibly be dead.
Also, say there is a cost of running that field, since the 1 now owns all of the field- shouldn't they pay the entire running cost? And if they owned 19/20th of the field, shouldn't they cover 19/20th of the cost of running that field?
The problem we face to day is that SSI, unemployment tax, medical insurance costs scale at a per employee basis so there is a strong inducement to remove labor wherever possible. We need to change taxes to be on gross corporate profits and move away from taxing on an employee basis.
Otherwise we are going to end up with companies where 1 person runs a bunch of automated processes on computers and a bunch of robotic labor in the warehouse (already happening- google robot warehouse diapers.com businessweek- so don't even argue that it won't happen) because robotic labor is now down to about $15,000 per year leased. They are not paying any of the cost of society but they are mining society for money. Once society runs out of money and can't find jobs, it can't by products at any price.
We are headed down a bad path and need to start turning now or we will be looking at much higher unemployment rates and even lower salaries. The system started unraveling back in the 90's. The rate is accelerating.
Money and Wealth only have meaning in the context of society.
Re:Go after billionaires then (Score:3, Interesting)
They can either graciously return a very small fraction of what they have taken in a gesture towards keeping those they've exploited well fed and educated, or they can be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
So, basically, you're taking the same strongarm robbery position as your average mafia don, and calling it "civilization."
I would try to defeat this as well. (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not rich but I do make more than 200k. You know why? I employ people and am an S-Corp. The current tax format in Washington is actually fair. I pay a % right off the top for the business. I don't pay off profit, I pay off GROSS!. An income tax on top of that would literally double my tax burden.
That is ridiculous.