Tech Industry Group Funded by Amazon, Facebook and Google Says It Supports a Corporate Tax Hike (cnbc.com) 92
Chamber of Progress, a new tech industry group funded by giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google, is announcing its support for a corporate tax increase like the one President Joe Biden proposed to fund his $2 trillion infrastructure plan. From a report: The move sets Chamber of Progress, a new center-left group, apart from other business organizations that have opposed Biden's tax hike, like the Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. While the group's endorsement does not reflect the individual views of each company that funds it, it does send a signal that the tech industry is open to higher tax rates and supports greater infrastructure investment. Chamber of Progress launched late last month and is an industry coalition focused on a range of economic, social and consumer issues, including creating a social safety net and tackling income inequality. Biden proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% to help fund his American Jobs Plan, which includes infrastructure proposals that span the entire economy. The plan includes money to expand broadband availability, which is key to the success of internet businesses, and other priorities the tech industry has emphasized, like clean energy.
Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:4, Insightful)
then why don't they start paying taxes themselves ?
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Please make checks payable to "The U.S. Department of Treasury" or use this form [pay.gov].
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The debt isn't going away as long as politicians are elected based on promising individuals and corporations free shit. Free healthcare, free schools, free college, free national defense, free bailouts, free "stimulus" money, ...
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Even the Romans relied on debt financing for major projects, and they literally gave out food to residents of the city of Rome (the "bread" in "bread and circuses"), because when they didn't, the largely unemployed or underemployed masses would start food riots.
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And where is the Roman Empire now?
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No empire rules forever.
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It fell for a number of complex reasons. One was probably the sheer size of the empire limited by transportation capabilities of the day. Another was the requirement of a vast standing army required to hold territory, again, in a day when no matter how large the army, covering distance was limited by how fast men could march. These factors lead several Emperors to debase the currency, which lead to severe inflation, in an age when all currency was based purely on precious metal standards.
Add to this incursi
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If America gave out free stuff then we might actually be caught up to other first world countries. If capitalism doesn't work then don't blame socialism for it.
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I don't know about the other items in your list, but in Bernie Sanders' Medicare For All plan, the Medicare expansion was never promised to be free. There was going to be a 4% payroll tax increase to pay for it.
Nice Try... (Score:2)
That subtle distinction is important, because countries that offer free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare fund it through general taxation.
This is the part that gets interesting. If we’re going to fund healthcare through general taxation, i.e. an
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The dirty secret to nationalizing healthcare in the US is... Doctors and nurses will have to take a roughly 50% pay cut to make it work and be in line with other countries.
Go ahead, look it up.
Also: once the horribly overinflated US payments for things such as medicine will cease, companies will have to look elsewhere for income. meaning everyone else will pay more.
If I lived in outside the US, I'd be pretty scared the US might do this.
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Just looked up the average USA Doctors salary, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aver... [duckduckgo.com] and it seems to be about $210,000 ranges from $113,182 and $449,204..
Compared to Canada, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aver... [duckduckgo.com] where the average seems to be about $280,000 and range from $180,000 to $320,000, with 480,000 for a surgery specialist.
Now I didn't look too far and this might both be in the local currency, in which case they're pretty close, otherwise Canadian Doctors almost seem to make more.
Nurses here make pretty goo
Re:Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's disadvantageous if they pay more while their competitors don't.
I wouldn't be surprised if they expect the taxes to hurt their competitors more than themselves.
It's also a PR move.
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More likely they see that the loopholes they all use to avoid taxes aren't getting closed so it will only affect corporations with less creative accountants
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Re:Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:5, Insightful)
And they're quite correct there. It's much easier to find deductions and such when you have some serious money on the line. Especially since you can afford to buy new deductions, if needed....
Good rule of thumb - anytime a business wants higher taxes, it's because they expect that it'll hurt their competition more than it hurts them....
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Is that why the Biden administration wants the internation agreement to include a min. 21% corp tax rate? I really hope our governement doesn't agree to that term, and if there's a stalement, carries on with the digital services tax until their is a reasonable agreement.
Re: Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:1, Troll)
The Biden administration understands that it is perilously close to running out of Other People's Money and rather than reassess its approach to government and begin to at least pretend to live within our means (whether by limiting spending, or restricting borrowing to only paying for "investments" that are likely to increase future economic activity and thus tax revenue), they have elected to try to expand the pool of Other People whose pockets they would like to pick to include foreign entities operating
Re: Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:5, Insightful)
In recent decades, only Clinton, a Democrat, reduced the public debt. So let's hope Biden follows his lead!
Re: Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:1)
Clinton only did it when faced with a popular Republican dominated Congress (try saying that 3 times fast). Before he cut the deficit (by limiting welfare eligibility using Newt Gingrich's blueprint and claiming credit for it), he was all in on nationalizing healthcare and the like.
If Biden manages to retread that path, I can't say I'd mind very much, but I can say I'd be very surprised given Biden's demonstrated hesitation at telling the left to go fuck itself the way Bubba Clinton did back in his day.
Re: Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:2)
That's not true, though. Clinton never balanced the budget. He (his Congress) came close to closing the deficit, but just check the U.S. Treasury website to see the debt was still increasing under Clinton.
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Not going to happen. No one (either he D team or the R team) even has that goal anymore.
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Here in Canada, the Liberals (probably close to Democrats sitting in the centre) ran a balanced budget for 8 years straight. Eventually the Conservatives got elected by campaigning on how the evil Liberals were paying off the national debt instead of cutting taxes. Once elected, they had massive deficits ($65 Billion IIRC) and over ten years managed to finally balance the budget by not spending billions that was supposed to be spent on veterans.
My left wing Provincial government was balancing its budget up
Re: Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:2)
Not really. Google has a huge pile of cash it doesn't quite know what to do with. They paid taxes on all that cash.
An upstart competitor isn't going to be taking profits. All their revenue gets turned into expenditures for growth. So they pay pretty much 0 taxes.
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I wouldn't be surprised if they expect the taxes to hurt their competitors more than themselves.
It's also a PR move.
They've certainly done the math.
I'm not an insider but maybe they're backing a small rise to head off the much bigger rise the government is planning.
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I suspect in part some major corporations want to repatriate some of the money, possibly even some operations, but simply can't justify to investors if there are low tax regimes out there. It's the balancing act between long term strategies and short-term gain that many investors tend to operate in. Getting general international agreement on a minimum corporate tax creates a more level playing field, but also guarantees the governments of several nations, who have seen borrowing skyrocket through the pandem
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Also wouldn't at all be surprised if these big tech companies just dig deeper offshore holes to hide their assets in to avoid the highe
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Another possibility is that higher taxes are a cheaper way to get things they need than paying for them directly.
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Re: Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:2)
Well, these companies have to operate their own private transit systems for their employees because Bay Area public transit and roads are so dysfunctional. If the infrastructure bill can help bring Bay Area transit up to European standards, then private corporations wouldnâ(TM)t have to pay for quality transit systems themselves...
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Well, I'm not not 100% familiar with what level of government provides what down there. But if you are going to attract talent to work for your company those employees expect certain things. They want health care, a pension, easy ways to get to work, and if they have kids, they want a place to put them. Now the company I work for up here (Canada) only needs to provide a drug and dental plan because the government covers the rest. Personally, I don't move to cities that don't have a transit system so I
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No it's not (Score:2)
Raising corporate taxes would make companies *more* competitive by forcing them to invest the money or let the government invest it. That's (along with preventing the rich from hiding their wealth in corporations) is why you tax corporations in the fist place. Use it or lose it.
Re:Well - if it is such a good idea ... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a distraction they're throwing out. They're trying to look responsible by asking for a corporate tax hike, when it's a tax they're completely avoiding through various tax loopholes, so it will cost them nothing and give them good PR with those who don't realize what they're doing. They want to keep governments distracted from closing those loopholes, setting up systems like global minimum tax rates, or worst of all for their executives, implementing a wealth tax.
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The board of directors would fire anyone doing that and probably sue them into poverty. Jeff Bezos isn't king, he's just CEO.
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this fucking stupid strawman comes up every goddamned time. they don't think it's a good idea that *just they* pay that tax rate, but that *they and also companies who wouldn't volunteer to*
a tax rate is a policy that is formed around the axiom that everyone pays it (within the context of taking into account expected/traditional rates of evasion, sure)
why is this so complicated for dipshits to understand
your "what if" is fucking dumb - all you're saying is nobody should be allowed to suggest what we all sho
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Because they'll take increased subsidies from other companies paying more.
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Well, you see, a 5% increase of $0 is still $0.
A sociopathic parasite cannot kill it's host (Score:3)
then why don't they start paying taxes themselves ?
Any publicly traded company is beholden to the shareholders, so any CEO that says, OK, we're just going to stop taking deductions is at huge risk of getting ousted by the board.
As another commenter already posted, they also compete with companies that will take those deductions. Few companies are so far ahead of their competition they could even afford to do that, even with board approval.
Tech companies are typically founded by highly intelligent people. Anyone who is not an idiot knows that lower
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Yep, much better to raise the workers taxes, that way the corporations etc will have to raise their pay, and raise their prices to pay for the higher pay to cover those new taxes, and as a bonus, those workers pay raises will have to happen whether the company is profitable or not. This will put new companies out of business as they don't have profits yet to write off their employees paychecks and the established companies out of the goodness of their hearts will lower prices.
Or can always just keep printin
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Yep, much better to raise the workers taxes, that way the corporations etc will have to raise their pay, and raise their prices to pay for the higher pay to cover those new taxes
Your argument breaks down right here, because if you tax the corporations they also raise prices, and lower pay. We're not debating whether or not to tax, we're debating where to levy the taxes.
Or can always just keep printing money and lowering taxes. I'm sure that will result in lower prices
Out of curiosity, do you know how "printing money" actually works? How money is created? I find that most people who use the phrase don't. I'm not arguing with your sarcastic point, here, massively increasing the money supply will produce rampant inflation and that's bad.
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Really, my point is that increasing any taxes is likely to result in prices raising, but corporations have many more choices on how to avoid those taxes compared to the common worker. A corporation for example can reinvest its profits into its business and avoid taxes while improving its business.
Capitalism works best for society when there is competition and I feel that corporate taxes can do more to encourage competition then taxes on workers.
As well as long as the government is going to spend money, and
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They pay the taxes they are legally required to pay.
That is the stink about the corporate tax hike, it won't really affect Amazon, Microsoft, Google etc... because the government hasn't closed the damn loopholes.
Who it will affect is small businesses who are trying to compete.
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Can you reference the court case where it was ruled that there was no illegal tax avoidance? Or does the IRS not bother actually checking whether they actually pay the taxes they're legally required to pay.
Just because you get away with a crime due to the government not bothering to investigate does not mean that you aren't a criminal
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then why don't they start paying taxes themselves ?
IF you have ever owned your own business you'd know why. It's simple. When the local, state and federal governments raise business taxes a prudent business owner will raise the price of their products proportionally. The equation is as follows:
Profits = Revenue - costs -payroll - taxes
If the business can't create profits >= 10% then the owner would be wiser to invest in the stock market, where average gains over the last 55 years have been around 10% per annum. The market limits to how high the b
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So it is better to raise the workers taxes, forcing the businesses, whether actually profitable or not, to raise their pay and raise prices?
The nice thing about corporate taxes is they are only on profits, an expanding company never has to pay them, unlike payroll. Personally I like to see as much competition as possible, which means new companies having a a chance.
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then why don't they start paying taxes themselves ?
A company is meant to maximise overall profits for its shareholders and the law says conspiring to set prices in order to do that is illegal. Corporate social responsibility is a dirty hack which doesn't really shield a company from the shareholders pursuing management; it's only permissible when the message/marketing suits a particular business case. However, colluding to influence legislative policy through pooling money into industry think tanks is fair game.
All of these big tech companies know that
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Because of the competition. Oh wait. None of those corporate cancers has any viable competitors, do they?
In that case, good question.
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Close loopholes (Score:5, Insightful)
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Companies, like people, often follow their self interest.
I remember thinking about this as people glorify the days of when things were open source before software became more proprietary. Well largely that was because the money wasn't tied to the software. The old Bells basically had a guaranteed monopoly with guaranteed money. Why would they care if they open sourced their software. It wasn't their revenue stream. Of course their monopoly was another problem. We kind of see that today again with Google bei
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Re:Close loopholes (Score:4, Insightful)
The 2016 Presidential election and 4 years following it made me realize that a lot fewer people have ethics and compassion than I had previously thought.
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I know the US thing about corporations being people, but it's all people.
Corporations are just collections of people.
Religions are just collections of people.
The military is just collections of people.
Families are just collections of people.
Everything is just people. But we're a social species, so we have to deal with groups of people with somewhat narrow goals. But that's all there is... people. You don't get to abstract away religion, corporations, families, the military as if they're not comprised of peo
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self interest can include interests that are shared and common
if everybody and all companies always act in self interest, it's a moot point - it doesn't mean anything
Charity begins at home (Score:3)
As a small business owner who's been hit hard this past year, they're more than welcome to contribute voluntarily to the cause.
Trump cut the rate from 35% to 21% (Score:5, Informative)
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Yep, we saw this in the "Kansas experiment", where the government ignored rich people hiding their income in a corporation, which is a crime. When rich people don't have to obey the law, government doesn't work.
of course they do (Score:1)
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the top companies always support acts that make it harder for competition to show up and play
BINGO!
I wonder if they'd support a significant corporate tax hike only on corporations with > x revenue where x is $1 < the revenue of the poorest member of the organization (I'm guessing Getaround or Wing, as those are not familiar names to me, but I could easily be wrong). Additionally, they have teams of accountants who know how to hide the money, but we would never get rid of the loopholes...
That's great (Score:2)
But let's see if they'd be so eager to fund the infrastructure if a there's an explicit net neutrality clause attached to it, to guarantee equal access.
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Of course they would, look at the list of members.
Amazon
Automattic
DoorDash
Facebook
Getaround
Google
Grubhub
Instacart
Lime
Twitter
Uber
Waymo
Wing
Zillow
Do you see any telecoms there? Remember, this is a group of new-tech companies run by people who recognize that the better off society as a whole is the better their companies do, not entrenched old-tech Washington-insider dinosaurs.
They don't pay them (Score:2)
If you want to hold Amazon accountable, do this (Score:2)
A very small, flat tax on revenues. No deductions, no exemptions, no credits. A tax of 1-3% on all revenue.
This standard applies to every flesh and blood, not paper person from a courthouse in Delaware, tax payer has to do. Got terminal cancer and can barely work? Well that sucks, pay the tax man anyway because you made money.
Then if you want to help the little guy do this as well:
1. Make the top income tax bracket 15%.
2. Increase FICA tax to 12%, no income ceiling and require it to be paid on all investmen
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Hmm, so then we have a situation where the government WANTS inflation. Because inflation will push more capital gains into your higher tax brackets.
That'll be fun, when the average house pushes everyone into a 30% tax bracket....
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Also that 500k should be adjusted for baseline cost of living which would push it up a bit in areas like NYC and LA. I don' live there but I think that's fair... if you need to earn more to live there you shouldn't have to pay for the extra baseline cost of living. That said, even if cost of things is double that doesn't mean your tax break should be double... you are after all choosing to live in an expensive area.
Whic
Stop hiding profits in Ireland (Score:1)
It won't matter one little bit (Score:2)
Even if all Fortune 500 CEO's sign up for this the GOP numpties in Congress will reject this out of hand.
Why?
1) Because they can. Saying 'No' is an awful lot easier than saying 'Yes'.
2) Because the Dems are in control of The House, The Senate and The White House. This is about all that they can do and still keep in the news because they are seemingly totally devoid of real policies.
3) Because Trump told them to be as obstructive as possible until he returns in August and resumes his term as POTUS
4) Moscow M
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3) Because Trump told them to be as obstructive as possible until he returns in August and resumes his term as POTUS
Bro, you really gotta give up on this. Trump is gone.
loopholes (Score:2)
Well, Amazon, Facebook, and Google will just offshore more profits or find some other loophole where these new taxes only impact their competition.
Misdirection, Loopholes Smoke and Mirrors (Score:2)
The secret: (Score:2)
They know a way around that everyone else doesn't.
Of Course (Score:2)
It is the way of the world to "do onto others whatever you would not have done onto thyself".
In other words, these companies completely back a tax hike which will apply to everyone except themselves.
This is perfectly normal behaviour and is seen every day.
Higher Taxes (Score:1)
Sure they do! (Score:2)
With certain NARROWLY DEFINED cut-outs that they just so happen to fall into.
hmm (Score:1)
of course, the big businesses after getting fat from tax breaks now want taxation, to keep the smaller companies from gaining market share. yawn. im all for taxation, but their support is so self serving it's hard to take it seriously
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