Oligarchs for trump! Oligarchs for Biden! oops!!

[Revoltingest]

By "the commons" I mean everything "we've" built and use as a society. E.g., roads, bridges, safety standards, fire and police services, education, social security, healthcare, and so on.

All of these things cost money. All of the companies run by millionaires and billionaires make HEAVY use of the commons. My sense of ethics is that those companies should pay their fair share of the costs to maintain all of that.

Odd....all the times I've advocated for specific tax reform, I'd
expect y'all to see that as favoring taxes to fund public works.
I'm hurt that you don't read & remember my nearly 160k posts!

Anyway, note that the infrastructures you cited are typically paid
for with property taxes. Businesses pay a lot of those. Even if
one has a year with no net income, property taxes are still paid.

 

[icehorse]

Anyway, note that the infrastructures you cited are typically paid
for with property taxes. Businesses pay a lot of those. Even if
one has a year with no net income, property taxes are still paid.

Again, I'm not making any black and white, always 100% true claims. Of necessity we're in the domain of making statistical claims.

So I'm worried by the fact that Wells Fargo and GE pay almost $0 in taxes. The fact that some companies pay is missing the point. The CEOs of WF and GE make BIG BUCKS, and their companies are not helping us maintain the infrastructure. Those are the kinds of examples the OP is talking about. Those are the parasites.

 

[Revoltingest]

So I'm worried by the fact that Wells Fargo and GE pay almost $0 in taxes. The fact that some companies pay is missing the point.

For which years? This is important because income & expenses can
vary greatly from year to year. So the why behind the 0 is important.
Saying that companies pay "almost 0 in taxes" is a simple thing which
belies complexities. (I assume you mean only income taxes.)

Regarding property taxes, unless one has an unusual deal with a state,
all companies pay those. This directly addresses your point regarding
the infrastructures cited.

The CEOs of WF and GE make BIG BUCKS, and their companies are not helping us maintain the infrastructure. Those are the kinds of examples the OP is talking about. Those are the parasites.

What evidence do you have that management & the companies
don't pay taxes funding infrastructure, ie, property taxes?

 

[icehorse]

For which years? This is important because income & expenses can
vary greatly from year to year. So the why behind the 0 is important.
Saying that companies pay "almost 0 in taxes" is a simple thing which
belies complexities. (I assume you mean only income taxes.)

Regarding property taxes, unless one has an unusual deal with a state,
all companies pay those. This directly addresses your point regarding
the infrastructures cited.

What evidence do you have that management & the companies
don't pay taxes funding infrastructure, ie, property taxes?

uncle!

i tried, but this really feels like a LMGTFY moment.

i searched for "big corporations that pay no taxes" and got many results, this was one of the first:

60 Fortune 500 Companies Avoided All Federal Income Tax in 2018 Under New Tax Law

 

[Revoltingest]

uncle!

i tried, but this really feels like a LMGTFY moment.

?

 

[Guitar's Cry]

By giving people what they want.
Want less I suppose.

Yeah, cause humans have done an excellent job at looking past self interest for the sake of the larger community!

That was snarky, but not entirely untrue. Ignoring the lengths and ability that corporations go through to drive "want" despite the harm it could do directly (fast food) and indirectly (industrial pollution) for profit isn't helpful for anyone but those who profit from it.

Besides that, they have the power to drive their own industries.

 

[icehorse]

?

i added a link to post 44

 

[Revoltingest]

uncle!

i tried, but this really feels like a LMGTFY moment.

i searched for "big corporations that pay no taxes" and got many results, this was one of the first:

60 Fortune 500 Companies Avoided All Federal Income Tax in 2018 Under New Tax Law

I'll pick a point from the link to address....
"These companies avoided taxes by employing a variety of legal tax
breaks. Accelerated depreciation allows companies to write off the
cost of their investments much faster than these investments wear out.
This break accounted for hundreds of millions in tax write-offs. Chevron
alone, for example, reported $290 million in accelerated depreciation,
and Halliburton reported $320 million."

This is a false criticism.
Accelerated depreciation doesn't increase the deduction taken for an
asset's depreciation. It only shifts some portion of the yearly deductions
to earlier years. This doesn't reduce taxes paid over the time frame of
the asset's life. Btw, depreciation is a real cost of business. Assets (other
than land) don't last forever, so the basis must be expensed somehow.
It's GAAP.

If they make this big a mistake on such a simple matter,
it really calls into question their other claims.

 

[icehorse]

If they make this big a mistake on such a simple matter,
it really calls into question their other claims.

My intuition at this point is that you're not really open minded about this topic. If I felt differently, I might be compelled to do some more googling for you. IMO, the claim that many huge, and hugely profitable companies are paying little or no income taxes is well known and documented fact. If you did a single web search you find hundreds of articles supporting this claim. Many of them would be from very credible sources. Like many such claims, putting together airtight supporting evidence is a time-consuming process. At some point - IMO - you look at a few pages of search results and you get a good sense for whether a particular claim is credible or not. That you're not up for doing that tells me that I'm wasting my time discussing this particular topic with you, at this point.

Have yourself a fine day.

 

[Revoltingest]

My intuition at this point is that you're not really open minded about this topic.

Your intuition is wrong.
I'm skeptical, but as you should know, I too favor a more functional
tax policy. I've also regularly favored regulation to curb monopolies.
The problem with your criticisms is being short on info & cromulent
& analysis. Do you disagree with my criticism of the article's claims
about accelerated depreciation?

You don't need airtight arguments....just enuf to discuss them.

 

[icehorse]

Do you disagree with my criticism of the article's claims
about accelerated depreciation?

You don't need airtight arguments....just enuf to discuss them.

I keep hoping to zoom out to discuss the bigger picture and you keep focusing on details that seem like rounding errors in the bigger picture.

okay how about this article - it was maybe 5 from the top. CBS news:

60 of America's biggest companies paid no federal income tax in 2018

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I'll pick a point from the link to address....
"These companies avoided taxes by employing a variety of legal tax
breaks. Accelerated depreciation allows companies to write off the
cost of their investments much faster than these investments wear out.
This break accounted for hundreds of millions in tax write-offs. Chevron
alone, for example, reported $290 million in accelerated depreciation,
and Halliburton reported $320 million."

This is a false criticism.
Accelerated depreciation doesn't increase the deduction taken for an
asset's depreciation. It only shifts some portion of the yearly deductions
to earlier years. This doesn't reduce taxes paid over the time frame of
the asset's life. Btw, depreciation is a real cost of business. Assets (other
than land) don't last forever, so the basis must be expensed somehow.
It's GAAP.

If they make this big a mistake on such a simple matter,
it really calls into question their other claims.

Probably off-topic, but one of the things that I would love accounting rules to include (and incorporate into P/L and GL statements) is the cost of ending the business. The idea being that you build into your business plan the cost of shutting it down -- and very likely cleaning up after its done.

(PS - I was an accountant, and know full-well that all business are assumed by GAAP to be eternal. But that's a dumb assumption.)

 

[Revoltingest]

I keep hoping to zoom out to discuss the bigger picture and you keep focusing on details that seem like rounding errors in the bigger picture.

I addressed details (large ones) which you brought up.

okay how about this article - it was maybe 5 from the top. CBS news:
60 of America's biggest companies paid no federal income tax in 2018

I'll peruse it later.

Edit:
It looks just like the other one, with the same misunderstanding
of how accelerated depreciation works.

Let's end it like this...
Unless you're prepared to discuss specific companies
& the reasons they paid no income tax, I really can't
address your complaint.

 

[Revoltingest]

Probably off-topic, but one of the things that I would love accounting rules to include (and incorporate into P/L and GL statements) is the cost of ending the business. The idea being that you build into your business plan the cost of shutting it down -- and very likely cleaning up after its done.

(PS - I was an accountant, and know full-well that all business are assumed by GAAP to be eternal. But that's a dumb assumption.)

Plan for one's demise?
Are you crazy?
Actually, some businesses would have that need, eg,
having a facility requiring environmental mitigation.

 

[icehorse]

Unless you're prepared to discuss specific companies
& the reasons they paid no income tax, I really can't
address your complaint.

This isn't about specific companies and their tax avoidance strategies. As I have said several times, I'm not claiming that anything illegal has occurred. My claim is that the system is set up to allow them to be legally unethical.

 

[Revoltingest]

This isn't about specific companies and their tax avoidance strategies. As I have said several times, I'm not claiming that anything illegal has occurred. My claim is that the system is set up to allow them to be legally unethical.

I'm not talking about legality vs illegality either.
Just tax policy. And you've given no reasons
that paying no income tax in some years by
some companies is unethical.
If you don't look at the accounting, you don't know.

 

[icehorse]

I'm not talking about legality vs illegality either.
Just tax policy. And you've given no reasons
that paying no income tax in some years by
some companies is unethical.
If you don't look at the accounting, you don't know.

we'll have to agree to disagree.

Alright, on 2nd thought... Do you think that the U.S.'s entire tax code is ethical?