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?
They did the same thing for trump. And for every other thing he ever did. I'm not sure how you could imagine otherwise; anything that could potentially be construed as offensive in some fashion, was reported as such. Most channels absolutely hated him.
But he became president anyways. maybe as a result of it.
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
The same money is still spent, just by different decision makers. Shareholders may very well prefer the decisions being made by the private enterprise.
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.
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
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
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
...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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Apparently it didn't matter as much 4 years later. The media are a fickle bunch.
But he became president anyways. maybe as a result of it.
Follow the incentives - no individual or business knowingly pays more taxes than it is obligated to.
Everyone joining in on funds like vanguard is making this question become less of an academic one
The same money is still spent, just by different decision makers. Shareholders may very well prefer the decisions being made by the private enterprise.
Most shareholders preferences don't mean more than the air they use to say them
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.
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
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
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
They are valuing all government actions at substantially less than the original value in private hands.
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.