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Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by xg15 on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @02:41AM (#26721213)
> ... not giant "Big Tech" companies that have all kinds of ways of avoiding them and employ hundreds of people in their accounting department...

You could make that argument against absolutely any policy. So what is your solution then? Don't do anything?

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by vasco on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @02:54AM (#26721280)
Tax individual wealth and remove income taxes for corporations. Not capital gains, but wealth as in Switzerland or The Netherlands. Income taxes for corporations all disappear when the corporation reaches a given size after which the state only captures capital gains taxes from shareholders and employment and other taxes. The only companies that end up paying income tax are the small ones. So just tax wealth of individuals and remove all the shenanigans in between.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by xg15 on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @03:12AM (#26721363)
> Income taxes for corporations all disappear when the corporation reaches a given size

Could you explain why this is the case?

> So just tax wealth of individuals

Individuals can play the same games. Jeff Bezos could move most of his wealth into funds, foundations or companies and be poor on paper while still keeping the de-facto control of all assets. Or they could shift their wealth overseas, into tax havens or into less transparent areas like crypto.

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by hedshodd on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @05:08AM (#26722135)
>> Income taxes for corporations all disappear when the corporation reaches a given size

> Could you explain why this is the case?

Just to comment on this real quick, this has multiple reasons. Basically, the larger your company is, the more funds you have to spend on lawyers and experts, as well as offshoring. Also, depending on the country you're in and the specific tax laws, it might be easier to fulfill incentives for nullifying the corporate tax (IIRC reinvesting and creating jobs is how Amazon nullifies a good chunk of their taxes, right?). That is not to say, we should completely axe corporate tax imo, because some of those incentives are really good. You want corporations in your country to reinvest and create jobs, because that's overall a really good thing for the job market.

The thing about Bezos' wealth is that a huge chunk (maybe even the majority) of it is already in the form of assets. That's not as easily moved overseas (though to my limited understanding it isn't impossible) without hurting his own company, and at that point it might be profitable to just pay a wealth or asset tax or something like that. Obviously that would need to be designed REALLY well, but there's a good chance that that's how we can tax exactly what we want to tax, without hurting small businesses and without hurting the lower class.

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by hellbannedguy on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @03:35AM (#26721499)
If we could close most loopholes taxing the wealth of the individuals might work.

I’m talking all loopholes, even giving money to a 501c3. Billy’s nonprofit gives back less than 1% to the country that coddled him. Plus—I feel a lot of nonprofits are just tax dodges.

Want to manufacture overseas? Fine, but move to that country, and don’t come back.

I got carried away again. I would like to basically see tax loopholes closed, or only allowed the first few years of a business life.

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by csomar on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @06:28AM (#26722821)
I guess one of the major realization to be made that this is mostly a real-estate problem and taxing wealth is not going to help. Most of the wealth held by wealthy individuals is just on paper. If you put a high tax on wealth, most of this value is going to be erased overnight.

The problem is real-estate as this is what people need. If people could buy property they would not be interested in stocks or crypto and they would not care for rich people getting richer. They would be busy in their pools or backyards.

And fixing real-estate is not done by having more taxes, penalizing vacant homes, or grabbing your inheritance. It's simple: Build more housing.

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by max1984_2 on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @05:58AM (#26722586)
Yes. Believe it or not, not doing something is better than doing something that will definitely have a detrimental effect.

I am almost in my 40s now and one thing I've recently learned is that sometimes it is better not to do anything at all.

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by akvadrako on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @03:00AM (#26721306)
Increasing the tax rate isn't what matters; the structure needs reform. For example getting rid of income tax and replacing it with revenue taxes, which are more difficult to circumvent.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by kibibyte on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @03:17AM (#26721391)
I'm not sure if revenue taxes are the better idea: they will impact low-margin businesses (e.g. restaurants) hard.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by raverbashing on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @03:55AM (#26721639)
This is actually doable, though you need specific classifications for each business

You can set a fee of 3% for restaurants let's say, and 10% for some other business (example)

This makes sense for small business

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by bryanrasmussen on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @05:37AM (#26722386)
Amazon restaurant chain starting up, it's amazing how much of Amazon's money needs to be moved into that subsidiary.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by sokoloff on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @07:31AM (#26723322)
Get a free iPhone with purchase of our $999 steak dinner.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by akvadrako on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @03:58AM (#26721672)
I would assume they would raise prices so margins stay similar, though I don't know if that's been experimented with.

Even if it does mean less restaurants and less eating out, there is nothing inherently more unfair about it.

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by Aunche on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @05:41AM (#26722443)
That just benefits vertical integration. Amazon would pay less taxes in Amazon basics than third party goods. What you really want is a VAT. You're only taxed on the value add of your product. It's widely regarded as the most efficient tax and the US is one of the only countries that doesn't use it.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by akvadrako on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @09:31AM (#26724632)
I agree there are some issues with a revenue tax, but VAT isn't good enough because you really want to capture B2B transactions.

You can also see for example the digital services tax introduced by France because VAT was not proving effective.

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by Aunche on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @01:21PM (#26727887)
VAT does capture B2B transactions. That's what makes it different from a sales tax. I'm pretty sure that you already have to pay VAT when buying online ads.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by akvadrako on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @04:08PM (#26730475)
Businesses can deduct all the VAT they pay. I do have a business in the EU; I'm familiar with it.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by hollerith on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @03:23AM (#26721428)
Sales tax is essentially a tax on corporate revenue.
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by kelnos on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @05:28AM (#26722286)
Is it? In the US, at least, sales tax is taken on top of listed prices (it's uncommon for an establishment to list "tax included" prices), so essentially a customer is paying for the product and then paying the government on top of it.

Unless your thought is that businesses would charge more if there was no sales tax. I don't really buy that, though; businesses list pre-tax prices specifically to avoid sticker shock.

Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by Thev00d00 on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @04:29AM (#26721875)
It does not capture any B2B revenue?
Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes by makomk on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @05:44AM (#26722468)
Intentionally so, because taxing B2B revenue is effectively a financial penalty for not being a huge vertically-integrated megacorp. It means that any goods which have more than one company involved in their production are taxed at a higher rate than ones where every step is done in-house. This is not generally a desirable tax incentive.