• jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    3 months ago

    Does it really matter what the rate is when they don’t pay it anyway?

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/13/companies-spend-more-executive-salaries-than-taxes/72941207007/

    "The analysis names 35 corporations, including Tesla, Netflix and Ford, that each reportedly spent more on compensation to their five highest-paid executives than they paid in federal income taxes over five years.

    Collectively, the 35 corporations spent $9.5 billion on their top executives over that span, the report said, while their combined federal tax bill came to -$1.8 billion: a collective refund."

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Yes, there’s more to be done, obviously.

      For someone who clearly knows how fucked the issue is that wording seems almost distracting from the road that will get us to a solution. It’s a good thing, let it happen.

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      Imagine if the law was no more can be spent in corporate executive compensation than the company pays in taxes. Idk if that’s a good idea for small cooperations, but it’s a jumping off point.

      • schema@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It makes sense. More income, more bonus. It would also prevent companies from handing out bonuses while operating at a loss.

          • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            As much as I like the idea it aint exactly a clean cut rule, a lot of companies operate on slim marjins due to loans or just that being how it is so taxing income could fuck over way more than just the greedy assholes. I do think taxing based off of stock prices should be a thing, the stocks reflect the physical value right? That means they should be able to pay the taxes.

            • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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              3 months ago

              I mean, when I pay my taxes, it’s based on how much money I earned, not how much money I have left over at the end of the year.

              If the argument is “Corporations are people, my friend” they should be paying an income tax, same as anyone else.

              • DeanFogg@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                Holy shit if a corporation is a person…

                …does this mean a person is a corporation?

            • ultramaven@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              Man it’s so fucking straightforward for the IRS to see that Mom’s fettuccine restaurant is a little bit different from fucking Amazon, Meta, Ford etc from just putting all of it’s money into itself and calling it a loss.

              • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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                3 months ago

                Oh certainly but heres the thing we live in a legalistic society and the sons of bitches would figure out some way of fucking up that type of tax.

                • ultramaven@sh.itjust.works
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                  3 months ago

                  Well you brought up like the most manipulatable resource as a means of taxation, so I see why you feel they’d always win. I mean Trump’s entire career has been made simply lying about the value of his assets when it suited him. That’s not a “loophole”, inasmuch as it’s fraud that isn’t caught.

                  You want it to end? Give the IRS more money. Allow the FEC to attack monopolies and monopsonies. The rich simply lie and print advertisements convincing rubes to destroy the system. Regulate the news, advertising. “Ohh but mah freeze peach”, well then you get unregulated, untaxable, unrestrained capitalistic greed.

    • scarabine@lemmynsfw.com
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      3 months ago

      I gotta tell ya, “is planning on increasing corporate taxes” seems like the right direction to me. So, yes.

    • ultramaven@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      What’s your conclusion? That we shouldn’t tax anyone at all?

      Why isn’t your conclusion that we should find these husks of supposed humans and turn them inside out? Why isn’t your conclusion that chunks of SpaceX, chunks of Amazon, chunks of Google, should be rightfully owned by the American public?

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
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        3 months ago

        Because socialism generally speaking works really really badly? Taxation should ideally be zero, but since there are obvious things 99% of us agree that should be funded in a centralized way, we have to have taxes.

        The point of taxes is not to make everyone equal, the point is to fund those important things. For instance: police, military, education, basic healthcare (perhaps), charity for the less fortunate and certain natural monopolies like utilities.