• RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Well, have a party or three with businesses clients on the yacht and you can write that off. However, I think the vast majority of people have their yachts registered under shell corporations, and that opens up a lot of opportunities for writeoffs.

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      7 months ago

      They shouldn’t. Education is critically and routinely underfunded because dumb people vote conservative.

    • red_rising@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Because for decades teaching has been marketed as ‘a calling’ not a job. People say things like, ‘teachers do what they have to’ or ‘no one goes into teaching for the money’ or ‘you might be the only person in some of these kids lives that care for them.’ These kind of phrases allow higher ups to continually slash teaching budgets while convincing teachers that they must fill the shortfall because of they don’t, who will? It’s bullshit.

      • reddig33@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        People are in for a rude awakening after republicans get rid of public schools. You think buying your own supplies is expensive — wait until you get the bill for going to private school.

      • SouthEndSunset@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Much like nurses in the U.K., and their current pay battles. There are even former nurses saying “they should do it for the love of the job”.

    • Num10ck@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      rich neighborhoods often pay $200+ per student per year for supplies.

      poor neighborhoods just get by without supplies

  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    That is because the jets and yachts are company provided and the company writes it off as an expense. You know, as schools should be doing with school supplies teachers need to do their job.

    Companies also don’t require their employees to bring their own desk and chair… I know… do t give them any ideas… and probably some scumbag employers did this anyway.

    This is separate from the fact if companies should be allowed to expense luxury items… Like yachts and jets…

    • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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      7 months ago

      They’re not “allowed to” expense those things. At least, not in the way you mean. Whether or not regulators have an appetite to investigate is another matter.

      • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 months ago

        Might as well be, if they use it for work it counts. My boss bought a luxury for our company, he’s the only one whose ever used it but technically there is a contract if a customer wants to rent it. Not that anyone was ever instructed to actually shill it.

    • Liz@midwest.social
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      7 months ago

      In my opinion, companies shouldn’t be allowed to expense anything. The entire concept is pointlessly complicated and only serves to favor businesses that can afford to hire teams of accountants. The law doesn’t encourage any kind of value adding on the slightest, it’s just a game to save money.

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Companies shouldn’t be paying taxes at all. Just tax the people who own the companies directly based on the value of their shares.

      • singron@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        There are complicated parts of accounting, but basic expense tracking is simple and businesses would do it even if it didn’t affect their tax treatment.

        If businesses couldn’t write off expenses, it would be nearly equivalent to treating the corporate income tax as a universal sales tax. This would be incredibly damaging to small businesses and benefit behemoth vertically integrated companies, which is probably the exact opposite of what you want.

        If you get rid of expenses, you need to get rid of corporate income tax and either replace it with VAT or combine it with increases to personal income tax like taxing capital gains as ordinary income.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      In Canada, a company-provided vehicle is a taxable benefit when used for personal purposes. This can include if you park the vehicle at home and drive to/from work if you have a fixed office location.

      Of course, the rich work around this by making that yacht trip etc a “business expense” and entertaining similarly rich guests.

    • TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Companies also don’t require their employees to bring their own desk and chair

      Unless you work from home, then you are expected to have the space, supplies, desk, chair, electricity, internet connection…

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Not really. The company should pay for everything you need to do your job.

      • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Plenty of employers provide at least some of that and reimburse for the rest. That should be the norm… and it is still way cheaper than a desk space in an office.

        And for employees, the cost saving on the commute makes up for more than the costs of electricity and stuff.

    • JayleneSlide@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Scuba diver and sailor here. Above a certain size, boats have watertight bulkheads and pumps to remove water, like fire hose levels of water. May I suggest a thermal lance? Works great underwater, cuts through metal better than a drill, and can cut a slice long enough to cut past multiple bulkheads.

    • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The unfortunate part is that then kids in your class would be missing out on school supplies. It’s not right for teachers to use their own money for school supplies though.

      • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        That would be the schools and the parents problem. It would present a challenge to my job to find a way to teach without supplies, but I’d rather do that then spend my own money on my job.

    • dustyData@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      That’s why they don’t own the yachts, but they own the charter companies that run the yachts.

    • elxeno@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Can’t they just buy in the name of a company, which would be a ‘business expense’, which is kind of a write off?

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 months ago

        It doesn’t work like that. Expenses need to be “necessarily incurred in the course of producing income”. Just be cause a company pays for something doesn’t make it tax deductible.

      • HydraulicMonkey@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        They would have to justify how it is a part of the companies operations. In theory at least.

        So a private jet to fly your execs to business meets? Ok.

        A yacht? Maybe for entertaining customers? I don’t know about the US, but here in Australia entertainment expenses are written off at a lower rate than other business expenses.

        • TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          A yacht can have meeting rooms, you can receive clients in these meeting rooms for business purposes, making it therefore a business expense.

        • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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          7 months ago

          here in Australia entertainment expenses are written off at a lower rate than other business expenses.

          Sorry mate. Not really correct.

          If an Australian company pays for entertainment expenses for staff, it’s considered a fringe benefit and fringe benefits tax is payable. It equates to almost the cost of the actual expense. So if a company pays $10k for an employee to take a holiday, they’ll have to pay almost $10k in fringe benefits tax, but they do get a deduction for the whole $20k, which will save them $5k in income tax.

            • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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              7 months ago

              Not really, at all.

              It’s written off at the same rate, while being subject to a whole other type of tax, which means the company pays more tax, rather than less.

              • HydraulicMonkey@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Ok, so the point I was originally trying to make was that claiming a yacht as an entertainment expense was less attractive. Would you agree?

                • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  7 months ago

                  If sticking a fork in your eye is “less attractive” than eating icecream then sure.

                  … but let’s be honest, that’s not what you were trying to say. You were just plain wrong. Get over it. No one cares.

  • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I had a boss once who avoided paying taxes on his 49’ sailing yacht by “donating” it to his church. It was then technically owned by the church (so no taxes, either transfer or property) but he still used it exclusively.