Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Steve Wozniak Says Apple Should Pay 50% Tax Rate
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think what he means:
When they did make the lottery with the intent of this money going to education to have more money for the education sector but at the same time cutting tax dollars going to the education because its just replacing tax dollars for lottery dollars, but not the "more dollars for education"
And not complaining about lowering taxes, this wasnt even in the post.
Come on. Read the passage. "... reducing tax dollars going to education..." does NOT mean they reduced taxes to anyone. That's laughable. It means they reallocated it to a different program.
What they do is setup the lottery to "fund education more" then a budget cycle or two later, they reduce the education pool coming from regular taxes and use that money on other pet projects. Dozens of states have done it this way.
On a national level, look at what social security was sold to us as in the 40's, and look at what it is now. It's a fragile shell of what it was intended to be. Your hard earned tax money at work.
The federal government should not be doing anything except providing national security, national infrastructure enhancements, national transportation guidelines, and national law enforcement. The rest should be handled at the state or local level. They need less money, not more.
That's not a problem with taxes, or the program itself. Social Security was a massive success up until the government started using it as a rainy day fund back in the 80's.
It's also where a big chunk of our debt resides. Every dollar taken from SS is another dollar added to the ever growing pool.
I haven't read much in regards to what other people's opinions are on this thread, but I do think corporations should pay their fair-share of taxes like the rest of us. I understand the whole idea about shareholder earnings becoming doubled taxed, but perhaps a fixing needs to be in order.
Perhaps the government should change some of the tax rules a little. Citizens should only be required to pay income tax on their paychecks. Income from dividends, interest, etc, should not be taxed. With this, there would be more of a reason to save money for the long term while keeping shareholders happier because they aren't getting taxed on their risky investments. Our government should either severely loosen the tax percentage, or make our country socialist. We do not have an advantage being somewhere in the middle, which is where we are right now.
Even if corporations did pay their fair-share in taxes, it would be spent irresponsibly. Our government spends money building colleges and gas stations for those in countries we are at war with instead of attending to the problems here.
Perhaps the government should change some of the tax rules a little. Citizens should only be required to pay income tax on their paychecks. Income from dividends, interest, etc, should not be taxed. With this, there would be more of a reason to save money for the long term while keeping shareholders happier because they aren't getting taxed on their risky investments. Our government should either severely loosen the tax percentage, or make our country socialist. We do not have an advantage being somewhere in the middle, which is where we are right now.
Even if corporations did pay their fair-share in taxes, it would be spent irresponsibly. Our government spends money building colleges and gas stations for those in countries we are at war with instead of attending to the problems here.
Then it's our job to vote the proper people in. As a representative republic, our government is only as good as we allow it to be, and always the government we deserve.
The problem is it is easy to spend money that isn't yours, and it is easy to spend money you have available to you, but can't afford to spend. Why do you think American banks promote credit cards so heavily? To get people into debt, to collect a high interest rate, and to collect a higher interchange fee from the merchant.
The banks love credit cards, and our government plays with our tax dollars like it's on a credit card (one without rewards).
The government will never be fixed because America makes political duties a career rather than a way to just be involved in what the people want. Being a politician shouldn't be a full time job, and the wages for it should be barely above poverty level. Unfortunately politicians can vote themselves higher wages, so it's a never ending cycle which will never be broken. Additionally, one person cannot impeach any political official, and it doesn't seem like the people care enough to impeach everyone who should be impeached. The impeachment rules are also too limited, as you basically have to commit a felony or do some kind of bribery to risk your career.
Yes, they should. At the same time, Congress did not knowingly create anything, nor did they overlook known loopholes.
On the contrary, Apple's accountants created a brand new and elaborate method of avoiding taxes that no one had imagined before, and which was CLEARLY NOT INTENDED BY CONGRESS.
That's good, because...
Corporations HAVE NO LEGAL OBLIGATION TO AVOID TAXES. In fact, they have no legal duty to maximize profits, either. These are two common but bogus myths that get repeated all the time to excuse investor greed.
Yes, corporations are supposed to be run for the best interest their investors. But this can mean anything from concentrating on employee happiness, to being environmentally correct, to being good citizens, to yes, maximizing profits... but none of that is legally required. It's up to the corporate leadership to decide what is best.
As for the legality of what Apple does, this NY Times article notes that:
'NO taxpayer is obliged to pay the government a penny more than the law requires, the Supreme Court said in 1935. But the court also said no corporation was permitted to use “elaborate and devious” means — known nowadays as “gimmicks” — for the express purpose of evading taxes.'
You're intelligent, and I'm short on time, so I'm going to leave you some links to read:
Corporations Don’t Have to Maximize Profits -NY Times
The fig leaf of shareholder value covering corporate tax avoidance, removed
Delaware corporate law: directors have no obligation to minimise taxes
I happen to agree that there should be mandatory service, either in the military or the Peace Corps. America would be a much better country if its citizens were more worldly and had more skin in the game when their government contemplates going to war.
As far as making more money. I have had my share of needing to change my life to make more money-moving states, going back to school to completely change careers after a layoff, etc. BUT, my circumstances were made easier because I'm white (don't deny that that helps A LOT), have a high IQ, a college education, no kids to support and a family who supported me when I needed it. Millions of people in poverty don't have that stuff. The schools they grew up with were poorly funded and barely educated them, they don't have people in their life to guide them to be more successful, industry left their area and they don't have the funds to pick up and move somewhere else. Single mothers who can't afford childcare but still manage to work multiple minimum wage jobs. People who got caught with a little cannabis and ended up with a job-killing felony on their record. Don't be so flippant about people "just need to make more money" when you haven't walked in other people's shoes or apparently haven't looked around at how other people have to live.
[doublepost=1461616470][/doublepost]
There should be a lower tax on repatriated money so that it is comparable to the rate companies in other countries pay. We live in a GLOBAL economy now. The lower tax on repatriated money benefits the US citizen because then US companies pay taxes HERE and that repatriated money can get put into OUR economy.
wishful thinking.
That money goes from companies to the politicians. Where do you think they get the billions in fundraisers and in superpacs? That way the money is 100% wasted. Greedy people are just greedy. Apple execs are no exception.
Panamapapers is good thing. Every country is making it harder to hide money. Legally or not.
Loosen up the tinfoil. Look at the countries with loose governments. You REALLY don't want to live there.
The money in politics is mainly paying for TV hit ads. If FCC mandated a % of airtime for political ads and take the $ out of it, problem solved. Heck, let them sell ads surrounding the most popular messages to cash in. Reverse the rules. This is one area where the President's regulators have unilateral authority right now! Treasury made a rule retroactive to kill a merger, so the precedent exists to change the behaviour for this erection right now.
Last edited:
Do you think government involvement is problem itself or only how it's setup in US?
I'm asking as here is 95% of schools are public and the 'worst' school would rank among top tier compared to US private schools. So it's a fact that proper government involvement is actually very good thing.
It's a different story if you as voters have managed to get things in bad shape. It can be a lot better. Just think who to vote. Hint: Two party system is not the best way of democracy.
The poor decision making - that you accurately cite - are the exact reason not to trust the government with more money than is absolutely necessary.
This is why accountability and transparency are such important things to have. Our government was designed and intended to be used as a tool to benefit we the people. Though if we continue to let jackasses on both sides of the aisle get away with jackassery simply because we agree with them on an ideological standpoint, we shouldn't at all be surprised when things don't run nearly so smoothly as they should.
BS. We were created to inherently distrust government generally.
cite:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Last edited:
Ignoring the whole thing about being "for the people, by the people". Guess ole Madison wasn't as bright as we thought he was.
The two can be true at the same time.
Yes, accountability and transparency are important, and good people in government would be better than incompetent authoritarians.
But, it's also true that government's incentives are inherently misaligned with those of taxpayers' and that centralization of power corrupts absolutely.
Thus it is right to always be vigilant and suspicious of government solutions to all problems, while also wishing for a better functioning, transparent, lean and efficient government.
You've hit the nail on its head.
Are you trying to say Apple has done something illegal? If Apple has done something illegal, then Apple should be prosecuted and punished in such a way that no corporation would ever dream of doing something like that ever again.
I would love to see that Supreme Court opinion where the words "elaborate and devious" means were used. When a matter of tax law goes before the Supreme Court, it's that court's job to interpret the laws and the Constitution as they are. I'd love to know what the Court defined as "elaborate and devious" means?
I'm not saying I'm opposed to corporations paying something into the system because the system is a part of getting them to where they are. I am simply questioning the lack outrage directed at Congress because they're the ones who created the problem and they're doing nothing to fix it.
Who is the middle class and what do they deserve?
cite:
http://gawker.com/your-pay-is-about...source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Who ever said government does anything better than the private sector like Red Cross, a big church, a Gates/Buffet foundation, or whatever? Let the private sector deliver education, medical care, pensions, and border control and let's see if there is any change. Let's put Prudential Insurance in charge of Social Security to start.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...pay-50-tax-rate.1968991/page-14#post-22841869
http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/23/20642-new-regulations-added-in-the-obama-presidency/
Start with the 20% most indigent population and expand it from there.
Here is a chart of the President's projection of the effect of the stimulus plan in 2009, vs doing nothing overlayed with actual results to unemployment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameri...File:ARRA_Unemployment_Rate_Graph_2011-05.jpg
It was actually increasing unemployment in practice!
At the time 200 economists put an ad in the New York Times with an alternative to prevent history revisionists from claiming the alternate path didn't exist or it was not supported by economists and other political talking points of the time.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303945704579387692278347858
Obama's favorite government deficit spending Keynesian "economist" Krugman predicts the results of his policies being tested, on his own book cover!!
cite:
http://gawker.com/your-pay-is-about...source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Who ever said government does anything better than the private sector like Red Cross, a big church, a Gates/Buffet foundation, or whatever? Let the private sector deliver education, medical care, pensions, and border control and let's see if there is any change. Let's put Prudential Insurance in charge of Social Security to start.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...pay-50-tax-rate.1968991/page-14#post-22841869
http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/23/20642-new-regulations-added-in-the-obama-presidency/
Start with the 20% most indigent population and expand it from there.
Here is a chart of the President's projection of the effect of the stimulus plan in 2009, vs doing nothing overlayed with actual results to unemployment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameri...File:ARRA_Unemployment_Rate_Graph_2011-05.jpg
It was actually increasing unemployment in practice!
At the time 200 economists put an ad in the New York Times with an alternative to prevent history revisionists from claiming the alternate path didn't exist or it was not supported by economists and other political talking points of the time.
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/cato_stimulus.pdfwikipedia American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (Pub.L. 111–5) said:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303945704579387692278347858
article comments said:
Obama's favorite government deficit spending Keynesian "economist" Krugman predicts the results of his policies being tested, on his own book cover!!
Attachments
Last edited:
See, the problem isn't just about having good people in government, it's also about knowing how to handle a citizenry that covers a vast field of differing ideologies without making any one group too angry. The same problem can also be applied to the government itself, which is far from being a monolithic entity. Rather, it's a machine of a thousand moving parts, where each gear has its own idea of how best to turn the rest.
We all want good people in government, but we first need to agree to what a good person is before we can move on to that next step of putting them in office. What might be a good person wanting to implement sound policy to you might be an intolerable tyrant wanting to expand an overbearing nanny state to me.
So how do you squeeze the most efficiency out of a machine that's pretty inefficient by design? How do we get a bunch of people to agree on something when you have a voter base that covers the entire political spectrum?
It isn't always so misaligned as it is not always popular. There are such things as an unpopular, but ultimately sound decisions. It's why we're a representative republic, rather than a straight up democracy. We have to allow our politicians some autonomy to be able to do their job.
A modicum of transparency will help us spot some of the more gross abuses of the people we hire to run the country. But at the same time, we need to know the difference between a gross abuse of power, and a bitter pill that has to be swallowed for the good of everyone in the country.
I wouldn't say suspicious, so much as a little bit cynical. Government needs to be viewed with a passionless, dour eye, and an always level head.
It's misaligned because government spends other people's money on other people's behalf, which is the least efficient way to spend money.
Spending your money on yourself. Cost efficiency: high. Value: high.
Spending your money on another person (gifts). Cost efficiency: high. Value: low.
Spending another person's money on yourself. Cost efficiency: low. Value: high.
Spending another person's money and giving it to a third person (government). Efficiency: low. Value: low.
This problem cannot be solved in any way, which is why government spending should only cover what is necessary for a civilized society.
Since the problem is human nature, the best you can hope for is to elect morally upstanding representatives with limited power for a limited duration, who will limit government spending and intrusions on liberty--the foundations of classical liberal philosophy.
Spending your money on yourself. Cost efficiency: high. Value: high.
Spending your money on another person (gifts). Cost efficiency: high. Value: low.
Spending another person's money on yourself. Cost efficiency: low. Value: high.
Spending another person's money and giving it to a third person (government). Efficiency: low. Value: low.
This problem cannot be solved in any way, which is why government spending should only cover what is necessary for a civilized society.
Since the problem is human nature, the best you can hope for is to elect morally upstanding representatives with limited power for a limited duration, who will limit government spending and intrusions on liberty--the foundations of classical liberal philosophy.
Last edited:
It's worked quite well in the past. I have no problem using taxpayer dollars to subsidize healthcare and education, especially when you consider how prohibitively expensive they are for the average middle class family.
Of course all of this should be done within reason. I think it's a good idea to subsidize some things, but it can be taken too far. You don't want to tax people and corporations 50% of their income to pay for a bunch of social programs.
Minimizing intrusions on liberty is a classical liberal philosophy, but limiting government spending has always been a contentious issue, even among the original classic liberals. As I've said here before, the arguments we're having today are just one prolonged extension of the same argument that first started between Madison and Hamilton, Washington and Jefferson. The welfare clause has been open for interpretation from the moment it was written.
Do you understand that when you subsidize something, you increase demand for it?
Do you know what happens to price when you increase demand?
It increases.
So your solution to high housing price and high education price is to subsidize them... Hmm.
So to counter this, you keep it overly expensive, and thus in less demand. If it weren't for the fact that our economy is more and more and more demanding a college degree for entry level positions, that might not be too bad an idea.
Though the counter to your argument is that the cost of a college tuition didn't start rising wildly out of control until around the 90's, which, by that point, the government wasn't subsidizing education nearly as much as they were previously, during the GI Bill days.
It's economics 101.
Increase demand without letting increase of supply and you get an increase in price.
You say that college tuition in US has not increased?
That is certainly not the data I'm looking at.
Also, by subsidizing higher education with taxpayer money, this has several bad consequences.
1. You increase the number of college graduates. This results in degree inflation. Have you ever seen the number of Phd's awarded in the US? It's completely out of control. And what do you think those people will say when they can't find jobs? They ask for government to help. It's a vicious cycle.
2. You disproportionately hurt people who are intellectually less able. By subsidizing higher education, this results in tax payer money being spent disproportionately on people who are academically more inclined.
This seems like a good thing, except not everyone has same intellectual capacity. Income and IQ/SAT scores are highly correlated and by helping those with higher IQ, it penalizes those with lower IQ.