Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill to Prevent Corporate Tax Dodging - Polidicks

[QUOTE=sgman91;51938497]It's not that they don't want to, won't, or refuse to pay taxes. Corporations can't pay taxes on their own. They MUST pay their taxes by either lowering wages, decreasing shareholder dividends, or increasing cost to consumers. Every dollar that a corporation makes comes from consumers and every dollar it spends goes to workers, contractors, shareholders, or some other individual. The corporate structure is just a middle-man. You can blame the people who buy their product for that. If Exxon didn't exist, someone else would be there to fulfill the demand. The demand would be fulfilled and I'm glad it is. Oil and coal was necessary for the wealth of the modern world. When did I say or even intimate that? Corporations do bad things ALL THE TIME. I don't even like big business. It's full of corruption.[/QUOTE] So Exon Mobil, being the largest, and biggest oil company after Standard Oil was broken up, who was also aware of global warming, but hid the truth, [B]they bear no responsibility but the joe blow who had to buy gas to go to work is responsible?[/B] [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] I don't get it This goes back to my satirical first post. We all should just forfeit our rights to anything, and live on the good graces of the ultra rich and corporations, otherwise we're just infringing on those poor billionaires and companies

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;51938541]So Exon Mobil, being the largest, and biggest oil company after Standard Oil was broken up, who was also aware of global warming, but hid the truth, [B]they bear no responsibility but the joe blow who had to buy gas to go to work is responsible?[/B] [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] I don't get it This goes back to my satirical first post. We all should just forfeit our rights to anything, and live on the good graces of the ultra rich and corporations, otherwise we're just infringing on those poor billionaires and companies[/QUOTE] You could make an argument that they knowingly infringed on the rights of others, similar to how a company that pours sewage in a river would be liable for the damage it causes downstream. I didn't know your general statement was talking about that very specific example.

I don't normally agree with sgman, but I think I understand his point. He's saying that corporations aren't responsible for tax dodgery, per se, but that corporations are the people at the head of them making the decisions: billionaires, shareholders, and investors. He is claiming that those people should be taxed, not the corporation as an entity, because taxing the corporation as an entity allows them to make up in other ways like slashing worker wages, and billionaires keep their loft of wealth. It ultimately could harm the laborer. That's my interpretation of his argument anyway.

[QUOTE=Keelwar;51938682]I don't normally agree with sgman, but I think I understand his point. He's saying that corporations aren't responsible for tax dodgery, per se, but that corporations are the people at the head of them making the decisions: billionaires, shareholders, and investors. He is claiming that those people should be taxed, not the corporation as an entity, because taxing the corporation as an entity allows them to make up in other ways like slashing worker wages, and billionaires keep their loft of wealth. It ultimately could harm the laborer. That's my interpretation of his argument anyway.[/QUOTE] That would definitely be one way of looking at it. If we tax the individuals directly, then we can actually analyse and decide who's being taxed.

But individual rich people [B]can[/B] leave much easier than corporations or companies can. Taxing them at a rate that is anything but flat would cause them to flee, and with a small government, you're not able to implement a policy that does anything about this. So tax the poor a disproportionate amount, with a small government they won't have any support, so the taxes should theoretically be low, but the support net would also be non existent so I honestly don't think that's a world I would like to live in.

[QUOTE=sgman91;51938463]I also don't hate government. I think government, or any large entity like corporations, are prone to corruption. The big difference between the government and corporations is that government can arrest/fine/etc. you in order to force you to do what it wants.[/QUOTE] In a Corporate world, they can do that as well. Look back to the Industrial Revolution, before "Big Government" slowing began regulating what a Corporation could and could not do. You had factory towns which were basically prisons for the workers, you couldn't shop anywhere else because your company money wasn't worth jack outside the company town. You had corporations hiring freelance police to put down worker protests, often times using lethal force. The Government might not be great, but living in a Corporate society would be hellish.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;51938780]In a Corporate world, they can do that as well. Look back to the Industrial Revolution, before "Big Government" slowing began regulating what a Corporation could and could not do. You had factory towns which were basically prisons for the workers, you couldn't shop anywhere else because your company money wasn't worth jack outside the company town. You had corporations hiring freelance police to put down worker protests, often times using lethal force. The Government might not be great, but living in a Corporate society would be hellish.[/QUOTE] Let's not forget the child labor too.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;51938780]In a Corporate world, they can do that as well. Look back to the Industrial Revolution, before "Big Government" slowing began regulating what a Corporation could and could not do. You had factory towns which were basically prisons for the workers, you couldn't shop anywhere else because your company money wasn't worth jack outside the company town. You had corporations hiring freelance police to put down worker protests, often times using lethal force. The Government might not be great, but living in a Corporate society would be hellish.[/QUOTE] Clearly using lethal force would be infringing on the rights of others and would be dealt with. You can't pick one time in society hundreds of years ago and compare it directly with today. The relevant question is what was the major motivating factors for change? Was it social pressure or was it governmental action? It's not enough to say, "The government did X and things got better." That's making the mistake of equating correlation and causation. For example, the effect of OSHA on workplace safety. Here's a graph on workplace deaths from the 1930s to the 2000s: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/3bJ2Gbr.png[/IMG] Notice how the trend continued without a blip when OSHA was created. It started LONG before OSHA and continued at the same rate after OSHA. With this in mind, it wouldn't make sense to say that OSHA did much of anything at all to prevent workplace death, yet I'm sure that OSHA claims to have done so based on the decreased number of deaths after the creation of OSHA.

[QUOTE=sgman91;51938710]That would definitely be one way of looking at it. If we tax the individuals directly, then we can actually analyse and decide who's being taxed.[/QUOTE] While I understand your argument, and even agree to a certain extent, a corporation's owners can be in another country, so how would we tax them if they lived elsewhere? A corporate tax ensures that the corporate entity must contribute back to society if it wishes to operate in our market. I don't think it's perfect, but it seems like a decent trade-off.

[QUOTE=sgman91;51938901]Clearly using lethal force would be infringing on the rights of others and would be dealt with.[/QUOTE] I can see your points, more on the basis that we need an entirely better tax system but you keep losing me with things like this. Are you saying that corporations do not already infringe on people's rights? And do you think corporations act in the best interests of humanity?

[QUOTE=sgman91;51938463]I also don't hate government. I think government, or any large entity like corporations, are prone to corruption. The big difference between the government and corporations is that government can arrest/fine/etc. you in order to force you to do what it wants. I don't like corporations either. They are no better intentioned than government. They just don't have the ability to force you to do what they want outside of using government.[/QUOTE] there's literally no difference between big governments and big corporations tbh

[QUOTE=Ridge;51937894]Why does the US feel entitled to money that wasn't made within it's borders, and isn't being used within it's borders? This money was made elsewhere, and the US has no right to it. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] So it was taxed when it was made, then?[/QUOTE] Here's a novel idea for you. I'm not convinced you'll actually learn anything, as you never seem to, but I'll try to educate you anyway. US Corporations commonly 'spend' a massive portion of the money they make [I]in the United States[/I] on their own businesses overseas, charging themselves ridiculous amounts of money for the sole purpose of writing off the expense in one of their many US tax breaks - and moving their profits to another country to claim they 'earned' the money there. Technically legal. Also basically money laundering.

this should get way more media covereage, it's absurd billions and even trillions are just sitting in some rich fucks bank account while even drug addicted bums have more spending power than i do.....

[QUOTE=Spetsnaz95;51936285]Wanna fix America's economy? Get those money back. It's boggles my mind that this much money are just sitting in some greedy cunts pockets, holy fuck.[/QUOTE] The politicians don't actually care about the country. If it collapses, so be it, as long as they can escape with their billions to the tropics.

[QUOTE=sgman91;51938415]TBH, we shouldn't tax corporations. It's a silly tax because it just gets shifted to either the wages of the workers, the shareholders, or the customers. It's an incredibly indirect tax. A better choice would be to tax those things directly as a replacement of the corporate tax.[/QUOTE] compromise, no taxes but they are absolutely forbidden from lobbying, rendering political donations, or otherwise manipulating governmental policy in any form because if theyre not going to participate in paying for the government then they dont deserve to be able to participate in the government [editline]11th March 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=sgman91;51938901]Clearly using lethal force would be infringing on the rights of others and would be dealt with. You can't pick one time in society hundreds of years ago and compare it directly with today. The relevant question is what was the major motivating factors for change? Was it social pressure or was it governmental action? It's not enough to say, "The government did X and things got better." That's making the mistake of equating correlation and causation. For example, the effect of OSHA on workplace safety. Here's a graph on workplace deaths from the 1930s to the 2000s: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/3bJ2Gbr.png[/IMG] Notice how the trend continued without a blip when OSHA was created. It started LONG before OSHA and continued at the same rate after OSHA. With this in mind, it wouldn't make sense to say that OSHA did much of anything at all to prevent workplace death, yet I'm sure that OSHA claims to have done so based on the decreased number of deaths after the creation of OSHA.[/QUOTE] 1) OSHA prevents everything, minor all the way up to fatal accidents which your graph does not encompass. 2) nobody in the industry looks at fatalities to prove the effectiveness of safety programs. they look at number of incidents then break them down by severity because a guy can loose a handfull of fingers in a cnc machine but thats not a fatality even though it should have been something that was preventable to begin with