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Some notable stuff: - Corporate tax rate increases by 7% for all businesses - 30% excise tax on electricity costs associated with crypto mining
by nullbyte 3y ago
Some notable stuff:
- Corporate tax rate increases by 7% for all businesses
- 30% excise tax on electricity costs associated with crypto mining
- fddrdplktrew 3y agocorporate tax increases will just get passed on to consumers... And mining taxes on power usage is just ridiculous... why don't you add an extra tax on gold used for jewelry too? and luxury cars, yachts, and anything that isn't really useful?
- Retric 3y agoTaxing profits can't directly be passed on to consumers because the point of profit maximization remains unchanged. IE if a restaurant makes more money charging 25$ for a meal than 30$ then increasing prices simply reduces profits. What gets passed on is things that increase costs for the industry like property taxes. If every landlord in the city pays an extra 50$ a month/unit in property taxes you bet rent's going up to compensate.
- fddrdplktrew 3y agoI don't think that's true in the medium term... definitely not in the long term... and maybe not even in the short term.
- ProjectArcturis 3y agoYour airtight logic astounds me.
- fddrdplktrew 3y agothnaks
- Retric 3y agoThink it though. If you could make more money long term while using cheaper ingredients or similar cost saving measure then what's to stop you from doing that without the tax increase?
- kelnos 3y agoDepending on the circumstances, that's a big "if". If your not-so-cheap ingredients are one of your restaurant's selling points (even if not explicitly), using cheaper ingredients could reduce your sales such that the savings turns out to be a wash, or a waste. I think this happens all the time: it's not uncommon to see a restaurant review that goes something like, "I'd been coming here for years, but the quality of food has gone down recently". Granted, you don't know why: maybe they switched to cheaper ingredients, or maybe they got some new cooks that prepare things poorly (or even just differently), etc. But some type of cost-cutting measure could be to blame. And if that person -- and others (and perhaps potential new customers who see the recent bad reviews) -- stops visiting or visits less frequently, those cost-cutting measures may turn out to not have been worth it.
- makeworld 3y agoTrue in theory, but in practice the tax increase can act as a collusion signal for the entire industry to raise prices all at once. Arguably food price inflation has been like this. Clearly the market can withstand it if everyone moves together. All this is not to say that taxes should never be increased of course.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nickff 3y agoTaxing profits is similar (but not identical) to taxing all investment returns. From the company’s perspective, it reduces the value of domestic corporations to investors (thus advantaging foreign corporations). From the individual’s perspective, it reduces investment incomes (including those funding retirement accounts). In this way, it is passed on. From another point of view, individuals (are supposed to) react to taxes by reducing 'luxury' spending, but businesses don't enjoy luxuries, only their investors do.
- Retric 3y agoTaxing profits would be equivalent to taxing investment returns except foreign inverters don't pay US income taxes. It's therefore advantages for US taxpayers to Tax companies operating in the US.
- kelnos 3y agoWell, it depends: if the restaurant is able to keep the same number of meals per day with a price point of $30, then they still make more at $30 than at $25, even with a higher tax. It's just you can't blanket assume that a particular price point is going to increase or decrease sales until you try it, so...
- Retric 3y agoThe example was presupposing a profit maximizing price. Of course businesses should optimize what they charge, but the incentives exist independent of minor changes to the US tax code.
- ryandrake 3y ago> why don't you add an extra tax on gold used for jewelry too? and luxury cars, yachts, and anything that isn't really useful? These are all really good ideas... Great comment!
- fddrdplktrew 3y agoAlso, they are already taxing crypto transactions. (They are treated like stocks in the USA)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sidewndr46 3y agoHow about any private jet with a politician on board?
- fddrdplktrew 3y agoor https://mastodon.social/@elonjet https://mastodon.social/@elonjet
- hombre_fatal 3y agoThen how about a luxury that you wouldn’t want to give up like eating meat, which is far more wasteful than eating plants directly? Or any of the other luxuries you take for granted?
- PlunderBunny 3y agoThe slippery slope has meat at the end!
- nickthegreek 3y agoBitcoin and food. Totally comparable. Also, food is under way more regulation than crypto.
- pwg 3y ago> why don't you add an extra tax on ... yachts They tried that, back in November 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_tax#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_tax#United_States It covered more than just yachts, but the biggest loser was the yacht industry, which saw sales plummet: [quoting wikipedia]: The federal government estimated that it would raise $9 billion in excess revenues over the following five-year period. However, only two years after its imposition, in August 1993, at the behest of the luxury yacht industry, President Bill Clinton and Congress eliminated the "luxury tax" citing a loss in jobs.[6] Atwood, Liz. "Boat dealers predict sales increase Luxury tax repeal helps ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY BUSINESS". baltimoresun.com. Retrieved 23 August 2019. [end wikipedia quote] It turns out that luxuries are just that, luxuries, and the rich were more than willing to "do without" yet another yacht (or other luxury good) while the tax was on the books, and the tax never netted the "budget gains" its proponents predicted it would net, due to sales of all the taxed goods dropping off precipitously.
- ProjectArcturis 3y agoIsn't it still a win for the economy if the production that would have been wasted on yachts is instead invested to further increase productivity?
- i_like_waiting 3y agoHow is building yachts for people who demand it more wasteful than producing perfumes, collectibles or nicer lamps? Who gets to decide what is waste as long as there is demand?
- ryandrake 3y agoIn a democracy, ultimately the public should get to decide. Even if "taxing yachts" is not a win for the economy it might be a win for society. The USA is way too timid when it comes to using the tax code to incentivize and shape companies' and people's behavior. We really need to "re-internalize" the costs that big business and the rich externalize onto the public, and one way to do this is to impose very narrowly-directed taxes at things that the public bears but doesn't benefit from.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoThe “luxury car” label gets applied to anything that isn’t aggressively cost cut IMO. True excessive luxury cars do exist, but the label is basically meaningless at this point.
- ripjaygn 3y ago> corporate tax increases will just get passed on to consumers... Like how the corporate tax decreases in 2018 got passed on to consumers...right? Don't we all remember the big deflation in the past 6 years? And all that money was totally not used for stock buybacks and what not, right?
- whalesalad 3y agotrying to wrap my head around how this would be enforced. what if 51% of your server duties are handling API requests for your SAAS or some bullshit product, and 49% is crypto? is your electric bill crypto related or is that just something you do with idle power? or you start a company that builds battery storage to accumulate energy off-peak for some admirable "green purposes" - meanwhile another company (that you own) is a customer of this and uses power from that storage facility "free of charge" since it is a humble research project. so many ways to loophole this. power is power, if you are paying for it you should be able to use it how you please. considering marijuana is federally illegal, shouldn't power for grow operations be treated the same way? it's a slippery slope. if they want to disincentivize crypto they need to do something about the tragic state of the us dollar.
- 8note 3y agoIf I was the tax man, I'd tell you to stop trying to evade taxes by mixing your traffic together, and charge you on the whole lot
- appletrotter 3y agoDiesel is diesel, if you're paying for it you should be able to use it as you please... (don't look up what red diesel is if you don't want your bubble popped)
- whalesalad 3y agoThe red diesel argument fuels mine. We need to move away from taxing fuel to generate road revenue and do that in a use tax especially now that EV’s are taking over. This is a current debate right now.
- dboreham 3y agoDefinitely charge an extra tax if you're using Ruby...
- singhrac 3y agoYou're treating the law like a set of programmable rules, where in fact it is not. If you operate a "partial" crypto operation like you said, the IRS will ask you to open your books and show them how you account for your power usage. I see this time and time again, but public officials aren't idiots. The IRS aren't idiots. Broad, non-specific laws are enforceable. Eventually the burden will be on you to prove you're not doing anything illegal. Fun fact: the vast majority of people who would make arguments like this are hiding an illegal crypto operation.
- dboreham 3y ago> 30% excise tax on electricity costs associated with crypto mining Curious how you measure that electrons are flowing towards silicon calculating hash functions but only hash functions where the output is not used 99.99% of the time but once in a while goes into a bitcoin block.
- throwaway345353 3y agoI imagine it's like how weed grow houses don't have snow on the roof in winter, it's kind of hard to hide a MW scale bitcoin mining operation.