Tax Loopholes No Longer Patentable 278
Knowzy writes "A section of the America Invents Act disallows issuing a patent 'on a strategy for reducing, avoiding or postponing taxes,' according to Forbes. The article describes one such strategy in some detail. The USTPO has already issued 161 of these 'business method type' patents. 167 more were pending. The law only applies to future patent applications, leaving enforcement of existing patents an issue for the courts to decide."
FLAT TAX (Score:2, Insightful)
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How about a flat rate tax on wealth instead. Why should the ultra-rich be able to sit there not earning, not paying taxes, and just getting the benefit of everything they own whilst we have to defend their property, police their stupid legal disputes, deal with their garbage, clean up the results of their wastefulness etc. etc. etc.
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How do you value wealth? A lot of it is very subjective.
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Price-to-market accounting.
The idea of taxing wealth instead of income is very interesting.
Did you know that .5% of the population owns $46trillion in wealth? A 5% tax on wealth would pay off the debt and provide health care and a pension for every American over 10 years.
Total US wealth went from about $25Trillion in 1999 to $54 Trillion in 2009 and currently over $70 Trillion.
How much has your wealth increased since 2009?
Dangerous (Score:2)
First, all productive assets are wealth. Factories, land, etc. (We can then discuses if gold, big homes, fancy cars, and artwork is a productive asset, but that is for another time). So, you are taxing productive assets - which reduces their value. People will be less interested in investing in long term projects because it will be worth less.
If you do the math, because you are paying taxes every year, anything involving capital because much more expensive. It's very hard to invest in that climate. A wealth
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The problem with taxing wealth is that that makes saving impossible for everyone, even those who do not have very much.
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Because you implied that their wealth isn't benefiting society at all, which is ridiculous. In fact what your idea would encourage is people keeping their wealth off the books, which is only easy if it's in the form of cash or precious metals, in which case it does do absolutely nothing.
Oddly enough, that's what's currently happening. Anyone who does have cash is holding on to it or investing in gold.
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No I didn't. At most I implied that their wealth was benefitting society relatively less than the equivalent amount of wealth in the hands of poorer people, but that point of view would be irrelevant to what I said. What I actually said was that these people cost society much more than poor people. What I would go on further to say is that they aren't mostly willing to pay their way with Warren Buffet appearing to be an honourable exception.
Generally, however; I'm not totally convinced by any flat tax.
Re:FLAT TAX (Score:4, Insightful)
Introduce a FLAT $$$ tax - not even a percentage of one's income, just a flat $$$ amount, and call it that.
Right, so the person making $12,000 a year, who needs every single penny of their paycheck can pay exactly the same amount of tax that Bill Gates pays?
And what of people who have no income? Shall we drag them into jail for not paying their taxes, because they have absolutely no way to pay for it?
On second thought, your plan succeeds extraordinarily well in making being poor illegal; in fact, way much better than any of the numerous laws (like vagrancy) that local governments pass to making being homeless illegal. And then, once all the poor people are in jail, they'll never be able to afford paying their taxes then, so we can just keep them locked up eternally... or maybe we could just kill them all, since they're never going to get out of the grave we've already dug for them anyways. Then, maybe we could just make a protein paste out of them. You are absolutely a brilliant person, you are.
I think you're too moderate (Score:2)
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Too moderate? I'm perplexed as to how anyone could even write that based on my comment...
Does my comment say something I don't understand it to say? Surely it only speaks towards the negation of a single idea... rather than espousing any personally held ideas, so perhaps it is just the vacuum of argument allowing people to insert their own ideas into my words?
Honestly, my personal position on this matter is "tax the rich more", as they're afforded more benefits from society than any poor person will ever ex
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I'll counter: Why should the poor pay a significantly larger *percentage* of their income for healthcare than the rich?
Answer: They shouldn't. In order for healthcare to be affordable for all, the costs MUST be distributed across the whole of the population. The rich contribute more (in terms of dollars, not percentage) because they make more. It's certainly not hurting the rich, as they seem to be able to continue getting richer. The problem is the poor not being able to afford healthcare. The percentage o
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You can't use logic on this type. One told me that he saw no reason Bill Gates should pay more taxes, in dollars, than a struggling single mother.
Re:FLAT TAX (Score:4, Insightful)
And what's with this class envy nonsense? Does Buffett have class envy because he thinks the rich should pay more income tax?
Those making millions make those millions due to their own hard work, sure, but they also make them thanks to the infrastructure, security, and educational system maintained by the government, the poor, and the middle class. They should have to pay their 30+%, since they benefit from the government more then anyone else. Without government to defend them and maintain order, the rich would quickly become very poor.
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Those making millions make those millions due to their own hard work,
Many do, many don't, but all rich people's wealth was generated by others' labor. Sam Walton could not have gotten rich without an army of low-paid workers. That idiot Donald Trump could have never become rich without being born into wealth.
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Donald Trump even manages to stay rich despite his own best efforts to go broke.
(I've probably shown you this already mcgrew, but everyone else take a look)
http://www.cracked.com/blog/10-stories-about-donald-trump-you-wont-believe-are-true/ [cracked.com]
Donald Trump has the financial history of a crackhead.
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A few years ago they were advertising a book he wrote about how to get rich. What would anyone born into wealth know about getting rich?
What was that line from the last election, "born on third base and thinks he hit a triple"?
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Without government to defend them and maintain order, the rich would quickly become very poor
Ah yes, just like ye olden days, where the rich nobles cried out for strict national governance to better protect them from the peasants because without a stronger government to protect them what was a rich man with resources, arms, and mercenaries to do?!
Re:FLAT TAX (Score:4, Informative)
What world do you live in?
In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth and the top 1% owned 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth.
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GP said "income/wealth," but meant "income," since we are taxed on income, and not on our ability to save and invest money.
Capital gains aren't taxed? Funny, I seem to hear about the rich complaining about that tax a lot...
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Wealth Tax is based on how much stuff you have. Think property tax. The bigger (in $$) the property, the more taxes you pay. It does not matter if you made money on the property.
Capital Gains is not a wealth tax. You only pay after you recognize (i.e. sold) the property.
The difference in these 2 types of taxes can have a huge impact.
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I'm saying that those who expect people w/ higher incomes to pay more have class envy, regardless of what they're actually earning. It's the attitude that qualifies it.
Or maybe you don't understand other people's thinking nearly as well as you think you do.
Statistically, it's been demonstrated that the top 5% of all income earners pay 50% of all taxes, while the bottom 70% pay less than 5% of all taxes. And it's not even like the top 5% has 50% of all the income/wealth, however one wants to see it - it's more like 20%.
Any time you start a statement with "Statistically ...", you'd better be ready to back up your claims with something more than a bunch of hand-wavey numbers. Speaking as a statistician, I'd like to see your sources and your methodology. If you have any.
Also, your statement that without the government defending them, the rich would quickly become poor, you're suggesting that the government is/should be an extortion racket, like the mafia.
Um, no, he's describing the way the world works. Without effective government, out-and-out extortion rackets -- with all of the government's power and ruthlessness, bu
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But that's true whenever anybody pays for anything. When you buy, say, a car, you are automatically paying a much higher percentage of your income on the car than Buffet is.
That's exactly my point... The poor pay a higher percentage in sales tax, so the rich pay a higher percentage in income tax. Nothing wrong with that...
And whoever said anything about Buffet having class envy - I'm saying that those who expect people w/ higher incomes to pay more have class envy, regardless of what they're actually earning. It's the attitude that qualifies it.
Read what I wrote again, and read what Buffett wrote. You're saying that Buffett has class envy (because he thinks the rich should pay more in taxes). Regardless, stop with this class warfare nonsense. It's not class warfare, it's not punishing the successful, it's about making everyone pay their share of taxes. When Warren Buffett pays a lower % in taxes t
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The problem with the original poster's idea of a flat amount that everyone pays is that if it is set at an amount that everyone can pay, it does not add up to anywhere near enough money. The federal budget is s
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That's only true if you conveniently leave out payroll taxes, which now amount to well over 40% of all Federal tax revenues.
And the people at the bottom pay a much higher percentage of payroll taxes than those at the top.
Before you ask, here [motherjones.com]
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So if that person making $12,000 a year pays $2 for a bottle of coke, Gates should pay what? $2,000? $2,000,000? Incidentally, good job with the class envy & the scare mongering.
A person making $12,000 a year is likely buying their $2 bottle of coke on foodstamps provided by the government in the first place. So, really, they're paying about $0 for a bottle of coke out of their income.
And this "class envy" that you purpose is not an imagined thing, nor an opinion. What happens to people who cannot pay taxes? Oh yeah, they rack up a bill so high that they can't pay it, and eventually either settle for something that they can pay, or end up in jail for tax evasion. So, let me ask you
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Right, no one could possibly live off of $1000 a year. You know, looking back on it, if you exclude foodstamps, I've earned not a single penny in income. I don't live under a bridge (because I have carrying friends and family, who wouldn't let that happen), and get food entirely through foodstamps.
Your solution sounds so great, because it is so simple, but fact is that it will not actually work. It fundamentally punishes people for being poor, which is generally beyond their power to control. And it complet
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You know, looking back on it, if you exclude foodstamps, I've earned not a single penny in income
I think this sentence needs some clarification.
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You know, looking back on it, if you exclude foodstamps, I've earned not a single penny in income
I think this sentence needs some clarification.
Over the previous year.
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(Although, if you display this kind of communication skill on your CV and in interviews, no further explanation is necessary...)
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Because...
(Although, if you display this kind of communication skill on your CV and in interviews, no further explanation is necessary...)
... what purpose do you have for knowing the precise reasons behind me not having any income? Perhaps I'm a housewife, who doesn't work. Perhaps I'm a disabled person, who is unable to work. The reason bears little relevance to my point at hand, that a flat value tax applied universally to all citizens would exceed the income of some individuals.
That you would insist that you have a right to pry into my life and have me justify the reason why I don't have any income is kind of offensive. (Yes, I explained i
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"what purpose do you have for knowing the precise reasons behind me not having any income?"
He enjoys beating down on the poor, that is clear from his stance and enjoys hearing of their misery. He also wants to justify to himself that it could not happen to him. Nothing he has said shows any insight or understanding; he instead feels better about himself and his failures by
Re:FLAT TAX (Score:4, Interesting)
Right, no one could possibly live off of $1000 a year. You know, looking back on it, if you exclude foodstamps, I've earned not a single penny in income. I don't live under a bridge (because I have carrying friends and family, who wouldn't let that happen), and get food entirely through foodstamps...
You've never earned anything other than food stamps? Seriously? How much longer do you expect your "carrying" friends and family to continue doing so?
As noted below, there was information missing. The lack of income comment was over the previous year. I have earned money before, and I've paid more well than my fair share of taxes. (How have I pay more than my fair share? Well, I had the opportunity for a full refund, and decided instead to not file taxes as my income had not exceeded the amount that makes filing mandatory. What you read is correct, I was below the poverty line and still paid my goddamn taxes. I walk the walk, not just talk the talk.)
I think there was a system in the older times prior to currency, where people exchanged goods and services in exchange for other goods and services directly. As it turns out that living with a brother and his bachelor roommates presents plenty of opportunity for one to justify the charity provided by providing cleaning.
As also noted, I am currently applying for disability, as I am unable to work. (Yes, I've tried.) That is why I lack any income. It's kind of difficult to have an income, when one is unable to work. (But you said you're cleaning to earn your room and board; no, I said it justifies my charity, not that it is sufficient to fully offset the monetary value that I am receiving.)
It amazes me that people in America love to jump to the assumption that anyone receiving government assistance is simply inept and lazy. As if every person earns their rightful place in society of their own achievements. As if Bill Gates were born in a cave with parents who use stone tools, yet managed to claw his way to the top reinventing everything about math and computers himself to produce Microsoft DOS... what am I taking about? Even "stone tools" is an advantage that many homo sapiens may not have even had. ... or wait, maybe there's a remote possibility that Bill Gates was born into a family, where the father was a noted and well respected lawyer, and thus born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I mean, it just wouldn't be the American "conquer all" story that we so love if he were born into the top 10% of society, and clawed his way up to the pinnacle. I mean, because likely larger than 50% of the people are born into families that earn under the mean income of the society, so we obviously want to look at someone born into that disadvantaged substrate and yet managed to claw their way to the top... except, you know, they're exceedingly rare, like less than 0.01% of those born into the under 50% population, so we simply hold this dangling carrot in front of the laboring masses with sweat poisonous words of "you can get there, too! just try harder!" All the while knowledgeable that it is simply an impossibility that each person who works every day to the bone could not possibly make it into the top 10% of the population.
But then, Americans do so love that mirage in the distance... after all, we sell it like it's bottled water, and the Americans just lap it right up. "I'm going to work hard so I can be a billionaire!" Keep dreaming Jimmy... keep dreaming.
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As also noted, I am currently applying for disability, as I am unable to work. ... you're cleaning to earn your room and board...
Sorry to hear you're out of work and injured.
Those two sentences might come back to haunt you in your attempt to qualify for disability. It sounds like you're able to perform some amount of work, just not in your chosen profession.
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With taxes, they don't get to pick that, but to base that on either their income or wealth is a disincentive for them being either high-earning or rich.
That's the dumbest thing I've seen all week. "What? I can't have ten bottles of coke, I can only have nine? Screw that, I'll go thirsty!"
Unfortunate that so many people are idiotic enough to believe that stupid lie.
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No, Bill Gates should pay absolutely nothing, because if Bill Gates had attempted to make his empire while paying a flat tax, he would be now flat broke, and most probably swinging from roof beam by the neck.
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So if that person making $12,000 a year pays $2 for a bottle of coke, Gates should pay what? $2,000? $2,000,000?
Gates would pay $2, the poor person would drink a $0.05 glass of water.
Nobody is forcing you to buy coke bottles, but government IS forcing you to pay tax.
Re:FLAT TAX (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah nobody's forcing you to buy food or shelter, or any of the things practically required to be employed (like communications or transportation), or any of that basic stuff that eats up almost all of your income if you're poor. Nobody's forcing you to live, you can just curl up in a gutter and die. See, no force!
Pure capitalism is the most horrific of all economic systems, because it allows for any of the horrors of any other system, as long as it's done by leaving it as your only feasible option rather than forcing. What other systems do with jackboots, an angry frown and open hostility, capitalism does with a business suit, a pearly-white smile and a liberal application of the just world fallacy.
This is why capitalism should be well-regulated. You don't want to be anywhere near pure capitalism. It's like nuclear energy: A powerful force can be good for us with oversight and moderation, or can fuck up our shit worse than anything else if we are so much as negligent.
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So if that person making $12,000 a year pays $2 for a bottle of coke, Gates should pay what? $2,000
Actually, that's how it is now. Rich people pay $5 for a cup of Starbucks coffee, the middle class $1 for McDonalds, the poor five cents for Folgers.
The rich buy a Lamborghini, middle class a Chevy, the poor get a ten year old beater (or take the bus).
I can't tell if you're trolling or just stupid.
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The whole issue is that the rich are becoming richer must faster than the rest of the economy.. aka middle/lower classes.
As the rich gain money, the middle class is getting gutted, which means you have fewer and fewer people that can afford "luxury" items. As less and less money moves around and demand drops, the value of money falls out and the cost of living goes up. As demand drops, jobs start to disappear. More and more middle/lower are jobless.At some point, no one, other than the rich, can actually af
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I don't see the difference b/w charging people based on their income/wealth, vs Lenin's 'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'.
Did you know that Lenin also recommended that people breathe regularly and drink fluids at least occasionally. Think about it.
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The kind of taxes we are talking about don't apply to commerce goods, because it's very difficult to let a store know how much your last year income was.
Anyway, let's suppose we set a
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How about letting them trade not being able to vote for tax relief? Let's re-institute the poll tax! ~sarcasm
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I like the cut of your jib, send me your resume and I can get you a job writing for Fox News.
Since when does Fox News argue for poor people? I would make a horrible contributor at Fox News, particularly owing to being a member of the Socialist Party USA.
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This is Slashdot. Don't you know that the rich deserve every penny that they have, and the poor CHOSE to be that way?
Right, so they deserve to be imprisoned if they don't pay the $13,000 each [outsidethebeltway.com] in tax that the flat rate would have to be to maintain current levels of revenue. The above figure assumes that children are also paying - after all they did decide whether or not to be born into a wealthy family.
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Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Riding through the land
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Without a merry band
He steals from the poor. And gives to the rich
Stupid bitch.
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With a few modifications your moronic plan might work:
They should abolish income taxes (too easy for the rich to dodge) and do it all via sales tax. Rich people buy more stuff so they'll pay more. People who are sensible with their money will pay less than the people who max out their credit cards. It's all good.
Sales tax is a lot harder to cheat than income tax and having a simple tax system will save a lot of money in itself.
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With a few modifications your moronic plan might work:
They should abolish income taxes (too easy for the rich to dodge) and do it all via sales tax.
Sales tax is a lot harder to cheat than income tax and having a simple tax system will save a lot of money in itself.
Not really - what do you tax - the sales price or the value, such as the MSRP? People would just use creative ways to delink the selling "price" from the revenue received for big ticket purchases.
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How about a fixed percentage sales tax then? Not "more expensive, less percentage", but every product has the same percentage of tax. Perhaps give living essentials (i.e. milk, bread) a lower tax product, but anything not strictly essential to stay alive a fixed tax.
This is how most of europe handles sales tax already.
In my country (Netherlands) I pay about 20% on luxury goods (whether it's shoes or a jet airplane) and 6% on essential goods (which doesn't even include luxury food articles). There are some a
Re:FLAT TAX (Score:4, Interesting)
The rich actually spend proportionally much less. E.g. if you have your own estate, with your own servants and your own cooks, you have food cooked for you based on local produce. This makes a meal which would cost hundreds of dollars per person but, since it's all your own property, you don't buy it and so you don't pay sales tax.
If you or I go on holiday, we go to some resort where we pay for everything; every little bit of water you use ends up being taxed. When Richard Branson goes on holiday he flys in his own jet to his own island and the only sales taxable expense is his jet fuel. When his rich friends do the same they go to his island sometimes, and he comes to their islands in exchange other times. In a sense this is completely fair. I would get annoyed if you tried to tax me for having friends over for dinner rather than going to a restaurant, but the scale of the thing means that in the end, the really rich show much less income compared to the resources they use than you or I and pay even less tax.
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Please tell; how high do you imagine such a "flat $$$ tax" would be?
I can't imagine any flat tax low enough to be reasonably asked of minimum wage workers and still be high enough to fund an entire country.
The coke bottle has the same price, but you can just choose to buy a cheaper brand or different type of fizzy drink.
Will people be able to pay the tax of a cheaper government brand or a different type of government altogether?
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Price discrimination is not illegal and it's not uncommon. In cases where fixed costs dominate replication costs, it can be necessary to be profitable in a competitive marketplace.
Usually it doesn't happen for a bottle of coke at one store, because that's cheap and the store can't verify your wealth (I've heard of "food stamps" in the US but I'm not familiar with what they are really or if they apply here), but the store down the road which markets to people with higher salaries often has more expensive bo
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It's legal, but it's hard to think of any meaningful competitive retail environment where you could actually get away with charging more to a subset of customers unless you somehow managed to provide more value than competitors charging less. If I want to charge wealthy people $5 for a can of diet Coke, but sell the same can to poor customers for a nickel, and the store next door sells it for a dollar, chances are that most of the people I'd try to charge $5 will go next door and buy it there instead.
For an
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There was a big stink years ago about the airlines and/or some of the major online retailers trying 'demographic-based pricing'.
I experienced this just the other day. I went to a local restaurant supply store and bought a bunch of stuff. Since I was a first-time customer, he gave me an instant 10% discount. No one else in the store would've gotten the discount on those or any other items even if they were first time customers as well. I was just more charismatic, I guess. :-)
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It is legal, and done. Usually it's done in the name of charity in fact. KFC here in my country has a promo on at the moment where if you buy a meal over a certain amount they donate a meal to charity. Effectively - they are charging me full price, and giving the same product to somebody else for free (based on income) - not only do they do so legally, they do it as a marketing tool. The idea being that when I choose where to get take-out I may say "I would rather go to KFC and feed somebody else who is hu
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The taxes are not there to pay the price of something, they are there so everyone in charged according to his or her abilities. People who get more money can pay more of that (in percent) than the poor. It is like the health system (in Europe) everyone with money pays according to his or her income and everyone gets the same insurance totally independent from the money they give. this is what a society does when they care for each other. The strong help the weak.
And the tax system is modeled accordingly. Ho
The fact that tax loopholes were patentable (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that tax loopholes were patentable is disturbing in itself..
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You'd think a government would WANT a thing like that patented...get it locked down and lawyers chasing people who used the method. /Not entirely sure how you find the people infringing on your patent...
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1. They think that allowing patents on tax loophole methods will actually advance the art of tax loopholes.
2. They want to be sure that their corporate buddies don't have any trouble using tax loopholes.
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Bribe someone working at the IRS to look for certain "patterns" - of course, the bribe'd have to be sufficient to justify the prison sentence for "releasing" said info - but considering the probable patent infringement penalties/lawsuit payouts, one could afford a few IRS Agents every so often...
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Re:The fact that tax loopholes were patentable (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact the government should take a tip from open source and offer bounties for tax loopholes.. pay the discoverer a set fee (or percentage of estimated revenue!) then close it.
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Well, there goes a way to get rid of tax loopholes (Score:3)
So does this mean that before this, the government could have patented the loophole structures, thus closing them?
Interesting example of the system getting so complicated it bites itself in the tail.
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The government doesn't need patent law to enforce its ideas - it just says "no" and the thing is illegal in itself. Plus, patents would only work if the government was first to publish it, they'd be useless for closing existing holes.
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Sort of. What it means is that instead of folks filing for patents on loopholes, thus making it difficult for others to copy that method (and thus at least partially closing them), Congress has gone and made is so that anyone can use any new tax loophole method (keeping them wide open).
let's exapand this to all law... (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose a tax loophole is nothing more then a clever application of the law, right?
So, forget about tax laws, take a simple example traffic rules.
Well, then I'm filing a patent for stopping at a red light: everyone that stops at a red light must pay me 1$.
This is exactly the same as a patent on a tax loophole: the application of laws.
You must pay the patent holder for using a specific tax loophole, which is just an application of the law.
Now I'm making you all paying for applying another law.
Patents are hilarious and disastrous.
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You can cry all you want about how ridiculous the system is, as long as there are lawyers with lawmaking friends in the government which make money off of it, there isn't going to change anything.
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Stopping at a redlight can be considered a loophole to avoid paying the fine. Thus you should pay a royalty
Not stopping at a red light can be considered as a loophole to avoid paying the royalty, thus you should pay a royalty.
Extend for non binary decisions and enjoy!!
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Stopping at a redlight can be considered a loophole to avoid paying the fine. Thus you should pay a royalty Not stopping at a red light can be considered as a loophole to avoid paying the royalty, thus you should pay a royalty.
Extend for non binary decisions and enjoy!!
Quick patent it. Then nobody will be able to stop at a red light without paying you.
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Don't stand between a congressman and your taxes (Score:3)
LOL Congress. Stand near their dinner bowl and your Congressman will spring into action. Yet Submarine Patents and Patent Trolling are still legal. The USPTO continues to approve the stupid, trivial and obvious patents and those written in such ridiculous language that no one knows what they mean. The USPTO leaves it to the courts to sort out the mess for them, with $500 an hour lawyers who will argue adamantly for whoever is paying them. (They should have a rule in Patent Law suits that half-way the lawyers change sides)
But seriously: A startup hit by a Patent Troll will spend $1M to $5M to fight it off. How does bogging down startups like this help America invent? It doesn't. Congress have known about this for years but won't do lift a finger. But a tax dodging patent? Suddenly their outraged cannot be contained!
Re:Don't stand between a congressman and your taxe (Score:4, Interesting)
But seriously: A startup hit by a Patent Troll will spend $1M to $5M to fight it off. How does bogging down startups like this help America invent? It doesn't.
Patents were never designed to do any such thing. It may have been post hoc rationalized as something to increase inventiveness, and honestly, I don't think there is any compelling data supporting either side.
Patents were intended to give a person an exclusive right to produce a new invention and make money off of it. Thus, patents are about greedily hording inventions and technology away from others in exchange for disclosing how they actually work, so that later (100s of years) that information would not have gone to your grave with you. (Like many kinds of stained glass that we no longer know how to make, because no one passed it on.)
It's basic purpose is to exploit greed to provide a benefit to mankind at a later date... this of course has the obvious effect of stunting the development and innovation cycle, because you can't use other people's ideas once they're actually available. I read an interesting piece about fashion, as it turns out that one cannot patent, copyright, or trademark fashion designs, and thus anyone can just steal an idea from someone else. Yet, they have a vibrant, active, and rapid development cycle. Of course it also renders old things "out of fashion" quite quickly as well, as soon everyone will have it, if it is popular enough.
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It wasn't hundreds of years, the time span was originally pretty short and got extended (20 years in the US now I believe). The issue in the IT sector is that after such a long time span, the inventions are irrelevant. Nobody cares about patents that are only applicable to 5MHz supercomputers nowadays.
Yes, I was exaggerating, and you're absolutely right that the obsolescence rate of patents in electronics is increasing far faster than the expiration rate of patents, so when thy finally expire, they're essentially worthless. (N.B. there are a lot of people who are eager to build NES and SNES systems as soon as the patents expire. But this is far more of a "niche" interest than actual interest in advancing technology, and innovation.)
I remember in my history of engineering class, they talked about how the
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Hmm the GIF patents expiring were a pretty big deal (but not due to the technological superiority, just because everyone had a lot of those files) and Apple's expired font hinting [wikipedia.org] patents are still relevant as well, but those are the only ones I can remember, which is a pretty bad ratio for the number of software patents expiring all of the time.
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Hmm the GIF patents expiring were a pretty big deal (but not due to the technological superiority, just because everyone had a lot of those files) and Apple's expired font hinting [wikipedia.org] patents are still relevant as well, but those are the only ones I can remember, which is a pretty bad ratio for the number of software patents expiring all of the time.
True, I will say that the things that truly deserve to be patentable will be relevant once the patent expires. Perhaps that would be a better test for patentability? "Will this invention still be relevant once the patent expires?"
Of course, much like making the perfect task scheduler for a computer requires it to be prescient, I doubt such a question would actually be workable...
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A patent examiner I know told me that they get patent applications for devices that do things like this all of the time ;)
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Patents were never designed to do any such thing. It may have been post hoc rationalized as something to increase inventiveness
In the US, at least, this just isn't true, since the legal justification for patents (and copryights, and trademarks) is spelled out in the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts ..." It's true, of course, that any rational person can now see that the arcane, jerry-rigged, and corrupt body of IP law doesn't actually work to that end, but the intention was clear enough. And in fact, I'd argue that patents on physical inventions do serve the stated purpose. It's when we allow pa
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So, patents never existed prior to the US Constitution, so thereby, when declared in the US Constitution it declares clearly the purpose and design of patents ab initio?
Or could it be that the post hoc rationalization of the purpose of the patent (as a meme) already existed, and was widely already propagated by the time the US Constitution was written, and that in a vein attempt to convince themselves of the purpose of a tool, they declare it loudly and explicitly without regard to the original design?
You k
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What it means is that they were added to the constitution with that in mind. Without being in the constitution it would be less likely that patents would exist in the US.
Or are you just making a post hoc rationalization for why the original post was correct by changing the parameters and hoping that nobody notices?
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(Like many kinds of stained glass that we no longer know how to make, because no one passed it on.)
(...)
this of course has the obvious effect of stunting the development and innovation cycle, because you can't use other people's ideas once they're actually available
So how exactly could you use that stained glass technique? Oh right, it was never made available. If it had been patented, it must have been disclosed immediately, it'd be a monopoly on them for 20 years but people could understand what you did and start thinking of improvements or variations that wouldn't be covered.
And there is really the biggest reason I don't think patents have much value anymore, who actually reads patents to learn something? Nobody, just lawyers and patent trolls. If there's no trade
Haven't submarines been sunk? (Score:2)
Yet Submarine Patents..... are still legal.
How are (new) submarine patents possible? AFAIU, a few years ago the USPTO came in to line with the rest (or at least most) of the world in that a patent application automatically becomes public 18 months after filing. Prior to that, (again AFAIU), it only became public when granted, and hence submariners would keep tweaking their application so it stayed in the exam process until a time that suited them.
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Humorous. (Score:2)
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People were filing the patents, but when was the last time anybody successfully used the patents in court?
omg (Score:2)
"Tax Loopholes No Longer Patentable"
OMG.
please, make it stop (Score:2)
OMG, I wish there was a patent on making lame jokes (of the form: I wish there was a patent on XXX). Then assholes (like me) who make these pathetic attempts at humour would get sued into bankruptcy. I know there's no shortage of prior art (see any /. thread mentioning patents for last 10 years), but that never stopped anyone.
This is a bad thing! (Score:2)
Tax loophole patents are great! (Score:2)
Tax loophole patents are great!
The problem isn't the patents, it's the fact that loopholes exist at all.
At least patenting the loopholes makes sure the tax office knows what tricks are used, making it easier the close them.
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Loopholes are simply the result of a lousy judicial system.
The problem is that the law has become a game. Whether an action harms society is not important - only whether you can successfully argue that it isn't covered by the law.
I know somebody who teaches ethics and he says that lawyers are the worst students. They'll come up with scenarios and ask for a "ruling" on whether it is ethical. Then they'll tweak some aspect of the scenario and repeat the question, with the goal of optimizing the scenario to
Opportunism at work here (Score:2)
I sense a teeny weeny bit of opportunism at work here.
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No, it doesn't put them out of a job. And where it does, the money stays in companies that are trying to innovate. For each lawyer that leaves employment, you'll probably have 10 more in productive companies that don't lose their job as their company doesn't get bogged down in a legal mire over spurious claims.
If some part of the system is broken (and it is), fix it. This may be the first of the cracks in the "Business Process" patent crap tht starts the path to getting the ridiculously inappropriate sof
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Now the world will be mine - bwahaaahaaaah
I'm sure people will have difficulty finding prior art on that one....