San Francisco Proposes 'IPO Tax' On Eve of Uber Offering (axios.com) 164
"San Francisco voters this November will be asked to approve a corporate tax increase on stock-based compensation from 0.38% to 1.5%," reports Axios. Since the rate hike would be retroactive to May 7, it would apply to Uber's recent $8 billion IPO. From a report: San Francisco Board of Supervisor Gordon Mar said six supervisors are supporting the ordinance -- the minimum number needed to get the measure on the Nov. 5 ballot. The full board is expected to vote on the plan within the next two months. At least two-thirds of voters would need to support the proposal for it to pass. Mar's proposal calls for raising the stock-based compensation tax from 0.38 percent to 1.5 percent. That increase would generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the city. The tax is levied on San Francisco companies when employees who receive stock as part of their compensation decide to cash in those shares on the public markets or on secondary markets.
But Mar's proposed ordinance concerns the Bay Area Council, which advocates for businesses. "There's no version of this poorly conceived scheme that would get our support," said Rufus Jeffris, a spokesman for the Bay Area Council. "And if the BOS approves putting this misguided proposal on the ballot, we believe voters will communicate the same message." The Bay Area Council is concerned that the higher tax would discourage investment, innovation and jobs in the region.
But Mar's proposed ordinance concerns the Bay Area Council, which advocates for businesses. "There's no version of this poorly conceived scheme that would get our support," said Rufus Jeffris, a spokesman for the Bay Area Council. "And if the BOS approves putting this misguided proposal on the ballot, we believe voters will communicate the same message." The Bay Area Council is concerned that the higher tax would discourage investment, innovation and jobs in the region.
Tax them all (Score:3, Funny)
Orange man bad! money bad! give it all to the ever wise government of the orange man!
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Your position is just as bad. I could characterize it as "tax bad! let me keep it all! don't need any government services!" but that would be disingenuous. Presumably you agree that there needs to be some taxation so really it's a debate over the level.
As for Trump, he doesn't seem to have a particularly good grasp of concepts like tariffs or profit... Oh sorry, it was all a scheme to avoid paying a bit of income tax by losing billions. Only a very stable genius could come up with a plan like that.
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Doesn't go to Trump. This is San Francisco. Democrats that have run the city so pooly as they always do people are shitting on the side walks get the money.
Re:I'd rather have it in the hands of a democratic (Score:5, Insightful)
You can individually stop using Jeff Bezos' stuff. Your vote, as one vote among 100 million for President, is meaningless. You can't vote anyone out of office, you need to convince many other people to act as well. But you individually can stop using a company's products, listening to their news, buying from their stores, etc... any time you want to.
The proof is that you specifically already want to vote Trump out of office (didn't want him there in the first place, in fact), but you haven't been able to, have you? Yet I haven't read an article on a specific local newspaper's site since the day they decided to switch to a messed-up paywall. Only took me a second to decide and implement my decision.
Also, mandatory voting just leads to worse voting results, as you start forcing the people who don't actually care about the candidates or issue to go vote anyway, where they may cast a vote in complete ignorance.
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You can individually stop using Jeff Bezos' stuff.
But you can't stop him interfering with politics, making laws to his advantage, and having much too much influence just because he's rich. A politician can be stopped: if a majority of people dislike his actions, they can vote him out. You can't do this with a rich man (and no, not using Amazon won't help - I expect he has long ago diversified his holdings). That means politicians have a modicum of motivation to act in the majority's interest which a rich person doesn't have.
You can't vote anyone out of office, you need to convince many other people to act as well
I know, right? It's almost like
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You only said one thing worth responding to. The issue with money. Which is why we ned to take the money out of politics. Same with the insider trading. If $Richman cant pay for $Politicians re-election then he cant demand special rules. And thats just touching the tip.
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Easiest way to get money out of politics is to eliminate the Congressional waiver on insider trading. If you or I get a hot stock tip from a CEO, we (and the CEO) go to jail for insider trading. If you're a Congressman, you're golden - no charge possible.
Buying politicians isn't about donations, it's about telling them how your stock is going to change in the next few months so they can buy or short accordingly and make money. Or it's "contributing" a billion dollars to a rookie VC fund of the son of a s
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Thank you for elaborating on my point. Im on a shitty tablet at work so its hard to type when threads are longer than about 50 comments.
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and he cannot kill me without repercussion
I'm pretty sure Bezos could have you murdered if he wanted.
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Without repercussion? If he's identified as the man who paid for a murder, he is exempt from prosecution?
I think $100,000,000,000 would allow him to find a way to elude the authorities. People are hired for murder and get away with it much, much less.
Re: I'd rather have it in the hands of a democrati (Score:2)
Also, mandatory voting just leads to worse voting results, as you start forcing the people who don't actually care about the candidates or issue to go vote anyway, where they may cast a vote in complete ignorance.
So you cast an invalid/empty ballot. Big fucking deal. Ask the Belgians.
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Hence the word "may" in that sentence.
Sure, some people will recognize their ignorance and cast an empty/invalid ballot.
We're talking about the odds, though, and how they change the resulting total votes. How many people do you know who are ignorant about something recognize their own ignorance and care enough about voting to not actually vote when standing in front of a ballot and care little enough about voting that they wouldn't have taken the time to show up if it wasn't mandatory? Sure, there are a few
You're taking a dim view of humanity (Score:1, Offtopic)
If you look at the polls I think folks are on the right side of history. They by and large support healthcare as a right, want to end wars, want to legalize drugs instead of punishing non violent drug offenders. We have ample evidence [youtube.com] that the drug war and our prison indu [cnn.com]
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Yes, using elite voting blocks who's votes "count more" is voter suppression.
No, it's not. But that wasn't an election anyway, that was a political party following its own processes to choose who to put forward as a presidential candidate.
That their processes are flawed isn't good; that they subverted their own processes to assure a specific candidate was selected feels more of a betrayal towards their party members.
It was implied (Score:2)
The sardonic tone of the entire post changes the meaning of the above post.
On a side note, you can't just "individually stop buying". 7 companies own pretty much everything. We stopped enforcing anti-trust law in the 90s and rampant consolidation means you have few choices. AT&T literally merged it's way back to where it was pre-breakup. More importantly a small group all sits on the same boards of directors and invest in the same compa
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So you would hire 2 more poop patrols?
That'll show Trump.
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That's the real reason why we used to have a top marginal of 90%. It was a check on power.
Do the math. Adjusted for population and inflation, people today pay TWICE the tax rate to the Federal Government as was paid back in the 50s and 60s, when we had those 90% marginal rates. Deductions were much larger and plentiful back then, so you paid effectively less tax. If it was a "check on power", it was certainly a poor one compared to what we have today...
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A dollar in January, 1957 was worth $8.98 in January 2018 (source [bls.gov]).
The population in 1957 was about 172 million people, and about 326 million in January 2018 (source [census.gov]).
Federal Income Tax revenue in 1957 was around $35.6 billion, and for 2018 it was about $1.68 trillion (source [whitehouse.gov]).
Do the math. The Federal Government received income taxes of about $207 per person in 1957. In 2018, it was around $5,161. Adjust for the factor of 9 increase in inflation, and you'll find that Federal income tax revenues per perso
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In addition to the reply explaining the inflation adjustment, consider this:
If you earn $100 but can have $90 of deductions, you pay $9 tax at 90%.
If you earn $100 but can only have $10 of deductions, you pay $36 at 40% tax.
Less than half the tax rate, four times the tax.
I fail to see how there would be enough deductions for an extremely wealthy person, who gets a lot of income, both from work and capital gains, that they would pay more today.
The wealthier you are the greater your resources to exploit any deductions. A 90% tax rate is a very strong incentive to exploit them all, especially when the cost of good tax lawyers is deductible.
This is called just desserts... (Score:5, Insightful)
When the poor people are too stupid to realize that businesses only pass on their tax liabilities to their customers.
I can see it now... poor people cheering for this tax increase while whining that their fares have gone up.
Who wins? Just the tax collectors and all by abusing the class warfare problem.
Taxing business is the Democrats go-to solution for putting a tax on the poor while having them simultaneously cheer for it. The price of products only goes up while your salaries do not. It is the perfect "confidence con" by making claims that only intelligent and educated people vote democrat.
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When the poor people are too stupid to realize that businesses only pass on their tax liabilities to their customers.
I can see it now... poor people cheering for this tax increase while whining that their fares have gone up.
Who wins? Just the tax collectors and all by abusing the class warfare problem.
Taxing business is the Democrats go-to solution for putting a tax on the poor while having them simultaneously cheer for it. The price of products only goes up while your salaries do not. It is the perfect "confidence con" by making claims that only intelligent and educated people vote democrat.
When you're right, you're right, but it seems likely on the order of the existence of tomorrow's negative Trump headline news story that the Republicans care very little for the little man; also, too, and either.
What say you?
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Agree... The little man is never cared for, only "words and platitudes" are their rewards for their efforts.
People in power, or government, or business... all have the same objective. To increase their power or wealth. People should be mindful when someone in power starts sweet talking in their ears like they are there for them.
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:1, Insightful)
The lowest unemployment in 70 years.
Wages 6.5% higher under Trump than Obama.
Millions of new good paying jobs.
The lowest welfare claim rate in almost 30 years.
You are a sniveling fucking moron. Your globalist overlords need another dick-suck, friend. Better hop to it.
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The lowest unemployment in 70 years.
Wages 6.5% higher under Trump than Obama.
Millions of new good paying jobs.
The lowest welfare claim rate in almost 30 years.
You are a sniveling fucking moron. Your globalist overlords need another dick-suck, friend. Better hop to it.
Cheesus! Wages have increased almost 3% a year since trump took office? You know what else? The sun has risen several hundred times in the morning, Hail Caesar.
I had a conversation with a homeless man today. In an admittedly condescending fashion. I asked the chap working the intersection just upstream of road construction (genius on his part, really) why money I had would be better off in his hands.
"You're just going to work with that money. With that money, I'll clock out for the day right now and enjoy
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Vox is a far-right news organization!
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...
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What are you talking about? You have 3.2% growth and what shouldn't grow, grows, and would should grow doesn't grow. A lot of that growth is stock buy back. The jobs that are available aren't good jobs but low wage jobs. You of course have wage stagnation. About 7 million Americans are 90 days late on their auto loan payments, and sales are dropping all over the place. The auto industry is now over 6% in decline in sales, while the electronics industry is down by over 10%. The U.S. just had the most
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Vox favors Democrats (Score:1)
That makes then right-wing, not left-wing. Democrats hate the real left even more than Republicans do.
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
Turns out it's easy to drive economic numbers by going trillions of dollars deeper into debt.
Trump's administration is on welfare. Useless parasites on working people.
And you're stupid enough to hear "BOHICA!" and you present for entry.
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Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
Neither liberals nor "conservatives" care about debt as anything but a way to limit the activities of their rivals.
But that doesn't change the actual long-term impact.
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Yeah, but we've been doing the debt shuffle for fifty years. or more.
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
As long as we have immigration (and there's no post-labor tech revolution), we can continue to absorb the impact. But when immigration slows down, and revenues begin to level as expenses continue to rise...
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is it purely inertia keeping companies there? The conditions are terrible, the business environment hostile. I have to imagine that every major SF-based business has some sort of exit plan they're working on.
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
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Programmers want to move to the gay capital of the US, a part of the country overwhelmed by predominantly male IT companies, to meet girls?
Lets hope they're better at programming.
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
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I know nothing.. ..but sometimes the facts support my assumptions.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-... [quora.com]
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
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400k. The ratio is approximately 1:1, as there aren't as many men of other ages.
This is not however the point. The point is that you'd be fucking stupid to move to San Francisco to find a girlfriend.
The point holds. The evidence supports it.
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
Because finding tech talent is really fucking hard. So, you stay where it's in large supply.
There are regulatory frameworks that keep tech in CA. The inertia keeps CA tech in SF.
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That is not correct. The proposed tax is the stock compensation version of a payroll tax: the more compensation the company gives out, the more tax it would pay.
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San Francisco is a place that doesn't need any more ... investment
Are you kidding me? There are literal legions of homeless, oceans of human shit, and thousands and thousands of discarded syringes littering the streets. If San Francisco had enough money to fix these problems, it would have already been done.
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SF spends $40k/bumyear on it's 'homeless industrial complex'. There is no way those people would fuckup their gravy train by actually solving anything.
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What poor people are you referring to?
San Francisco has a medium income of $97k, the people shitting on the sidewalks do not pay taxes.
It's still a bad idea but let SanFran and Cally sink for all most of the country cares.
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When the poor people are too stupid to realize that businesses only pass on their tax liabilities to their customers.
That's the lie rich people like to peddle. Of course in reality the amount a company charges for a service or good rarely has much to do with the amount of tax it pays. If the company charges $100 now it's because it think's that is the price that will maximize profits, not because it pays a certain amount of tax.
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
You are describing an inefficient market. Proper markets (well established, no regulatory capture, not subject to natural monopolies, etc.) lead to minimized profits.
Inefficient markets are almost always nonsense consumer goods that no one needs. No big deal.
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Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
You don't get rid of natural monopolies or those other issues. But those are exceptional industries, and follow exceptional rules. They don't really any bearing on the discussion from what I can tell. They were only mentioned as exceptions.
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-1, conflates costs and prices
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Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
When you are operating in a competitive landscape, with appropriately small margins, the increased cost is absolutely passed on to the consumer. The cost didn't just go up for you, it went up for all your competitors, too.
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businesses only pass on their tax liabilities to their customers.
There is no evidence for this in practice, and is untrue even in theory. The price of something is not set based on its production cost. Its set based on supply and demand. If a business could charge more, and be more profitable, it would do so. A business won't raise prices because of a new tax. If it could raise prices, it would have done so already.
What the theory actually says is that there are many actions a business can take in response to a change in costs, but they are all equivalent in some sense to passing prices on to the consumer.
A business might go out of business, in which case you have less competition (and often people have to travel further to get products) so prices (and expenses) rise for consumers.
A business might send work overseas, in which case local people lose jobs or working hours. The former workers typically have to take infe
Re: This is called just desserts... (Score:2)
Yeah, but it's asymmetric. One business might pass on their tax burden, but the consumer is likely to spread the burden among several businesses. So, it still makes sense for the business to pass on the taxes.
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Although it is pronounced desserts, as opposed to the far more common pronunciation of deserts.
Can a retroactive tax be legal? (Score:2)
Its not exactly an ex post facto law, but it seems pretty darn close.
I
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Retroactive tax is "unconstitutional" like all other ex-post facto laws.
The problem is that what is legal and what is Constitutional are different terms, and since no one cares about the Constitution, it just depends on the whims of the judges judging the case.
Take slavery for example, the constitution still supports its... but only if you have broken the law and are at least barely convicted... however it still may or may not be legal for specific states depending on their own laws to force you to dig tren
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You'd be a lot more convincing if you: 1) weren't pushing drama, or 2) were remotely correct. Judges actually to care about the Constitution and adhere to it extremely strictly. It's just it doesn't say what people think it does, and it also unlike on social media, a petulant "I was outvoted but I win anyway because Constitution!!!1!" or "I won last election so I get to ignore the Constitution and hurt the people I don't like!!1!" gets your ass laughed out of court.
The retroactive nature of this proposed ta
Re:Can a retroactive tax be legal? (Score:5, Informative)
LOL. Dred Scott. Slaughterhouse. Wickard v. Filburn. Citizens United. Want to try again?
"The retroactive nature of this proposed tax, if it passes at all, will be struck down by the courts."
Calder v. Bull, US v. Carlton.
The Emperor has no clothes.US law does not follow any reasonable reading of Constitutional text, and is neither just nor ethical. Being in contempt of court is a bragging right, and the court has made that so.
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Citizens United. You mean someone made a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton during an election and wanted to post it online and the FEC said no no no that's illegal.
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Retroactive taxes probably should be unconstitutional (what if you spent it all already, for example?), but that's not how the SC sees it.
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Computer fraud and abuse act. (para) Anything a federal judge doesn't like is a felony, retroactive.
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Unspoken now, but, in the old prison movies, convicts were still sentenced in court to x years of confinement with hard labor, so there was a reasonable expectation of shovel work and breaking big rocks into little rocks.
Unfair or not, in today's criminal justice system, forfeiture of many individual civil rights also goes unspoken during the judge's ceremonial handing down of the punishment.
Re: Can a retroactive tax be legal? (Score:2)
"The Supreme Court 'repeatedly has upheld retroactive tax legislation against a due process challenge'."
https://assetprotectionsociety... [assetprote...ociety.org]
I think you may be thinking of taxation without representation.
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Prison labor is considered an acceptable form of punishment in nearly every country in the world. Your point is meaningless.
Prison labour is considered slavery in all of the civilsed countries of the world.
You have no clue what you're talking about because you've never left the mid-west shithole you live in.
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Prison labour is considered slavery in all of the civilsed countries of the world.
Community service and requiring prisoners to do a variety of tasks are most definitely a thing in "civilized countries."
You have no clue what you're talking about because you've never left the mid-west shithole you live in.
Methinks the only experience you have of the midwest is through a lens of media outlets which have never been off concrete and hate those that have. The midwest has a reputation for being quite kind and perhaps a little too soft on crime. It's the coastal cities that throw minorities in prison for a little pot. Guess where that's grown with nobody caring. California has their three-strikes
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"I assume you both are in favor of wealth redistribution except when it applies to you."
Do you know of anyone who isn't? Democrats work the wealth redistribution angle from that of the proletariat (usually called welfare)... Republicans work the wealth redistribution angle from that of the bourgeois (usually called corporate welfare).
Regardless both parties have worked to create/aprove monopolies of many kinds and therefore both are guilty of this problem, just in different ways.
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Your "fair share" has little to do with well-considered programs, rather it is tied to how much those in power can get away with spending for the purpose of getting re-elected.
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Its retroactive because it is taxing something that happened (the Uber $7b IPO) before the law was passed. (along with any other IPOs that might happen between now and then.
I don't like ex post facto laws - because they open up the possibility of all sorts of abuse.
I dno't have any connection to Uber or any other company that will IPO in San Francisco, nor do I live there, so this has no direct effect on me in any way.
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Perhaps it was targeted at Uber, might as well tax it now, as the opportunities to do so in the future, probably quite slim. A company that loses money on it's core function, booking drivers with cars to carry around passengers from point a to b. I mean sure lose money with the first million customers maybe even ten million customers but there in after where is the money going. How much offshore money is reaching the US you know that money that has to pay enormous offshore tax haven management and software
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What the fuck do you mean "How is it retroactive"? Uber has IPO tomorrow. This law will be offered up to the electorate in November. Tomorrow is May 10. November is six months away. The proposed law, if it passes in November, will apply to the IPO set to take place tomorrow. Tomorrow is before November.. November is after tomorrow.. That's how it's retroactive.
For fuck's sake... If you aren't going to read the goddamn article, at least read the fucking summary.
But it won't be retroactive after they get done legally redefining what the term "retroactive" means in the tax code.
Redefining terms and definitions are staples of the Left. Nazis used to mean people who were National Socialists after the 1930s/40s German model. Now, it's anyone to the right of Marx and Lenin.
Strat
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LOL! Killed it man.
"Damn that golden goose!" (Score:4, Insightful)
"I'm so tired of finding all these golden eggs in my yard! I'll just kill the damn thing!"
(Psst: The Safeword is "Texas [battleswarmblog.com].")
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Imagining geese laying golden egg doesn't stop the reality of geese shitting all over everything.
WTF (Score:2)
How will this provide goods or services to anyone? How will this tax improve anyone's quality of life?
Wealth Redistribution (Score:2)
California and its sub-departments are ever on the lookout for new ways to take money from successful people so that they can give it to those who are not, including those who prefer to spend their time with drugs rather than a job and foreigners who are in the (sanctuary) state illegally. Anywhere there is any money in evidence, you can count on California governments to be there skimming as much of it as they can. If it was going to pay the state's debt this would be understandable, but, alas, the Calif
Retroactive tax increase? (Score:2)
Evil. No other word for it.
Imagine if this were individual income tax.
Like an (Score:3)
Alcoholic hearing someone crack open a beer, the government is there.
Retroactive Taxation (Score:2)
Retroactive taxation is a thing? Are you kidding me? As an Ex Post Facto law, doesn't that violate Article 1, Section 10 of the constitution?
âoeNo State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.âoe
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Indeed it does, but since when does the Constitution matter to the leftist money-grubbers?
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When has The Constitution ever stopped a leftist? (Score:1)
The Constitution also prohibits a Bill of Attainder. For those of you millenials with super-high self-esteem and knowledge of 30+ genders but no actual meaningful education, that's (in an American context) a bill aimed at a specific person (or dishonestly written to appear aimed more broadly but in reality just aimed at one specific person). The generic definition of that term is a bit more broad, but the founders of the US applied it to laws aimed at specific people.
Right now, a bunch of Democrat states ar
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To say nothing of future presidential challengers ALL having the campaign staff under FISA warrant. Count on that too.
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Actually, stock-based compensation is taxed as income. If you're issued stock, you have regular income at the market value of that stock at time of issuance. When you sell it, you have capital gains (1-year out) or income (less than one year out) on the difference between this value and its sale price. That seems fair.
Stock issuance just dilutes the shares some and takes money from shareholders, basically. It's not paid from revenue, but rather from everyone else's pockets--everyone who bought into you
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Stock-based compensation is done by simply printing off 100,000 papers that say "1 STOCK COMPANY X" and forwarding them to the CEO's broker account, no money changing hands.
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Tax control. San Fran voted in the 1970s that their taxes can't go up. It's only when the house is sold that the city can raise it. So you have a guy paying say $500 in taxes a year living next to a guy paying $20,000. That's the stupidity of the people living there.