Surprise! Effectively all of that corporate tax cut went to shareholders - not worker wages, not capital expenditures

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The Republican tax reform package that was supposed to raise wages and spur hiring has instead funded a record stock buyback and dividend spree, benefiting investors and company executives over workers.

 

I sure as hell didn't expect it to go to workers' wages, but for it to not even go towards capital expenditures is olololololworthy.

[thewhyteboar]

Huh. It's almost like the Republican Party's economic message for the past 38 years has been based on a lie.

[Massdriver]

Would lowering the corporate tax rate but increasing personal income taxes on higher brackets be acceptable to most people here?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 minute ago, Massdriver said:

Would lowering the corporate tax rate but increasing personal income taxes on higher brackets be acceptable to most people here?

Do you mean lower than the 21% it is now?

 

I'm not opposed to the lower corporate tax rate as it moves the US in-line with the rest of the OECD, but I want SIGNIFICANTLY higher personal tax rates for the upper income brackets.

[marioandsonic]

No shit.

[Massdriver]

2 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

Do you mean lower than the 21% it is now?

 

I'm not opposed to the lower corporate tax rate as it moves the US in-line with the rest of the OECD, but I want SIGNIFICANTLY higher personal tax rates for the upper income brackets.

Not lower than 21%, but simply raising some taxes on higher income brackets to make up for the lost tax revenue from the corporate rate cuts. I am asking because the corporate tax rate is simply an inefficient way of raising tax revenue. I wouldn't want to see it go above 25% so we stay competitive with other developed nations. 

[chakoo]

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I would be willing to drop the corporate tax rate to 20% in exchange for a marginal rate on personal adjusted gross incomes of $5 million and greater of 100%.

 

In effect, the creation of a "maximum personal income".

[Massdriver]

28 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

I would be willing to drop the corporate tax rate to 20% in exchange for a marginal rate on personal adjusted gross incomes of $5 million and greater of 100%.

 

In effect, the creation of a "maximum personal income".

 

I think that would be a bad idea. Capping income would have uncertain effects on economic growth and incentives. I wish more people would get on board with a land value tax.

[PaladinSolo]

The only other option is to hunger games the rich, the winner only loses half their fortune.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

14 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

 

I think that would be a bad idea. Capping income would have uncertain effects on economic growth and incentives. I wish more people would get on board with a land value tax.

What about an intangibles tax like Florida had for decades where intangible property (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc) were taxed based on their value at market close on December 31?

[Bacon]

Is this how The American Civil War II starts?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Is this how The American Civil War II starts?

Ask black Americans if the first one ever ended.

[Bacon]

2 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

Ask black Americans if the first one ever ended.

OK, but white guys decide when war happens and ends. So...

[osxmatt]

If only there was an entire political party that said this exact thing that is happening would happen.

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

It was pretty clear from the beginning that this is how the windfall would be spent; anyone predicting differently hasn’t been paying attention to corporate behavior for a looooong time.  Stock buybacks have siphoned investment away from tangible capital formation and wages for large corporations for awhile now.  Only smaller businesses do it the old-fashioned—and, IMO, far more economically productive—way nowadays.

[run32.dll]

I agree with noted communist Adam Smith that we should make stock trading illegal and have a fat estate tax.

[Firewithin]

Should we.......

 

EAT THE RICH? 

[Massdriver]

1 hour ago, SFLUFAN said:

What about an intangibles tax like Florida had for decades where intangible property (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc) were taxed based on their value at market close on December 31?

I don't like that nearly as much as a LVT. A LVT is about as efficient as you can get and it taxes wealth at the same time. Taxing capital and investment seems like the wrong move. I would tax land value and consumption progressively if I could wage a wand a couple it with social insurance such as universal healthcare and wage subsides/negative income tax.

[Massdriver]

33 minutes ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

It was pretty clear from the beginning that this is how the windfall would be spent; anyone predicting differently hasn’t been paying attention to corporate behavior for a looooong time.  Stock buybacks have siphoned investment away from tangible capital formation and wages for large corporations for awhile now.  Only smaller businesses do it the old-fashioned—and, IMO, far more economically productive—way nowadays.

I'm thinking that maybe some light touch restrictions on buybacks could do the economy some good and encourage capital investment, dividends, and wage increases.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Alright @Massdriver - let's hear how this LVT works.

[Massdriver]

2 hours ago, SFLUFAN said:

Alright @Massdriver - let's hear how this LVT works.

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/02/henry-georges-land-value-tax-idea-whose-time-come/  Scroll down to Land Value Taxation

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/2/11533936/the-weeds-land-value-tax-explained

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/11/10/why-land-value-taxes-are-so-popular-yet-so-rare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

 

Think about it in terms of using most states' local property tax assessment systems to collect revenue and move it up. The first link I gave you goes through what it is, who it benefits, and some mechanisms on how it could work. The problem is going to  be political will because real estate speculators will oppose the LVT, but I would like to point out that investors will oppose your financial wealth tax and the LVT is simply better theoretically than what you're proposing.

[ThreePi]

One of the things that has always pissed me off about my company is that every town hall meeting they seem to hold they bring up dividends. Not a stockholder's meeting, employee town hall and they're bragging to their employees about how their handing out more money to stockholders instead of increasing pay/benefits for their employees.

[run32.dll]

58 minutes ago, ThreePi said:

One of the things that has always pissed me off about my company is that every town hall meeting they seem to hold they bring up dividends. Not a stockholder's meeting, employee town hall and they're bragging to their employees about how their handing out more money to stockholders instead of increasing pay/benefits for their employees.

When the workers deliver a lot of surplus value and it gets passed through to the shareholders that's good. When the workers want a raise for the first time in a decade for creating that surplus value it's greedy and that kind of entitled thinking is what's wrong with the world today.

[Reputator]

I need to stop checking CEB. This is the depressing crap that greets me.

[The def star]

Hey now according to somebody on my Facebook he gets an extra $200 because of these tax cuts, FACT!

 

 

Is that $200 extra a month, $200 bi weekly. I don't know but either way it's small beans compared to what corporations got out of it. 

[marioandsonic]

53 minutes ago, The def star said:

Hey now according to somebody on my Facebook he gets an extra $200 because of these tax cuts, FACT!

 

 

Is that $200 extra a month, $200 bi weekly. I don't know but either way it's small beans compared to what corporations got out of it. 

I get about an extra $20 per biweekly check.  Totally worth having to deal with this president for 4 (or God forbid 8) years...

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I'm getting around $75 extra biweekly. 

 

I'd give it back in a heartbeat if Trump left office, along with all his shitty cronies.

[Chairslinger]

1 hour ago, Reputator said:

I need to stop checking CEB. This is the depressing crap that greets me.

 

 

In the eventuality that the Dems fail to take either chamber of Congress this year, Trump shuts down the Mueller probe, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg "retires" and makes Samuel fucking  Alito the new swing vote on the court might I interest you in joining a murder/suicide pact?

 

 

[TheBladeRoden]

Can't hold income tax cuts over me if I'm unemployed!

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

23 hours ago, Massdriver said:

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/02/henry-georges-land-value-tax-idea-whose-time-come/  Scroll down to Land Value Taxation

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/2/11533936/the-weeds-land-value-tax-explained

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/11/10/why-land-value-taxes-are-so-popular-yet-so-rare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

 

Think about it in terms of using most states' local property tax assessment systems to collect revenue and move it up. The first link I gave you goes through what it is, who it benefits, and some mechanisms on how it could work. The problem is going to  be political will because real estate speculators will oppose the LVT, but I would like to point out that investors will oppose your financial wealth tax and the LVT is simply better theoretically than what you're proposing.

I second revenue-raising by taxing land value.

 

Not just for reasons for efficiency, but because it helps in fighting against the FIRE sector’s drive to load the economy up with debt and maximize the amount of economic rent that can be extracted from land by pledging the rental value of land to the banks and recycling it into mortgage interest.

 

Economic rent does not contribute to the expansion of the economic surplus—it merely leeches parasitically off of it, and as such should form as much of the tax base as possible.  Unfortunately, the financialization of our economy is so far along that powerful FIRE sector interests will pull out all the stops to prevent the imposition of something like a land value tax.

 

 

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

22 hours ago, run32.dll said:

When the workers deliver a lot of surplus value and it gets passed through to the shareholders that's good. When the workers want a raise for the first time in a decade for creating that surplus value it's greedy and that kind of entitled thinking is what's wrong with the world today.

Perhaps, but all that rests on the presumption that labor creates all value; I doubt the people you need to convince in order to change these policies believe that.

 

Plus, it’s a pretty dubious proposition on its own terms.