"The ones who pay will pay" is always true (from people using public transport without a ticket to "normal" tax payers having to shoulder the losses caused by loopholes and "incentives" for the upper 0.1%), but resigning to it so explicitly is rare.
Yeah. My impression is, small players exploit the loopholes like there's no tomorrow, big players hire external consultants to give them least-effort playbook and take over liability, as anything more clever is exponentially more expensive.
How is creating your own ETFs to avoid paying taxes low effort?
I mean, it's very low effort to have somebody else do all the work. But you'll never see a self-employed electrician creating an account in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes.
You'll see a load of people on benefits being tax-negative, though. If paying taxes is your measure, then an honest assessment of who pays taxes wouldn't land you at the ultra-rich.
Self-employed electricians don't have enough money to need Cayman Islands accounts (many software engineers on FAANG salaries, on the other hand, do, and plenty are already experts in "corporate" tax optimization). Self-employed electricians instead do half their work for cash, and procure materials from untaxed sources.
One of the funniest ideas I heard was that we in South Asia do corruption properly, because unlike the West, even the poorest person gets to be corrupt while in the West you have to have money and know people. Democracy!
It's just not true at all though, and I don't get where the meme comes from other than the politicians pointing their fingers at the rich so we don't look at them. If there wasn't incentive to be homeless, we wouldn't have so many.
I mean this is the case universally, even if the losses aren't in a specific line item the cost of generating that power has to be covered overall
There's usually an incentive to solve this though because this shrinkage, in retail terms, would be handled at the cost of power generated (without any profit margin) whereas if it was sold to a paying customer it'd have a margin built in. If the Greek utilities are allowed to make a profit on that losses line item, that is insane
it depends on how the regulations are written. not every single cost gets to go into the guaranteed return on equity. Probably plenty of examples where it is, but also there are definitely a lot of examples where that's not true. Given how militant most utilities are at preventing theft, either parent comment OP is just being cynical or there is something very off about the situation there vs. most places
In places where the grid is reliable, approximately no one disconnects voluntarily from it, and solar panels are just a nice extra.
It is the places where the grid is failing where solar panels indeed liberate you, but not from the utility overlords, but from incompetent and corrupt governance.
whatever1 · · focus · HN ↗
You can steal as much as you want. The ones who pay will pay.
rob74 · · focus · HN ↗
philipallstar · · focus · HN ↗
You'd be amazed at how most of this sort of thing is not done by the same people you blame for everything.
TeMPOraL · · focus · HN ↗
lesuorac · · focus · HN ↗
I mean, it's very low effort to have somebody else do all the work. But you'll never see a self-employed electrician creating an account in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes.
philipallstar · · focus · HN ↗
TeMPOraL · · focus · HN ↗
sirtaj · · focus · HN ↗
scottyah · · focus · HN ↗
JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
/s? There isn’t an incentive to be a war refugee either.
mixdup · · focus · HN ↗
There's usually an incentive to solve this though because this shrinkage, in retail terms, would be handled at the cost of power generated (without any profit margin) whereas if it was sold to a paying customer it'd have a margin built in. If the Greek utilities are allowed to make a profit on that losses line item, that is insane
sokoloff · · focus · HN ↗
mixdup · · focus · HN ↗
blitzar · · focus · HN ↗
Until solar panels came to liberate us from the utility overlords.
whatever1 · · focus · HN ↗
A failed state will be fail-stating regardless of the technology.
TeMPOraL · · focus · HN ↗
vagrantJin · · focus · HN ↗
inglor_cz · · focus · HN ↗
It is the places where the grid is failing where solar panels indeed liberate you, but not from the utility overlords, but from incompetent and corrupt governance.