Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes
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Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
djoldman · · focus · HN ↗
Previously we've seen "The Secret IRS Files" from Propublica as well as other coverage of tax avoidance that never resulted in tax evasion charges. Coverage wide enough that it's arguably safe to assume that no laws were broken because there was quite the demand for an enforcement response.
The funny thing is that a more accurate title for these pieces would be, "Federal Government Allows [tax-paying entity] a Massive Tax Break." And then the piece would be all about how the senate, congress, and president either explicitly wanted there to be this extreme tax loophole or was incompetent and allowed something they didn't mean to allow.
Folks are continually getting upset and riled up about players in the economic system instead of who and what makes the rules.
An analogous example: everyone got cranky about Martin Shkreli, mostly because he raised prices on Deraprim, although also because many would label him a brash jerk. But he went to jail for finance stuff, not raising prices. Why? Because raising prices in the way he did wasn't something the feds thought was illegal or wasn't something they thought he could be convicted of.
Folks get mad at Musk, Zuckerberg, etc... if they're doing something illegal, ok yea that makes sense. If folks are mad about actions that are legal, it makes zero sense to be mad at the actor. Be mad at the people/entities who created the legal loopholes and laws.
csallen · · focus · HN ↗
Public shame and malice towards individuals who violate expected norms is actually a fairly good deterrent toward would-be bad actors. I'm sure there are many millions of instances per day where people decide not to do untoward things because they care about their reputations.
But on the flip side, you are also correct. It's important that public attention also be directed towards the systems that incentivize and enable bad behavior, and the people who create those systems. Patching laws, shaping incentives, and empowering a distributed system of judges and courts to handle violations is ultimately much cleaner, fairer, predictable, wide-reaching, and (therefore) more effective than disorganized mob-led shame campaigns.
Unfortunately, several things work against this:
1. It requires much more time, education, intelligence, and emotional self-control to care about system design over simply shaming others. These four things aren't abundantly common in most populaces.
2. Lawmakers and politicians have their own incentives to redirect public attention away from themselves. And they can take advantage of #1 to do this, which is basically what demagoguery is.
3. Similarly, media companies have their own incentive, which is to increase clicks and shares and subscribers. And appealing to base emotions with strong headlines works 100x better than discussing complex laws and systems. Research shows that the #1 emotion that leads to sharing online is outrage.
Aunche · · focus · HN ↗
alistairSH · · focus · HN ↗
The problem is two closely related issues, IMO... First, these rules are probably too broad/vague and easily abused. And second, it's too difficult/costly for the IRS to successfully challenge when a company does abuse these regulations.
happymellon · · focus · HN ↗
I can even give them all my tax money, but if I also give them a list of items they deem to be a tax deduction, they will give me my money back. I don't even need to really ask for it except by putting it in the paperwork. I don't need to say "and therefore I believe I have overpaid by £X".