[lfcc]

I agree that engagement and discussing policies is important. But it does feel disingenuous and aimed at provoking outrage (to trigger a knee-jerk reaction) when you just mention a fact like "look at these rich guys that don't share anything!" and ignore the context of why it got to be the way it is.

And I'm not saying that there aren't changes that could and should be made. Just that this particular article doesn't have the feel of a fair debate aiming to inform people, but more of an outrage-inducing propaganda.

[Shivetya]

jealousy leading to anger is all part of the political play book and the NYT is there to serve its political masters by running stories that will soon be picked up by candidates to run with.

it is all part and parcel with an upcoming election. get your direction from the PAC you deny feeds you stuff, write an article with enough truth in it to pass muster but leaving out enough to make a "rational" decision. Thereby upsetting people by appealing to jealousy, envy, and such, by playing on their morals. After all everyone is for justice, protecting children, the environment, and fairness, aren't they?

tripe like this doesn't belong on HN but with the election season spinning up we will get flooded with both direct and indirect stories that are politically driven.

[civilitty]

Right, except the candidate with the most detailed and thought out policies designed to tackle these issues (and one of the front runners currently) is Elizabeth Warren, a senator who has built her career doing the exact opposite of what you're claiming. The vast, vast majority of her funding comes from individual contributions and the vast majority of the rest comes from such "lobbying powerhouses" like Emily's List. Are you seriously claiming that the NYT's political master is the woman who spearheaded the CFPB?

Intellectually void "everyone is corrupt why cant the sheeple see" tripe is best saved for Reddit.

[locklock]

I'm fine with outrage-inducing propaganda against people who have tens or hundreds of billions of dollars since that class as a whole spends so much time putting out propaganda in their favor. I'm not particularly interested in the details as long as it elevates consciousness about the inherent problems with a society that allows Jeff Bezos to have more money than he could spend in ten thousand lifetimes while millions of people aren't entirely sure how they're going to afford food next week

[delecti]

> Jeff Bezos to have more money

Out of all the rich people we could talk about, Bezos is actually one of the ones I have the least problem with. Bezos has a lot of money, but he doesn't have tens of billions of dollars of "money". His net worth is mostly tied up in Amazon ownership, and if he tried to liquidate more than a small fraction of it then it'd suddenly be worth much less, both because of increased supply, and because Amazon's value is very tied up in his ability to drive the company. Maybe we could talk about problems with a system that allow Amazon to be worth as much as it is, but for the founder of a company to be worth a lot because they built a big company, that doesn't seem like a problem to me.

[lfcc]

Amazon is not Jeff Bezos. Taxing him would be a whole different topic of conversation. Probably more on the topics of executive compensation, taxes for high incomes, and a bunch of other possible subjects.

Interesting discussion to be had, for sure, but not what the article is really about.

[locklock]

It all falls under the same umbrella, which as you accurately described as "rich guys who don't share anything" and as far as I'm concerned any amount of elevated consciousness around that is a good thing, even if strictly speaking taking money from Bezos the man and Amazon the company are two separate types of taxation and two different discussions. Bezos and his company Amazon both make almost unfathomable amounts of money and don't pay anywhere near what I'd consider a fair share of it back into society. As Amazon's PR people point out this is legal, naturally, but this article does a good job of contrasting Amazon using every tax trick in the book with normal human beings who aren't able to deduct their expenses for cancer treatment. Likely because the lobby representing the financial interests of individuals with cancer is not all that strong.

"Amazon doesn’t pay taxes, but I pay taxes" is a very good sound byte from this, even if the reasons why that's the case are obviously more complicated.

[fjsolwmv]

Amazon is not a human person. Which human people pay too little taxes for the wealth they receive or consume? That's what matters.

[benchaney]

How about we don’t encourage outrage inducing propaganda against anyone? If you have an issue with some someone has actually done (like for example putting out their own propoganda) then by all means be critical of that. What value is there in accepting vapid nonsense, just because it targets someone you dislike?

[civilitty]

Fair enough. I agree that the word count would much better be spent on discussing the relevant legislation and resulting tax codes.

But let me be honest. I wouldn't read that story. I'm not a tax policy wonk, nor am I qualified to opine on the legislative process except to express exasperation at the gridlock. I am however qualified to vote for candidates who are and that first requires awareness of the issues, a topic orthogonal to a precise understanding of the solutions, just like I need a doctor to tell me what to do about my infection after the pain has brought attention to it, not explain the intricate details of how assays work or how antibiotics disrupt bacterial functions.

[bryan_w]

> I'm not a tax policy wonk, nor am I qualified to opine

Which makes it so easy for the NYT to manipulate you into jealous frenzy.

A lot of people see an outrageous headline and too few ask "what's the other side of the story?" The media knows this and can use it to direct your ire at any of their competitors because it's so effective

[civilitty]

The other side of it is what my personal and business's accountants do. I don't need to know the intricate details of their work to look at the final bill and realize that maybe I should be paying more for the benefits I enjoy in this country, especially considering my native tax rate - which gets me a hell of a lot less in Russia than the nearly equivalent effective rate does in the US.

[cascom]

The problem is that the NYT ignored the why almost entirely to generate outrage because they are creating an issue. Most people wouldn’t be outraged if you said “this company didn’t pay tax this year on its $2B in profits because it lost $1B last year, and invested $1B in a new research facility (and got accelerated depreciation)”

[jrumbut]

I thought this (among other paragraphs) provided context:

"Though both parties have sought to lower the top corporate tax rate in the last decade — President Barack Obama proposed lowering it from 35 percent to 28 percent — Republicans in 2017 pushed it down to 21 percent, in addition to expanding some generous tax breaks. The new law allowed immediate expensing of capital expenditures, for example, in order to goose investment. That was one of the primary reasons that more corporations paid no federal taxes, according to the report.

Mr. Trump and his Republican allies argued that the tax changes would stimulate investment and economic growth. That has happened, though not by as much as they predicted."

There's no debate here, the article was written by one person. It juxtaposes several facts (changes in tax law over the last 10 years, a group of profitable corporations with an effective corporate tax rate of 0 (or negative), poll results, factory closings, and a number of statements by presidential contenders) and, for context, adds a handful of statements from voters and minor activists to give the reader a sense of of how voters in Ohio are viewing these changes.

It's full of charts and dates and numbers. While the title is a little provocative, I find the body text to be informative and interesting, and feel the temperature is kept relatively low given the extremely contentious subject matter.

[lfcc]

It mentions tax rate laws, but those don't actually cover why Amazon effectively paid no taxes. I.e. massive investments in R&D, stock-based employee compensation, carry-forwards losses, and whatever else I may still be missing.

I don't think it can be considered fairly informative if it doesn't cover how we got to those values. From reading this article, one could still ask if a tax rate is at 21%, how does that mean a profitable company doesn't pay any taxes?

[jrumbut]

I don't think its an article about Amazon's tax bill as such. It's about how Ohio voters and presidential candidates are reacting to Amazon and several other firms' effective tax rates.

If they went through what Amazon and Goodyear and GM and Duke Energy all did then they would just be rehashing the report that they conveniently linked.