Certainly no big deal, but my most current renewal for my membership included sales tax for the first time ever…
Did something change, or have I just been lucky for the past 4 years?
Unfortunately, we too must comply with the folks in the tax office and they’ve informed us that, due to the nature of the service provided, we are required to collect local and state tax for the membership where applicable.
@ExtraMedium
And “where applicable” varies from state to state and even place to place within states in a most maddening way; both the “must collect” and the “how much” can change from one Zip code to the next.
@ExtraMedium@werehatrack So far, I’m not paying sales tax on my VMP membership, but even if I were, it would be more than offset by the savings of sales tax on the shipping fee (that I don’t have to pay).
So far the incredibly stupid voters in my state haven’t yet decided to approve a sales tax but I wouldn’t put it past them.
Nothing like getting taxed when you earn your money AND when you spend it. Taxation is theft.
@tweezak Corporatism is wage theft and is also taxpayer subsidized. Taxes also pay for government services - police, schools, highways, the internet, homeowner subsidies, much of our healthcare system (especially for retiring boomers), those COVID vaccines and boosters, NASA, the navy protecting ships carrying oil and containers of goods we buy, army and air force keeping Russia and China from taking over Europe and Asia (Taiwan and Korea who make our computer chips and phones) and more with us after that. Every tax break is a taxpayer giveaway that has to be made up somewhere else.
Want to see real economic gains for everyday people? Make minimum wage a living wage and tie it to rent. Make the CEOs fight with the landlords.
@mike808@tweezak
Yay! @mike808 likes taxes! I’ll make a deal with you, @mike808: You pay all my taxes and I’ll sign over to you all my government “benefits”, except for Social Security which I paid into for over 40 years and hope to live long enough to get that back, including interest on my investment and the cost of inflation on my payouts, before I die.
I’ll even keep paying the school taxes, though I’m not happy about their spending a lot of it on football programs.
“Corporatism is wage theft and is also taxpayer subsidized.” Yeah, I remember Solyndra and the companies hired to program the ObomaCare website. Who was it now that was responsible for those? Remind me. Those were shining examples of your corporatism at taxpayer expense, foisted on us from the top.
@phendrick
I don’t think you cherry-picking events to “prove” your political Republican talking point while ignoring or failing to consider overwhelming events contrary to your “conclusion” has any merit or intellectual honesty, to be frank.
Lets look at facts, if you want to throw political shade:
That’s not counting the twice-impeached, two-time vote loser pathological liar former guy.
Football programs are pretty much entirely alumni-funded, not taxpayer-funded, and precisely to avoid government oversight, specifically Title IX, so get your facts straight. It doesn’t get you any credibility. See prior paragraph.
I hope you live completely sustainably off the grid or be prepared to pay me (if you’re not paying your taxes to participate in society with the rest of us) for the use of those taxpayer funded police, fire, emergency response services, highways, roads, and for FEMA to come in after a tornado, wildfire, flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, maintain the ports that get the stuff you buy at Walmart (whose employees get their healthcare from taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid because they are too greedy to pay a living wage), and more - mostly due to climate change, btw. And the emergency subsidies after those events.
Oh, and this internet you’re using, taxpayer-funded DARPA would like to talk to you about freeloading off that and the countless other government benefits you’re enjoying (regulated power grids to ensure you can run your AC all day in this heat) and think you’re going to keep on enjoying after you’ve recovered from the Sovereign Citizen delusions.
Be sure to send me a postcard from your next flat earth convention, too.
@mike808 Have you gone fucking bonkers? I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one here who does not like taxes.
BTW, I’m not a Republican. I vote whomever I think is the best fit for the office. I have voted for Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents.
But you appear to be a full-blooded Dimocrat when it comes to impartially evaluating our political scene.
Further reply not worth my time.
@mike808@phendrick Gotta say, the government’s judgement when it comes to spending my tax dollars really don’t seem to align with my preferences.
For example, left out of this is all the tax money sent overseas for who knows what when there’s clearly a lot of work that could be done at home with that money.
@tweezak And even when I might agree with the intent of the spending, I often think that their approach is less than efficient. For instance, a middleman generally costs more money in any financial endeavor, especially a middleman one or two thousand miles away. My community is richer than average in my state, but yet they always BRAG about all the federal block grants they get. I guess they feel that way they take less blame than if they were just to raise taxes to cover their program (and have citizens actually spend some time and mental effort to judge the worthiness of the program vs anything else they could spend money on). And somehow residents discount the fact that money from Uncle Sam is taken from their pockets anyway.
@phendrick@tweezak
Then run for office. That’s how democracy works.
I don’t like how the government gives money to corporations via tax breaks that don’t need it - I’m looking at you, Amazon.
I don’t like how the government claims to be “conservative” but wants to get all up in women’s vaginas and interfere in private discussions with their doctors and healthcare providers.
I don’t like how the government lets people who have “religious objections” keep their licenses to provide critical healthcare and medical services - to the public - particularly the public who doesn’t share those same “beliefs”. Or that supports taxpayer-funded healthcare employers self-proclaimed “right” to impose the owner’s religious views on their customers and employees to discriminate at will. If you can’t provide the services required of the job - to the public without regard for the customer’s religious beliefs, then maybe that’s not the job or business you should be in.
The point is we will all disagree on priorities for government spending. We have fair elections that represent the people, not autocratic rule. That’s how democracy works and is supposed to work.
Making government work the way you and you alone decide how it works isn’t the constitutional republic form of democracy described in our founding documents.
Our representatives need to be voted out of office and removed from office when they don’t equally represent all of the people in their district that didn’t vote for them. Not just impose their extreme views that a minority of people who elected them onto the majority who clearly disagree.
@mike808@phendrick@tweezak Well, if you’re really unhappy that we’re not doing more in the US? You could advocate for returning the taxes to the levels they were for the upper classes in the 1950s-70s, when we really were advancing the wellbeing of everyone.
@phendrick@tweezak The level of open and proud sellout-to-money corruption in our government and military is way past shameful and making a complete mockery of “felonious”.
@phendrick@tweezak@werehatrack
I disagree on the “last ethical POTUS” claim. You may have overlooked Jimmy Carter and Barak Obama, and to some extent, Bush 41, if you’re talking ethics and morality. Lumping them in with 45, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 43 is not be a compelling viewpoint.
@mike808@phendrick@werehatrack You got me on Carter. He was honest to a fault and that was his downfall. Nobody in DC would work with him because he refused to do favors.
Reagan was also pretty good for the country and had good foreign policy as I remember. Working with the Pope and Gorbachev to finally unify Berlin was probably his biggest accomplishment. As is usual in DC I’m sure he scratched a lot of backs to get stuff done though.
@phendrick@tweezak@werehatrack
Reagan started the corporate tax theft by reducing them from the mid 30% tax rate to 15% and lowering capital gains taxes to 10%. Effectively this shifted the funding of the government onto the middle class, destroyed its wealth, and pushed wealth disparity into hyperdrive.
Remember “trickle down economics”? That was all Reagan. How has that worked out?
@mike808@phendrick@werehatrack Correct me if I’m too simple on this (and I’m sure you will) but haven’t corporations just been hiding profits offshore to avoid taxes. And even if you can force them to pay higher taxes it will ultimately be passed on to the consumer anyway in the form of higher prices. They are never going to take a hit to their profits. Trust me I’ve worked for enough multinational corporations and have learned all too well that their only loyalty is to their shareholders (ie: themselves).
@phendrick@tweezak@werehatrack
Yes, they’ve been hiding profits - the thing is, we are the current de facto “tax haven” for global companies.
The rest of the civilized world got together and set a minimum corporate tax rate of 15% - thats why that number came up in the bill before congress.
Remember it’s not just about taxes. It’s also about the services that nation provides - its legal system to protect the corporation’s intellectual property assets and its military to protect the corporation’s physical assets. It’s also about access to the US consumer market without trade tariffs. You don’t get any of that with HQ based in a kleptocracy or oligarchy or unfriendly nation.
The US is the gold standard for those things, and corporations have been ripping off the taxpayers ever since Reagan and the Republican party lowered the tax rate in a misguided “race to the bottom”. And corporations have been living large off of that corporate welfare ever since. And funding Republican politicians to get into and stay in power ever since - by any means necessary to protect those benefits continuing to be paid for by taxpayers and our service members blood.
You think you cut it big winning those yuge lotteries? The tax man gets you many times: the winnings off the top and then yearly bc your income is over $550K!
Unfortunately, we too must comply with the folks in the tax office and they’ve informed us that, due to the nature of the service provided, we are required to collect local and state tax for the membership where applicable.
@ExtraMedium
And “where applicable” varies from state to state and even place to place within states in a most maddening way; both the “must collect” and the “how much” can change from one Zip code to the next.
@ExtraMedium @werehatrack So far, I’m not paying sales tax on my VMP membership, but even if I were, it would be more than offset by the savings of sales tax on the shipping fee (that I don’t have to pay).
So far the incredibly stupid voters in my state haven’t yet decided to approve a sales tax but I wouldn’t put it past them.
Nothing like getting taxed when you earn your money AND when you spend it. Taxation is theft.
@tweezak Corporatism is wage theft and is also taxpayer subsidized. Taxes also pay for government services - police, schools, highways, the internet, homeowner subsidies, much of our healthcare system (especially for retiring boomers), those COVID vaccines and boosters, NASA, the navy protecting ships carrying oil and containers of goods we buy, army and air force keeping Russia and China from taking over Europe and Asia (Taiwan and Korea who make our computer chips and phones) and more with us after that. Every tax break is a taxpayer giveaway that has to be made up somewhere else.
Want to see real economic gains for everyday people? Make minimum wage a living wage and tie it to rent. Make the CEOs fight with the landlords.
@mike808 @tweezak
Yay! @mike808 likes taxes! I’ll make a deal with you, @mike808: You pay all my taxes and I’ll sign over to you all my government “benefits”, except for Social Security which I paid into for over 40 years and hope to live long enough to get that back, including interest on my investment and the cost of inflation on my payouts, before I die.
I’ll even keep paying the school taxes, though I’m not happy about their spending a lot of it on football programs.
“Corporatism is wage theft and is also taxpayer subsidized.” Yeah, I remember Solyndra and the companies hired to program the ObomaCare website. Who was it now that was responsible for those? Remind me. Those were shining examples of your corporatism at taxpayer expense, foisted on us from the top.
@phendrick
I don’t think you cherry-picking events to “prove” your political Republican talking point while ignoring or failing to consider overwhelming events contrary to your “conclusion” has any merit or intellectual honesty, to be frank.
Lets look at facts, if you want to throw political shade:
That’s not counting the twice-impeached, two-time vote loser pathological liar former guy.
Football programs are pretty much entirely alumni-funded, not taxpayer-funded, and precisely to avoid government oversight, specifically Title IX, so get your facts straight. It doesn’t get you any credibility. See prior paragraph.
I hope you live completely sustainably off the grid or be prepared to pay me (if you’re not paying your taxes to participate in society with the rest of us) for the use of those taxpayer funded police, fire, emergency response services, highways, roads, and for FEMA to come in after a tornado, wildfire, flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, maintain the ports that get the stuff you buy at Walmart (whose employees get their healthcare from taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid because they are too greedy to pay a living wage), and more - mostly due to climate change, btw. And the emergency subsidies after those events.
Oh, and this internet you’re using, taxpayer-funded DARPA would like to talk to you about freeloading off that and the countless other government benefits you’re enjoying (regulated power grids to ensure you can run your AC all day in this heat) and think you’re going to keep on enjoying after you’ve recovered from the Sovereign Citizen delusions.
Be sure to send me a postcard from your next flat earth convention, too.
@mike808 Have you gone fucking bonkers? I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one here who does not like taxes.
BTW, I’m not a Republican. I vote whomever I think is the best fit for the office. I have voted for Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents.
But you appear to be a full-blooded Dimocrat when it comes to impartially evaluating our political scene.
Further reply not worth my time.
@phendrick I never said I liked taxes. You did
So nice try putting words in my mouth and then being outraged with what you imagined I said.
@mike808 @phendrick Gotta say, the government’s judgement when it comes to spending my tax dollars really don’t seem to align with my preferences.
For example, left out of this is all the tax money sent overseas for who knows what when there’s clearly a lot of work that could be done at home with that money.
@tweezak And even when I might agree with the intent of the spending, I often think that their approach is less than efficient. For instance, a middleman generally costs more money in any financial endeavor, especially a middleman one or two thousand miles away. My community is richer than average in my state, but yet they always BRAG about all the federal block grants they get. I guess they feel that way they take less blame than if they were just to raise taxes to cover their program (and have citizens actually spend some time and mental effort to judge the worthiness of the program vs anything else they could spend money on). And somehow residents discount the fact that money from Uncle Sam is taken from their pockets anyway.
@phendrick @tweezak
Then run for office. That’s how democracy works.
I don’t like how the government gives money to corporations via tax breaks that don’t need it - I’m looking at you, Amazon.
I don’t like how the government claims to be “conservative” but wants to get all up in women’s vaginas and interfere in private discussions with their doctors and healthcare providers.
I don’t like how the government lets people who have “religious objections” keep their licenses to provide critical healthcare and medical services - to the public - particularly the public who doesn’t share those same “beliefs”. Or that supports taxpayer-funded healthcare employers self-proclaimed “right” to impose the owner’s religious views on their customers and employees to discriminate at will. If you can’t provide the services required of the job - to the public without regard for the customer’s religious beliefs, then maybe that’s not the job or business you should be in.
The point is we will all disagree on priorities for government spending. We have fair elections that represent the people, not autocratic rule. That’s how democracy works and is supposed to work.
Making government work the way you and you alone decide how it works isn’t the constitutional republic form of democracy described in our founding documents.
Our representatives need to be voted out of office and removed from office when they don’t equally represent all of the people in their district that didn’t vote for them. Not just impose their extreme views that a minority of people who elected them onto the majority who clearly disagree.
@mike808 @phendrick @tweezak Well, if you’re really unhappy that we’re not doing more in the US? You could advocate for returning the taxes to the levels they were for the upper classes in the 1950s-70s, when we really were advancing the wellbeing of everyone.
@mike808 Also, Mike? I’d like to like this 10x. A whole lot well thought and well said.
@brainmist @phendrick @tweezak
@phendrick The level of waste and corruption in our government is beyond shameful
@phendrick @tweezak The level of open and proud sellout-to-money corruption in our government and military is way past shameful and making a complete mockery of “felonious”.
@tweezak @werehatrack
Young’uns don’t remember that even Eisenhower warned us of that over 60 years ago:
“In his farewell address to the nation, he expressed his concerns about the dangers of massive military spending, particularly deficit spending and government contracts to private military manufacturers”
He was certainly one of our most ethical presidents, and IMO one of our best.
@phendrick @werehatrack Agreed. Possibly our last ethical president.
@phendrick @tweezak @werehatrack
I disagree on the “last ethical POTUS” claim. You may have overlooked Jimmy Carter and Barak Obama, and to some extent, Bush 41, if you’re talking ethics and morality. Lumping them in with 45, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 43 is not be a compelling viewpoint.
@mike808 @phendrick @werehatrack You got me on Carter. He was honest to a fault and that was his downfall. Nobody in DC would work with him because he refused to do favors.
Reagan was also pretty good for the country and had good foreign policy as I remember. Working with the Pope and Gorbachev to finally unify Berlin was probably his biggest accomplishment. As is usual in DC I’m sure he scratched a lot of backs to get stuff done though.
@phendrick @tweezak @werehatrack
Reagan started the corporate tax theft by reducing them from the mid 30% tax rate to 15% and lowering capital gains taxes to 10%. Effectively this shifted the funding of the government onto the middle class, destroyed its wealth, and pushed wealth disparity into hyperdrive.
Remember “trickle down economics”? That was all Reagan. How has that worked out?
@mike808 @phendrick @werehatrack Correct me if I’m too simple on this (and I’m sure you will) but haven’t corporations just been hiding profits offshore to avoid taxes. And even if you can force them to pay higher taxes it will ultimately be passed on to the consumer anyway in the form of higher prices. They are never going to take a hit to their profits. Trust me I’ve worked for enough multinational corporations and have learned all too well that their only loyalty is to their shareholders (ie: themselves).
@mike808 @tweezak @werehatrack
Hey, if the tactic’s good enough for the Beatles!
https://www.marketplace.org/2020/02/20/beatles-taxman-tax-policy/
Thinking THEY couldn’t afford their taxes?
[song link still active below…]
@phendrick @tweezak @werehatrack
Yes, they’ve been hiding profits - the thing is, we are the current de facto “tax haven” for global companies.
The rest of the civilized world got together and set a minimum corporate tax rate of 15% - thats why that number came up in the bill before congress.
Remember it’s not just about taxes. It’s also about the services that nation provides - its legal system to protect the corporation’s intellectual property assets and its military to protect the corporation’s physical assets. It’s also about access to the US consumer market without trade tariffs. You don’t get any of that with HQ based in a kleptocracy or oligarchy or unfriendly nation.
The US is the gold standard for those things, and corporations have been ripping off the taxpayers ever since Reagan and the Republican party lowered the tax rate in a misguided “race to the bottom”. And corporations have been living large off of that corporate welfare ever since. And funding Republican politicians to get into and stay in power ever since - by any means necessary to protect those benefits continuing to be paid for by taxpayers and our service members blood.
You think you cut it big winning those yuge lotteries? The tax man gets you many times: the winnings off the top and then yearly bc your income is over $550K!
@KSchweitz I’d find a way to suffer through that.
/giphy poor me