Some non-profits are exempt from property taxes and other taxes (e.g. universities) and abuse this by becoming huge landowners. This should probably be reined in.
It may vary by state, but I used to work at a private, non-profit educational institution in Missouri, and I know we didn't have to pay sales tax for our purchases. I now work for an online retail business in Colorado, and our sales team routinely waives sales tax for non-profits (from various states) with the correct documentation (usually also educational institutions, fwiw).
Once they come out, they get taxed, as salary or distributions.
What the for-profit ALSO gets taxed on is "income" but if you manufacture expenses you can keep your income low or non-existent (this is what companies do when they transfer their IP to a tax haven and then charge themselves for it).
I am repeatedly surprised when people argue that lower taxes don’t improve the economy, it’s as obvious as water being wet or the sky being blue.
Why can those countries have what they have but America some how can't?
What are they doing that America isn't?
"Mechanisms and institutions that are corrupted, dysfunctional, or absent in low-trust societies include respect for private property rights, a trusted civil court system, democratic voting and acceptance of electoral outcomes, and voluntary tax payment."
High trust society is one where people do the morally right thing even if they wouldn’t get caught. To do have that you need a set of common societal values.
High trust societies are ones were those in power are not (very) corrupt.
They also rely on America to provide the bulk of their national defense...
Can you tell me more about the military aid that Finland has received from the US?
Federal: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S
State & Local: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pltN
In fiscal year (FY) 2023, the government spent $6.13 trillion.
The federal government spent $44.8 billion on infrastructure in 2023 and transferred an additional $81.5 billion to states.
That's a hair over 2%. Certainly you can imagine people wanting to cut the budget in other places.
Tax money is spent in all kinds of ways that touch so many lives that it's literally too much for any one person to comprehend. You can make arguments, but it will affect people in material ways that they'll have counterarguments for.
I agree, but this is false.
>>it’s because most people who declare “less taxes are good for the economy” don’t want to pay taxes at all and would be willing to let infrastructure and society rot in order to make a few more dollars.
Just because someone wants the government to spend less, doesn't mean they don't want to pay their taxes or want to see the infrastructure go to hell. That's a disingenuous argument. Also, “less taxes are good for the economy,” is unarguably true, so he's making two incorrect assumptions in once sentence.
no, but there have to be a lot of variables involved to find new balance points.. it is certainly a political situation
This isn’t unarguably true. Right now we’re running a very large public debt because we spend more than we collect, so if you collected it in taxes you’d slow down inflation. That would be good for the economy. You also see a lot of strategic reallocation of funds through taxes, moving things from possibly inefficient places to places that generate far more growth. China has been doing this very well over the last decade (and sometimes not so well, but net positive) - lots of state back efforts which have tipped industries in China’s favor. This has been great for their economy and soft power. The US did that with Covid vaccines by assuming the risk— something the private market literally could not and would not do.
Taxes and government spending are complex subjects and do not follow universal rules.
We would also slow down the economy. Higher taxes = less spending = less GDP. The inverse is also true.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/tax_cuts.asp#:~:tex....
Can you give me an example of where raising taxes increased economic growth and lowering taxes didn't increase economic growth?
And then there are damning examples like Mozilla Corporation/Foundation.[1]
There are organizations that should be registered and handled as non-profits, but I also think a lot of the non-profits today are scams warranting a clean up.
[1]: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-990...
2. The chairman received just over $6.9 million dollars in compensation, see page 8.
3. Consider the above against what I replied to earlier.
MoCo/Fo is one, particularly outlandish, example where a "non-profit" makes a substantial profit and pays it out to its owner(s).