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113 points jimhi | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.44s | source
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SoftTalker ◴[] No.44474976[source]
What on earth is wrong with not paying taxes legally? What taxes does anyone pay other than those that they must pay?

If the government wants a tax to be paid they need to make it simple and unconditional. If there are loopholes or ways to legally avoid it, they will be discovered and people will take advantage of them.

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webdevver ◴[] No.44475075[source]
i think the latest term is 'tax optimisation'...

you could make an argument that in order to optimise your taxes, you have to be quite wealthy to begin with (hiring a tax guy, etc.) - otherwise you don't have any time left in the day to run your business.

so in practice, the little guy winds up just paying the 'sticker price' so to speak, while the big guy has pros who can make their big profits even bigger.

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1. carlosjobim ◴[] No.44475188[source]
You could make that argument, but it is incorrect. Creating a limited liability company is one of the few (the only?) things which is still allowed and accessible for any person to do, no matter if you're rich or poor, no matter your family name, no matter your political connections, no matter any visible or invisible handicaps you might have. In most places it costs very little to create an LLC or other similar kind of entity.

If you're "a little guy" - as I would consider myself - there are usually zero open doors and zero opportunities in this world, except for starting your own company. And it is possible to optimize your taxes from the start when your business is small. Most governments and states in the world actively encourage this by giving tax relief to small businesses, and then other types of incentives. The price for "hiring a tax guy" depends very much on the scale of your business, in the beginning it's not a lot of money, if you even need him.

For all this talk about "equality", this is the only thing that actually functions in our modern world.

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2. ryandrake ◴[] No.44475763[source]
> Most governments and states in the world actively encourage this by giving tax relief to small businesses, and then other types of incentives.

At least in the USA, I don't think there is any need to "incentivize" going into business via the tax code. Most people who can afford to own a business already do, and many people who really can't afford it still try! "I'd love to start a business and try to make a bunch of money, but those darn taxes are stopping me!" - said no US entrepreneur ever. They're not doing it for these small tax incentives, but they are certainly taking advantage of them whenever they can.

So it seems like we are simply incentivizing activity that's already going to happen and allowing people who were already going to do it anyway to have that activity be not subject to taxes.