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No it's not, morals and laws are still different things. The morality of following the law while paying taxes isn't to pay the government as much as possible, it's to play by the same rules available to the rest of the players. Not my fault they don't want to spend the time to min/max. Alternatively, the federal government is investing tens of billions into pipeline and expansions while using your tax bucks to keep this bubble going with Shared Equity mortgages, at a certain point we're crossing a line where it's reprehensible to not withhold as much as legally possible.
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Aug 1, 2019 04:59
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incontinence 100 posted:*forms a corporation* This is how us tech bros roll, my expenses are all 2legit
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Aug 1, 2019 05:08
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very moral and legal
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Oh they're different things. I see.
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Aug 1, 2019 05:13
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Please don't act like I support this government.
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Aug 1, 2019 05:14
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Postess with the Mostest posted:No it's not, morals and laws are still different things. The morality of following the law while paying taxes isn't to pay the government as much as possible, it's to play by the same rules available to the rest of the players. Not my fault they don't want to spend the time to min/max. The pipeline and the propping up of the housing market are both lovely wastes of money by the federal government. That said, your entire line of argument is reiterating the right-wing libertarian viewpoint that the government is some shady third party that rich people should be "shielding" their money from. The government is the people. You elect them. And for every lovely pipeline deal they're spending orders of magnitude more money on education, healthcare, science, infrastructure, the arts, and a whole range of other key services that are critical to the way of life of you and everyone else in the country. Saying that it's a moral obligation to avoid paying taxes is just saying that rich people should avoid doing their share and leave poor people with less access to government services. It's straight up Randian FYGM-ism. Edit: also the whole line about how everyone plays by the same rules is an even bigger crock of poo poo. The rules are set up to ensure that the people with the most money are most able to avoid taxes. Poor and lower-middle-class people do not have the time to min/max the tax system, or the money to pay accountants and lawyers to do that for them. Lead out in cuffs fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Aug 1, 2019 |
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Aug 1, 2019 05:31
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Lead out in cuffs posted:The pipeline and the propping up of the housing market are both lovely wastes of money by the federal government. Yep, there's different rules for different levels but the rules should at least be the same for people at the same level. In an earlier post, I pointed out that the government was holding the bag for maintaining that unfair system. Hate the game, not the player. One of many reasons that I am not the government and they're not me. Even if you accept that, certainly the poor and lower class should especially be working as a group to maximize legal tax avoidance? RRSPs are avoiding taxes. The government (being me/the people in this argument) wants me to do it. I want me to avoid taxes to contribute to my retirement, to fund my kids' RESPs, to buy a house, to start a small business and to reinvest into that business. There are dozens of programs like RRSPs that the government me has set up to benefit the taxpayer me, I'm not immoral for knowing what they all are or hiring someone who does, in fact I think it'd make me very happy with myself. e: and lol that the government cares about providing poor people with access to services, even the most progressive government we've ever had publicly declares daily that their main concern is the middle class and those working hard to join it. A good person is far better off maximizing their donations to organizations that actually care which is gonna mean minimizing their tax burden. Postess with the Mostest fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Aug 1, 2019 |
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Aug 1, 2019 05:53
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Postess with the Mostest posted:I'd argue yes in the domain of how much tax should you feel obligated to pay. A good accountant isn't less moral than a bad one and a person isn't bad for choosing an accountant that will legally get them a larger return. Is all legal financial maximization moral then, or just the magic special ones classified as “tax”? Surely if utterly maximizing rent (which lets the landlord’s kids go to a better university, after all) or operating a predatory loan business were in any way immoral, the government would make it illegal. If you move to the US, contributing to your RESP is no longer tax deductible. Does that change the morality of reducing your tax by that amount, or just the legality? Subjunctive fucked around with this message at 12:05 on Aug 1, 2019 |
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Aug 1, 2019 12:00
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You're morally richer than you think.
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Aug 1, 2019 14:38
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Subjunctive posted:Is all legal financial maximization moral then, or just the magic special ones classified as “tax”? The morality of taxes is contingent on the legality of taxes because of the "playing by the same rules" notion. Other canadians living in the US can't reduce their tax by that amount for that incentive so you shouldn't either. The government doesn't behave like a non-profit charity and they shouldn't be treated like one for ethical purposes. It's lazy to pretend that giving money to the government is better than taking some time to scrimp it back and then giving that plus the tax savings from donating to a good actual non-profit.
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Aug 1, 2019 15:01
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Find a good non-profit that builds and runs roads, transit, schools, libraries, hospitals, utilities and emergency services, giving their employees reasonable wages and benefits.
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Aug 1, 2019 15:28
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Edit: also the whole line about how everyone plays by the same rules is an even bigger crock of poo poo. The rules are set up to ensure that the people with the most money are most able to avoid taxes. Poor and lower-middle-class people do not have the time to min/max the tax system, or the money to pay accountants and lawyers to do that for them.
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Aug 1, 2019 15:33
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So in Toronto landlords have found one weird trick to evict anyone. Just have a family member or someone you want to replace the tenant buy a 1% share of ownership of the building, congrats, that person is now a landlord and can force the tenants out so they can make "personal use" of the building. There should be zero loopholes in tenant's rights related to owners or family. Why should a landlord or their family members have special tenancy-trumping powers? The only valid evictions should be because the person hasn't paid rent in X months or are extremely disruptive or dangerous. Not because the landlord's niece is moving here for school. She can find a rental like anyone else, her blood shouldn't give housing rights smashing powers.
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Aug 1, 2019 15:38
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Postess with the Mostest posted:Tax is legalized theft in the same way that laws are legalized violence. There's avoiding taxes which is legal and everyone's moral obligation. Then there's tax evasion which is illegal and reprehensible. Nah, the legal code should be set up and enforced so that a house is first and foremost a person's home and not just a number on a balance sheet. If someone owns the deed to a home and has been occupying it for years then it is their house and they should keep it regardless of what a terrible, entitled and ungrateful person they happened to be. The court shouldn't go out of its way to protect the idea that a home is first and foremost an investment that you expect to profit off of by selling for more than it was bought for. Postess with the Mostest posted:The morality of taxes is contingent on the legality of taxes because of the "playing by the same rules" notion. Other canadians living in the US can't reduce their tax by that amount for that incentive so you shouldn't either. The government doesn't behave like a non-profit charity and they shouldn't be treated like one for ethical purposes. It's lazy to pretend that giving money to the government is better than taking some time to scrimp it back and then giving that plus the tax savings from donating to a good actual non-profit. Most of this activity - both the elaborate regulations required to set up and maintain such an arrangement, and the homo economicus behaviour required to flourish within - are abhorrent. I don't blame individuals for playing the cards they are dealt but the game itself shouldn't even be possible to play. All this mental energy dedicated to min maxing your tax burden could be used for something more useful like a fantasy football league.
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Aug 1, 2019 15:38
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Ah here's the article. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/toronto-tenants-fight-back-after-new-landlord-buys-1-stake-in-house-and-evicts-them-1.5230259
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Aug 1, 2019 16:00
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Helsing posted:Most of this activity - both the elaborate regulations required to set up and maintain such an arrangement, and the homo economicus behaviour required to flourish within - are abhorrent. I don't blame individuals for playing the cards they are dealt but the game itself shouldn't even be possible to play. All this mental energy dedicated to min maxing your tax burden could be used for something more useful like a fantasy football league. Well, the minnest min is to just hire an accountant or tax lawyer, the system keeps those whackos segregated and occupied at least. Helsing posted:Nah, the legal code should be set up and enforced so that a house is first and foremost a person's home and not just a number on a balance sheet. If someone owns the deed to a home and has been occupying it for years then it is their house and they should keep it regardless of what a terrible, entitled and ungrateful person they happened to be. The court shouldn't go out of its way to protect the idea that a home is first and foremost an investment that you expect to profit off of by selling for more than it was bought for. Fine but that doesn't change the fact that basically every house you see is owned by the bank, almost nobody owns their house outright (and if they do, they aren't min/maxing properly because they should be using that equity to build more equity in a larger home in a nicer neighbourhood). I'm not even sure that the investment idea was key to R. v. Entitled Fatty, it was just a cost analysis between renting for 4 years vs buying and selling after the same time. Mortgage/interest/upkeep - tenant rent vs rent. Terrible of the daughter to try to keep the capital.
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Aug 1, 2019 16:05
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Baronjutter posted:So in Toronto landlords have found one weird trick to evict anyone. Just have a family member or someone you want to replace the tenant buy a 1% share of ownership of the building, congrats, that person is now a landlord and can force the tenants out so they can make "personal use" of the building. Well if it's legal, it's moral.
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Aug 1, 2019 16:22
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Postess with the Mostest posted:Well, the minnest min is to just hire an accountant or tax lawyer, the system keeps those whackos segregated and occupied at least. Thinking about all those wasted nerd brains always reminds me of this scene from the film Margin Call, where one of the finance guys who has helped destroy the real economy reminisces about his original career. quote:Fine but that doesn't change the fact that basically every house you see is owned by the bank, almost nobody owns their house outright (and if they do, they aren't min/maxing properly because they should be using that equity to build more equity in a larger home in a nicer neighbourhood). I'm not even sure that the investment idea was key to R. v. Entitled Fatty, it was just a cost analysis between renting for 4 years vs buying and selling after the same time. Mortgage/interest/upkeep - tenant rent vs rent. Terrible of the daughter to try to keep the capital. The question of whether it was an investment or a gift seems to be what the entire case hinges on though? For all intents and purposes they gave her the house and she legally owned it and then at a later point they said actually it was not a gift it was a poorly documented investment that was intentionally fudged to gain tax credits that the real purchases wasn't eligible for. The judge looked at the totality of the circumstances and decided based on everyone's stories and the available documentation that the parent's probably were telling the truth that they never gave their daughter the house and merely lied about it to avoid taxes. It seems like if you're intentionally fudging ownership to avoid taxes then it's fair play if your partner in crime decides to abscond with the loot. There's no honour among thieves.
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Aug 1, 2019 16:32
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Helsing posted:Thinking about all those wasted nerd brains always reminds me of this scene from the film Margin Call, where one of the finance guys who has helped destroy the real economy reminisces about his original career. Yeah, I had the same thought walking around Wall Street at 8am and seeing the human tidal wave that produces nothing and everything. There was a gift either way, they were going to pay her rent otherwise probably. This way, they used their capital to buy the house and the gift was having a place to live rent free (I guess she paid mortgages while collecting rent from the tenant that covered most of it?) and the idea was that it would a smaller gift in the long run than paying her rent through school. It's a big gift so why wouldn't the younger lady use some of her available tax breaks to mitigate the tax costs to her parents? The capital wasn't the gift, it was the tool that enabled the gift. For thieves, it comes back to tax avoidance vs evasion. The government has all kinds of incentives to help you avoid taxes so they can't get that mad when someone goes an inch over the line. And it sounded like the girl tricked the parents into giving her the 99/1 ownership meaning she was planning this from the start, it wasn't a sudden surprise when she lost her home. Definitely feel the worst for the parents, like how do you even avoid your kids turning out that way.
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Aug 1, 2019 16:44
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Postess with the Mostest posted:R. v. Entitled Fatty 
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Aug 1, 2019 16:46
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Helsing posted:The question of whether it was an investment or a gift seems to be what the entire case hinges on though? For all intents and purposes they gave her the house and she legally owned it and then at a later point they said actually it was not a gift it was a poorly documented investment that was intentionally fudged to gain tax credits that the real purchases wasn't eligible for. The judge looked at the totality of the circumstances and decided based on everyone's stories and the available documentation that the parent's probably were telling the truth that they never gave their daughter the house and merely lied about it to avoid taxes. Yeah this strikes me as one of those cases where, to the extent that a valid contract may have existed, it's entire purpose was to break the law, and so should be non-enforceable on those grounds. I'm sure legally there's a difference between violating the criminal code and violating the tax code, but there probably shouldn't be.
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Aug 1, 2019 16:53
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Baronjutter posted:There should be zero loopholes in tenant's rights related to owners or family. Why should a landlord or their family members have special tenancy-trumping powers? The only valid evictions should be because the person hasn't paid rent in X months or are extremely disruptive or dangerous. Not because the landlord's niece is moving here for school. She can find a rental like anyone else, her blood shouldn't give housing rights smashing powers. I'm not so sure this is a good idea. I agree that the 1% thing is bullshit (really, it should require 50% ownership to do this, and ideally require that the person with the ≥50% interest reside at the house for six months or a year), but a lot of small landlords are never going to put rentals onto the market if they have no ability to move themselves back in in case of an emergency.
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Aug 1, 2019 19:32
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tagesschau posted:I'm not so sure this is a good idea. I agree that the 1% thing is bullshit (really, it should require 50% ownership to do this, and ideally require that the person with the ≥50% interest reside at the house for six months or a year), but a lot of small landlords are never going to put rentals onto the market if they have no ability to move themselves back in in case of an emergency. Good. Small landlords are terrible and the tax code and legal system should be set up so that all rental properties are owned by some kind of tightly regulated non-profit entity, if not the government. Other than wanting to avoid the disruption that a big change would cause there is absolutely no reason we should want to support small landlords, especially not when that requires taking away tenant rights just to keep the precious investor class feeling in control.
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Aug 1, 2019 19:46
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Helsing posted:Good. Small landlords are terrible and the tax code and legal system should be set up so that all rental properties are owned by some kind of tightly regulated non-profit entity, if not the government. Other than wanting to avoid the disruption that a big change would cause there is absolutely no reason we should want to support small landlords, especially not when that requires taking away tenant rights just to keep the precious investor class feeling in control. If you think things would be so much better if TCHC ran most of the rental stock, you must not know what those letters stand for. My building isn't made of glistening granite and glass, but at least my landlord fixes things when they break.
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Aug 1, 2019 20:42
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tagesschau posted:If you think things would be so much better if TCHC ran most of the rental stock, you must not know what those letters stand for. My building isn't made of glistening granite and glass, but at least my landlord fixes things when they break. That's such a bullshit classic conservative, defund a public service then point out how it's terrible, line of crap. gently caress off.
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Aug 1, 2019 21:32
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RBC posted:That's such a bullshit classic conservative, defund a public service then point out how it's terrible, line of crap. gently caress off. You can gently caress off unless you can point to a plausible situation in which the city owns my building and I'm not worse off. tagesschau fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 13:04
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The rich are taxed more and the funds are spent on social welfare 
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Aug 2, 2019 14:09
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tagesschau posted:You can gently caress off unless you can point to a plausible situation in which the city owns my building and I'm not worse off. I grew up in TCHC properties and while they were pretty utilitarian, cleaning and maintenance were pretty regular. It seemed like everything was triaged well - leaks and appliance failure were taken care of promptly, compared to say, peeling paint. Over the past 5 years I've volunteered with a few programs across uptown and downtown buildings and the the money spent on enhanced physical security and beautification make them outwardly indistinguishable from other corporate apartment buildings. This compared to a friend's new-built condo where water leaks are common, security is useless, nothing is allowed on balconies, and their maintenance fees (which rise with every builder-caused issue) may as well be their mortgage payment. So yeah, I'll take a publicly funded agency with at least some oversight and accountability over another private property management group without either of those things.
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Aug 2, 2019 14:54
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tagesschau posted:You can gently caress off unless you can point to a plausible situation in which the city owns my building and I'm not worse off. I hope you are worse off. I could not care less.
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Aug 2, 2019 16:18
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NZAmoeba posted:The rich are taxed more and the funds are spent on social welfare You've got it backwards friend. We print money to pay for social welfare, then tax the rich to control inflation.
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Aug 2, 2019 16:24
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Der Luftwaffle posted:I grew up in TCHC properties and while they were pretty utilitarian, cleaning and maintenance were pretty regular. It seemed like everything was triaged well - leaks and appliance failure were taken care of promptly, compared to say, peeling paint. I'm not sure what it's up to now, but they have something like a 2 billion capital repair backlog. Pointing to something that's underfunded by 2 billion, and saying heh, GOVERNMENT SUX!! LOL is grounds for a permaban, imo. It's just extreme stupidity.
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Aug 2, 2019 16:36
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tagesschau posted:If you think things would be so much better if TCHC ran most of the rental stock, you must not know what those letters stand for. My building isn't made of glistening granite and glass, but at least my landlord fixes things when they break. There's a reason I didn't refer specifically to the TCHC, because I'm speaking more generally. Toronto Community Housing has a repair backlog because in 1998 the Progressive Conservatives downloaded the costs of the program onto the city of Toronto, which is not the appropriate level of government to fund social housing, in the full knowledge that they were sabotaging the program. A wave of lovely conservative governments and the consensus that the tax base can't be significantly expanded beyond where Harris left it locks that system into place. This is the result of a specific historical process: the specific experiences of the global slump, the Second World War, and the emergence of a postwar form of "embedded liberalism" that prioritized economic security and demand-side economic growth. After a few decades of high growth there was an extended economic crisis, social conflict sharpened because of the Vietnam war and the increasing demands for rights by minorities, and after a decade of panicked flailing the major governments and corporations of the world gradually settled onto a policy of "neoliberal" policies targeting supply side issues and calling for more "flexible" markets, smaller government and less regulation. They then specifically and systematically targeted the institutions and organizations that undergirded the old embedded liberal system, smashed their power utterly through a protracted series of political battles, and then salted the earth to ensure they wouldn't be reconstructed. To cite one example of a very different approach to the one taken in Canada: quote:Take Singapore, for example. Singapore had its own “Brexit” in 1965 when it separated from Malaysia. In 1960 the Singapore Housing and Development Board (HDB) was formed to provide affordable and high-quality housing for residents of this tiny city-state nation. Today, more than 80% of Singapore’s 5.4m residents live in housing provided by the development board. Whether you'd want to implement that particular system is debatable. But the point is there are contemporary examples of very different approaches to the housing issue so the idea we're stuck doing everything in one specific way is asinine. All we lack is the political will to try and improve things. And much like in a private healthcare system, giving the rich and the upper parts of the middle class an alternative to the public system is one of the main reasons that the public system is allowed to go underfunded. The less chances the wealthy have to buy their own way the more incentive there is to improve the situation for everyone. Now, all that having been said, it actually doesn't matter. Because genuinely affordable TCHC accommodations that your bougie rear end deems unacceptable would literally be a life transforming gift from the heavens for so many people that I know. It would mean a level of freedom they can't really comprehend right now: the right to escape their toxic alcoholic father, the chance to leave that lovely partner they share a lease with, the ability to turn down an exploitative gig because you actually have some savings this month because you didn't have to spend two thirds of your income every month on rent, the knowledge that if you had to move there are affordable units available, maybe even the ability to invite people over or cook your own meals. It would mean freedom - real, actual freedom that gives people the ability to live better lives - for a lot of people who never had a real taste of it before. So even if public housing continued to be run as it is now by the TCHC, it'd still be a huge boon for the people who need it most if it were set up so that everyone who wanted it could have a unit. tagesschau posted:You can gently caress off unless you can point to a plausible situation in which the city owns my building and I'm not worse off. Perhaps this is a slightly unfair question but how far above the median income are you? Because some people inevitably will have to be worse off to make everyone else better off. The same logic applies to public healthcare. Helsing fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 18:04
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lmao COPE's main twitter account has finally disavowed their COPE Housing account, which has gone rogue with a NIMBY stance to Temporary Modular Housing for the Homeless. People on #vanre were wondering if Cope Housing was a parody account or something. https://twitter.com/COPEVancouver/status/1157340730144149504?s=20
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Aug 2, 2019 19:57
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cool https://twitter.com/HousingOpen/status/1157352951859445760?s=20 House prices in Vancouver continue to edge lower (Video: The National)
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Aug 4, 2019 18:20
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Good
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Aug 4, 2019 21:58
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Condo prices can't possibly fall - they're running out of sky.
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Aug 4, 2019 23:10
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James Baud posted:Condo prices can't possibly fall - they're running out of
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Aug 5, 2019 00:06
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James Baud posted:Condo prices can't possibly fall - they're running out of sky. So says Royce McCutcheon.
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Aug 5, 2019 06:13
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I love it when YIMBYs in Vancouver whine about the viewcones, but then turn around and assert that it's absurd how Vancouver devotes so much land to low rise housing and that it needs to be upzoned. Well if we have so much drat low density zoned land that we can meet our population goals with mild upzoning of that, then why are you so butt hurt about the limiting of tower heights in downtown due to view cones? The towers shouldn't need to be high if we have all this other land we can use. Then you realize they're just a bunch of weirdos that get excited by BIG TOWERS.
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Aug 5, 2019 07:33
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Femtosecond posted:I love it when YIMBYs in Vancouver whine about the viewcones, but then turn around and assert that it's absurd how Vancouver devotes so much land to low rise housing and that it needs to be upzoned. vancouver.txt
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Aug 5, 2019 22:01
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Helsing posted:A wave of lovely conservative governments Answers that can't survive in the face of the Tories being elected more than once in a row are not the panacea they're being presented as. (And Singapore as a model? Really?) RBC posted:It's just extreme stupidity. No counterargument? Insult the poster instead! It's the RBC way.
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Aug 6, 2019 13:04
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