I am aware of that, but you need to realize that in the past it’s always been on the order of a shift of a few percent, not on the order of doubling or more. This is why I never called it illegal or unconstitutional - my issue is that it would set a precedent. The current precedent is that tax rates stay about where they are from year to year and no big changes happen without warning - things may shift a percent or so by the time it comes to calculate and pay, but it’s always within the margin of error anyway so people accept it. That’s what’s different this time, and why it’s so dangerous - this is the sort of breaking of unwritten rules that has been leading to such a chaotic government these last few years. Just because this time it’s “our side” doing it does not make it OK - it both justifies the “other side” breaking norms and gives them a precedent to do it themselves later. If R’s decide to retroactively double taxes on the masses in two years, they’ll bring this move up as justification, and it will indeed be a point in their favor on the argument. I don’t want to give them that ammunition, especially since we don’t have to. We don’t need to tax these companies now for last year - we can just pass a law now to tax them higher next year, and avoid the whole issue of large retroactive increases.
Oh, and you mentioned fines - those are not the same as taxes, and are not retroactive - those are legal penalties for breaking laws that already exist. They’re no more retroactive than putting someone in jail this year for the murder they committed last year.
Amazon was already doing that before the Pandemic.The only effect the Pandemic had on those plans would have been changing targets or timetables, but those shift as markets change, anyway.
As I said, the big players didn’t really enter or dominate any new markets because of the pandemic, they were already players in the sectors that the pandemic caused to surge.
right. they used their dollar power and our lack of anti-trust enforcement to corner many markets, and so when the pandemic hit they were able to hoover up vast sums of money they never would have if they’d played by the rules.
id be fine with breaking them all up instead of simply taxing them for their ill gotten gains, but that takes time and it doesn’t resolve wanting to balance the debt that the pandemic has caused for everyone else
especially amazon who isn’t protecting their workers the way they should be because they’re still out to squeeze every last dime from labor
Funny,I invested a lot of my time and energy into what was essentially a startup kind of business over the past five years, but was laid off due to the Trump Administration’s mishandling of COVID, thanks to urging by these same billionaires. That means that my fucking “risk/reward calculation” was off due to the actions of billionaire dickheads. So their 60% tax can be cancelled as soon as they undo the harm done to me.
It literally happened (the other way) a couple of years ago. The “norms” have been busted both ways before, and particularly under literally the most unprecedented event in American life in a century can things be done outside the norm.
Unless the fines are tax penalties, which is something that also happens pretty regularly.
Please. When do people have an actual say in any of that? Because if we did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The change from 90+% highest marginal tax rate down to sub-40% (really sub 15%, since most billionaires earn money through capital gains, not income) would NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. So bullshit about it not being fair to apply this retroactively. And bullshit to the slippery slope argument that, if it’s applied to billionaires profiting from death and misery, that it will be applied to us next. We’re already at the shit end of the tube.
