justinjoshuak

Joined 6 years ago

Karma

Submissions

Member since

Aug 17

Recent submissions

That's not really what's happening here. Tax obligations under the law are not clear cut. There's ambiguity. The law is often general in nature and old. It may not be clear how the law applies to a specific business.

A large business could seek out the opinion of ten different tax professionals and get a range of answers of how much tax the law requires them to pay. Even the IRS may not be certain. It's not unusual or unexpected that a business may have a disagreement with the IRS on how to interpret the law. If the taxpayer and the IRS can't come to an agreement, then the only way to resolve it is to take it to court and force a judge to make a call - the ruling then at least provides certainty to other businesses in the same situation.

For most people, their experience of paying tax as an individual has little relevance to the tax affairs of large businesses. Since there are millions of individuals, for any area of the law that's ambiguous, someone has already challenged the IRS and had the matter resolved in court, providing clarity for other individuals. This is not true for some businesses as there may only be a handful of other businesses (or even none at all) in a similar situation.

Comment · 5 years ago

This is an important piece of legislation - however OP doesn't provide the best link (it's a blog post from a company that sells encrypted email service?).

This should be a helpful - it's a list of politician speeches when the bill was debated in parliament.

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary%20Business/Bills%20Legi...

For non-Australians, politicians with (LP) or (LNP) belong to the party in government.

For example, speech by government party member: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansardr...

Speech from opposition party (that still supported the bill):https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansards...

Speech from a third party: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansards...

Comment · 5 years ago

I only have a superficial understanding of the legislation, but my impression is the opposite - it requires Google/Facebook to enter into good faith negotiations with news organisations that can choose to negotiate individually or collectively.

There's a Q&A from the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) that drafted the code:

https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/DPB%20-%20Draft%20news%...

> How would the code benefit smaller, regional and rural news media businesses?

>The bargaining power imbalance between news media businesses and the digital platforms is particularly acute for smaller, regional and rural news media businesses. The draft code would allow news media businesses to bargain with a digital platforms either individually or (more likely) as part of a collective. Bargaining as part of a collective would allow smaller news media businesses to negotiate from a stronger position than negotiating individually. Collective bargaining is likely to also reduce costs for individual news media businesses, and allow groups to pool resources and expertise during the negotiation process.

Comment · 6 years ago

> who recently admitted they spy on their citizens [0]

The linked article is about planned changes that haven't yet been legislated - "Details of the new powers – which will require legislation – are not contained in the strategy"