Why is this an ad?
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I am suggesting that this behavior may be a tax dodge, and further that the tax dodge may have been enabled by the corporations themselves lobbying for certain changes in the tax code (as they are wont to do) to create the loophole that allowed them to perform said tax dodge.
This particular tax dodge doesn't make sense. They'd be better off paying the marginal tax on the amount spent on the marketing than paying for the marketing and paying a little bit less in taxes.
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This particular tax dodge doesn't make sense.
most of the tax dodges i've seen don't make sense unless you specialize in corporate finance....
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I've heard people say the same thing you did about lots of stuff (and not just in corporate tax stuff). I agree with you that it tends to demonstrate ignorance about tax codes and finance.
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I agree with you that it tends to demonstrate ignorance about tax codes and finance
not sure if burn or backhanded compliment
/me chooses to believe backhand compliment as she is out of burn ointment at the moment
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Congress critters don't actually read a lot of the bills that come before them; they just listen to who can make them richer.
While your second clause may very well be true, it doesn't help that some of the bill that come before them are 2000 pages long and due to be voted on in an hour.
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people who think the USofA is a Democracy. It isn't.
Some of the Founding Fathers were quite opposed to democracy. In their view, democracy == mob rule. Not without justification
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it doesn't help that some of the bill that come before them are 2000 pages long and due to be voted on in an hour.
The solution to that is pretty simple: no consideration of a bill before each individual Congress weasel has personally read the entire thing.
Bear in mind ObamaCare was deliberately designed to be hard to read; much of text consists of things like "section 1.2.3.4 of CFR a.b.c.d. will be changed by adding the words 'correct horse battery staple'".
If I were in charge, that wouldn't be allowed, either: instead, a bill would have to show the old and new text, and (at least) a paragraph of justification/explanation.
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I never understood why the electric company advertises. Are there people sitting around saying to themselves: "You know, I was thinking about getting rid of electricity until I saw that commercial. Now I think I'm going to keep it."
Plus, couldn't they use that advertising money to instead lower my bill?
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The USofA is a Federalist Republic.
Where'd this particular phrasing and your mouseover come from? We are a federal republic (no "ist", and "constitutional" is a pointless redundancy added by various groups to certain history books and rhetoric).
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Where'd this particular phrasing and your mouseover come from?
wookieepedia of course
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Here was me thinking you were referencing Wookieepedia for a moment before I realised it sounded too much like something in The Phantom Menace to be real.
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There are no parliaments (aside from the Funkadelic and cigarette sorts) in the US.
The US would be so much more awesome if it was run by the P-Funk.
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Oh, okay, 'nuff said. My bad.
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I never understood why the electric company advertises.
In most places I lived, the electric company was whichever monopoly had a deal with your town. Here in Texas, power delivery isn't monopolized, so you actually have a choice, and have to decide with whom to get power when you move.
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wookieepedia of course
The funny thing about that is some libertarians call themselves wookies for reasons that, as far as I can tell, aren't really worth going in to.
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huh.
TIL
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And now I'll explain, lol. As best I can tell, during one of the late Ron Paul sillinesses (2008?) a Libertarian wearing a Chewbacca suit was seen holding a sign for him.
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huh....
well if it's good enough for them.
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Here in Texas, power delivery isn't monopolized, so you actually have a choice, and have to decide with whom to get power when you move.
In the UK too, and the power companies definitely advertise plentifully, as do firms that “assist” people with switching providers (for a fee). (The “last mile” is monopolised, but is also very tightly regulated so nobody makes a profit on that bit. It's providing the service over the infrastructure that makes money.)
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The same applies to all utilities IIRC
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The same applies to all utilities IIRC
Things get more complicated for telecoms of various kinds; only BT are required to operate a local loop that way (and not everyone buys that service from them at all).
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Yes, because people are dumb and "gold is the next big market".
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In a related way: Every time I attend my local A & E, attend an outpatient appointment or GP, I get a "would you recommend [this facility] to your friends and family. Unless I am Doing It Wrong™ or Understanding It Wrong™, these are not places that you have any real choice over (maybe some with Hospitals). Dentists are different as even the NHS ones don't give a damn where you live.
Then, of course, is the obligatory, exit poll / survey.....
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The ads are probably designed to improve customer perception of the company: that they're an efficient, environmentally-conscious, affordable utility. The utility then gets fewer calls from customers complaining about how high their bills are. The amount of money they save on customer support is probably several times more than the few cents per customer the ads cost, so in the long run they're actually saving themselves (and you) money.
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these are not places that you have any real choice over
I guess it depends on the urgency. If you've got an incipient but not "call an ambulance" critical, problem and two roughly-equidistant emergency departments or urgent care centers, you can choose.
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There is precisely ZERO advantage to advertising these things to the general public, because there isn't a single person involved in procurement of any of these goods and services that are going to give a single fuck about a TV commercial.
You're right, and I'm thinking they aren't. I'm thinking they're advertising to the anonymous arms dealers hidden among the public. Public publishing of messages or advertisements is a very tried and true way to send messages to conspirators hidden among the public: even if the authorities know what message is sent, they don't know to whom the message is sent.
A good conspiracy theory never hurts...
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Unless I am Doing It Wrong™ or Understanding It Wrong™, these are not places that you have any real choice over
I used to get a lot of that for IT service tickets at my former employer. When your work laptop disk dies and you need a new one with the corporate standard configuration, you're not exactly going to take it down the street to Joe's Computer Repair. My recommendation or lack thereof is utterly irrelevant.
OTOH, both customer-facing and internal service organizations there lived and died on Net Promoter Scores, so those surveys were their performance evaluations. If you add an implied "If you had a choice" where appropriate, they kind of make sense.
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When your work laptop disk dies and you need a new one with the corporate standard configuration, you're not exactly going to take it down the street to Joe's Computer Repair. My recommendation or lack thereof is utterly irrelevant.
I have to admit, sometimes it's nice working for a place where the solution is simply "call Dell Support and invoke NBD service," who then provides a new motherboard for your laptop the next day, or whatever, and installs it for you.
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Ok but what you're calling a loophole is your standard, run-of-the-mill business expense. Perhaps it's a tax dodge but spending X dollars/euros/pounds on a commercial is more expensive than simply paying the tax.
Our politicians can't decide on the best place to tax - so they do it every which way they can. I'll throw out a third option, tax on consumption. That's an argument for another day though.