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While that may be true, it's not germane to an RFC for "Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement."



It's not even true.

A thriving startup will be reinvesting in R&D and marketing expense, thus bringing profits back down to $0 (or lower if you've got investor funds).

It's absolutely dishonest to pretend that corp income taxes matter to startups in any meaningful way. If you're on track to make $1.2m next year, aim to increase your average monthly spend by $100k, and you'll make no profit (and thus pay no corp income tax), while retaining ownership of an asset whose value is increasing at a multiple of the revenues.

Innovation and IP laws matter to entrepreneurs. Corporate income tax rates are close to irrelevant for entrepreneurs.


Absolutely agree.

Taxes do not matter to young startups, and I get frustrated hearing politicians (mainly from the right) argue that we need to cut corporate tax rates on behalf of entrepreneurs - when the primary beneficiaries are clearly large, established corporations.


This isn't just about startups. Innovation matters to all technology companies; all companies really.


Your first claims were obviously fraudulent.

That said, even after moving the goalposts (and pretending you didn't make your initial claims), your argument is still false just slightly less obviously so. Corporate income tax always costs rentiers more than innovators.

Corporate income tax is a very separate issue.


Corporate income tax rates are close to irrelevant for entrepreneurs.

Only if your plan is to build a paper valuation and then get acquihired by Facebook.

If you plan to build a sustainable business that eventually makes a profit, you certainly care about how high the corporate profits are.


Bullshit, and you know it.

A business that can acquire customers with an LTV of $1,000 for a cost of $500 (read: a good, sustainable business) isn't going to just sit on $1,000,000 of profit. They're going to buy 2,000 customers.

And then next year they're going to buy even more. And then even more.


The company is only reinvesting $1M profit this year in the hopes of making $2M profit next year. The ultimate goal of building a company is for it to generate profit which will accrue to the shareholders.

Your hypothetical process of continually reinvesting all the profit can't continue forever. Even if it could, the company would have no investors. Why throw your money away?


Yes, taxes are eventually paid. But they aren't harmful to the innovation process, rather they provide an incentive to innovate for as long as you can. The corp tax actually provides a net advantage to innovators over rent-collectors.

It's exactly backwards of what briandear was claiming.

As for the rest of your nonsense, you're arguing against things that weren't said or implied.


But they aren't harmful to the innovation process, rather they provide an incentive to innovate for as long as you can.

No, they merely reduce the incentive to innovate.

Taxes don't harm you while you innovate (which is a good thing - don't get me wrong), they harm you when you try to reap the proceeds of innovation.


The letter was written in response to this request for comments: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/06/25/help-us-shape-our-...

If you (like briandear) believe that including anti-tax arguments in a response would increase the efficacy of the response, I'd strongly suggest that you avoid a career in marketing or sales. Not trying to be snarky, but I can't think of a polite way of expressing how ineffective the inclusion of general anti-tax sentiment would be when attempting to persuade the target audience.


I never suggested the anti-tax arguments should be contained in the petition, I just said you were wrong in your claim that corporate taxes are irrelevant for entrepreneurs.




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