My understanding from my CPA stepfather is that you have to be making discernible progress toward making a profit to charge your expenses as tax deductible. He wouldn't let me go more than three years toward my own engineering company without showing significant improvement. I have a hard time swallowing the fact that the IRS would allow someone 7 years to show a profit.
I think that's more an issue for a family business where there can be a suspicion that the company is losing money only because the owner is paying himself too much. With a big corporation like Amazon, that's really not a factor - Amazon can (and might) lose money for decades. Amazon pays a lot of employees who pay a lot of income tax. I doubt the IRS is, overall, unhappy with Amazon. barfo
Same with my family member (3yrs, or else it can be declared a "hobby" not a business). The other aspect that I assume you ran into was that you were trying to get a small business off the ground by working with your own savings, banks, etc. Amazon went almost straight to VC and going public. Like I said before, the game is open to just about everyone who wants to take a risk.
Exactly, rather than small tax cuts for the middle and lower class, let's bring the wages up to livable wages by raising the minimum wage where it needs to be for survival. This administration wants to tear apart programs to help the poor and needy also wants to keep wages below poverty level. It doesn't work both ways and it has been proven that those lower range wage earners will put majority of any pay increases back into the economy. A win win for everyone.
Why the hell do you want corporations to be detemining what is a living wage for you or anyone else? Let them compete for help by offering a wage that attracts the help they need. Of course, you do not want the labor market flooded with more workers. Increasing the supply of workers. will indeed lower the wages required to attract the help.
Read a study by UW that raising it in Seattle caused cutbacks in hours worked and caused a net loss to some workers of 125 bucks a month. Not gonna link it because there are all types of studies and they don't even have access to all the data. Logic tells us that raising it will cause employers to cut hours, automate jobs or raise prices. Or all three and more. But it feels good to say an unskilled worker should get a certain amount just because they deserve it. lol
The federal government has no business in the game of the price of labor at any level. Having them set a minium wage and be in control of labor coming into the country give the represenatives an artificial hook to pander to the people with at election time. Let the market determine the wage employers must pay to attract labor. This crap has been going on for years and years. Any given state might weigh in if they deem a need and that might be fair, as they do not also control the labor available via immigration at the same time. Although, I suppose California does take that role on too.
I wonder how many jobs would be paid a bit more if there was no minimum wage. Or less. Who knows? Hey Bill, we need to hire a janitor. I can pay 8 or 9 bucks an hour. No Steve, minimum is 7.25 that's good enough. Cool!
I'm not even talking about federal regulations. I'm talking about pure and simple greed. The cost of living has risen considerably in Portland over the past ten years, but have companies increased wages? Nope. So what happens? Sprawl. The low to moderate income families have to move further and further away from the city, and they have to commute further and further to find work. Something in this country has changed man. My family was able to live comfortably off my dad's income in the 80s. He was making around 50k a year. Do you think a family of five today can live off 50k a year comfortably? The cost of living has gone up, but companies have abandoned any sense of loyalty. The only way to get paid what you deserve is to leave your company and look for work elsewhere. It's really sad. Gas costs 300% more. My parents bought their first house in the late 70s for 20k. They sold it a couple years ago for 300k. Hell, a fucking meal at Jack in the Box is like $10. That used to be a meal at a sit down restaurant. Not some shitty burger at a fast food joint. But have wages increased? Nope.
First, you seem to thinkl this only has to do with immigration but it isn't. It's about fair pay for work done. So you endorse just allowing companies to name any wage they want? In times of higher unemployment with a large number of people battling for the few jobs available what do you think the pay would be? It would be as little as they can and it becomes a take it or leave it. That's why a minimum wage was instituted so that at least companies couldn't rip employees off by paying them meager poverty level wages.Wages earned by mid level on down typically get spent in the economy to help boost the economy. Money saved by corporations on the other hand typically go into ownership, higher management positions and shareholders. Could you have lived on $7.25/hr? You definitely are a true modern Republican, and I don't mean that in a good way.
Ok. Maybe there are some jobs that should pay less than minimum wage based on supply and demand. So, are you prepared to pay more tax to support a larger social safety net for the people now making even less? Yeah, probably not. Yep. Since 1938. And the economy has been pretty robust over that period. So... maybe it's not such a terrible thing. barfo
They are not going to do shit for you. Niether is your pandering represenative. If you want a job that pays well, you damn well best be in demand and difficult to replace. By about 2055 or so we will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 thousand people the way things are going. Probably have more than twice as many people ready willing and able to replace you. How does that sound? When you get a grip and find that suxx, think of all those poorer folks trying to move in closer to work, while you are looking to move out a bit just to keep up. There is a collisiion there building a bit each year. You want a Represenative to keep you in good shape? Ha! You want the guy that owns your company to watch out for your ass, while these other guys want to take everthing he makes with a whopping tax? Shit man, you best be thinking of some bigger changes than we have on the table now.
It's bigger than that. When the gap in wealth is this big, guess what happens? Revolutions happen. People get fed up, pick up a gun, and start killin fools. When people get desperate, they start doing desperate things. It has happened before and it will happen again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays'_Rebellion The government allowed jobs to be shipped overseas. The government allowed the deregulation of the banks. The government is in charge of the schools, who are jacking up the cost of tuition and allowing text book companies to charge several hundred dollars for a required text, which puts kids at a huge disadvantage when they graduate. Like it or not, the government is deeply tied with what's happening to our economy. They are in bed with the corporations. I am not an economist, so I couldn't begin to imagine what we need to fix this problem, but I do know that it's not as simple as getting a representative.
