| | Discussion of statutes
begins always with the statutory language. Much water has been
flowed under the bridge below before Arlene even mentions the | | | Source of quotation?
apologies - above | |
>
> | First, this is hypertext
we are writing. Don't put a URL in the text, link it to the phrase
it amplifies, explains, or (in the case of references like this one)
resolves. Second, URL shorteners are disgusting. You're just giving
someone else a chance to surveil your readers' reading, hurting their
privacy in order to hide from them information they might want to
have. Second, you're distorting the link pattern of the web, which
makes it harder for people to see whose services are valuable to
them. Third, because you should be linking in hypertext, not putting
a URL in the text for people to copy, URL shortening serves no valid
purpose, because the reader doesn't retype the link anyway. In
short, no benefit+harm to others' privacy+misdirection of traffic =
poor use of the Web. | | | -- RohanGrey - 24 Jan 2012
tax n. a governmental assessment (charge) upon property value, transactions (transfers and sales), licenses granting a right, and/or income. (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/tax). | | | The idea of a positive transaction being the touchstone of a properly-named "tax" takes the default operation to be that people won't be losing additional money to the government, unless and until something about the status quo changes. | |
>
> | But the point is that in
fact nothing has changed. The words haven't altered anything at all
about what happens. From the perspective of the "bad man," or indeed
of any realist, the situations are identical, and to attach any
consequences requires invention of what Felix Cohen calls
"transcendental nonsense," which your made-up law about "default
operations" provides a superb sample of. | | | On the question of
taxes based on non-actions: If I sell my house for more than I paid
for it (or in some other cases, for more than the amount I am | | | Here's the way the situation looks to me, but I'd be happy to hear other ways of interpreting. At T1, I own my original house. At T2, the house has been sold (at a profit over my basis). At T3a, I have bought another house. On the other hand, at T3b, 18 months have passed, I haven't bought another house, and I must now pay a capital gains tax. At T1, the status quo is that I own a house (and, ignoring property taxes and everything, I won't have to pay any additional taxes on it). In moving to T2, I have upset the status quo by choosing to engage in an activity that brings with it a capital gains tax. The tax, therefore, is tied to the positive action of my earning money by selling something. If I go to T3a, the tax is forgiven on account of whatever policy aims that serves. If I go to T3b, then the tax comes due, and I must pay it. It can appear that the tax is only being forced upon me by virtue of my failure to buy another house, and maybe it is, from a certain viewpoint. At the same time, however, it shouldn't be forgotten that I found myself in T2 only as a result of my own choice to leave T1. The move from T2 to T3b is certainly the result of personal non-action, but is the tax excised on account of the move from T1 to T2, or the move from T2 to T3b? I gravitate toward the former, but what would Holmes say? | |
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< | If we determine that money exacted on the basis on a non-event can't be termed a "tax," and that the Affordable Care Act falls under this head, then we'd have a problem with arguing in favor of the Act under the taxing power. Can we make solid determinations on these questions? | >
> | What I said above, that
you just created a load of nonsense, from the realist point of view.
In either event, the law says you must pay taxes on your profit in
selling a house unless you buy another one quickly. All your extra
words prove is that this is neither a tax on doing nor a tax on not
doing, because that distinction is mere verbal trickery.
If we determine that money exacted on the basis on a non-event can't be termed a "tax," and that the Affordable Care Act falls under this head, then we'd have a problem with arguing in favor of the Act under the taxing power.
No, for the reason I
pointed out below, that not every action taken under the taxing power
constitutes a tax. Congress' power to lay and collect taxes
justifies creating agencies, paying salaries, establishing crimes and
the penalties for those crimes, regulating business record-keeping,
requiring individuals to maintain libraries of information for future
consultation, regulating charities, structuring businesses that make
up more than a seventh of the entire economy, establishing the nature
and governance of trade associations, and much much more.
The conversation seems to have become one about the constitutional
status of the ACA, about which , if I may put it gently, the writers
here are not fully knowledgeful commentators. Once again, the
problem has become trying to prove someone right or wrong. In the
process, Holmes' question is being lost, and also proved more
valuable. Formalism that isn't competent sounds much the same as
formalism that is competent. But incompetent realism, that gets the
facts wrong or takes an absurd view of the world inconsistent with
what actually happens, is much easier to spot. Hence, says Holmes,
if you want an accurate picture of the law, approach it
realistically, on the basis that things are what they do, not what
they are called, and assume that law is about social action, not
logical description.
Can we make solid determinations on these questions? | | | Does a piece of
legislation have to use the word "tax" in order to be based on the | | | -- ArleneOrtizLeytte - 25 Jan 2012 | |
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< | It would seem that the distinction between the subsequent "penalty" and the initial "tax" as used in 26(F)68(B)(1) Section 6671 and 26(F)68(B)(1) Section 6672 is that the penalty carries the option of being supplemented by additional liabilities above the originally determined tax liability as determined by the particular piece of legislation that authorized the particular penalty - which in itself is i guess a form of "non-compliance" tax. Taft's attempt to associate "penalties" with executive regulation power (as opposed to legislative taxation power) seems counter to the actual examples of penalties as described in that part of the tax code - all of them lay out specific rules and amounts for determining what penalties to impose, rather than leaving it to regulatory discretion (with a few exceptions for possible waivers). This might be an attempt to ensure that the "penalties" are dispersed uniformly as articulated by the Constitution, which would go towards the case that it is merely another form of tax. | >
> | It would seem that the distinction between the subsequent "penalty" and the initial "tax" as used in 26(F)68(B)(1) Section 6671 and 26(F)68(B)(1) Section 6672
There are standard forms
for citing the Internal Revenue Code. These aren't they, and for
good reason. Or you could just cite using the standard form for all
US Code citations,
26 USC §6671(a), for example (defining all "penalties" as
"taxes" within the meaning of the IRC). [Oh, did we miss
something?]
is that the penalty carries the option of being supplemented by additional liabilities above the originally determined tax liability as determined by the particular piece of legislation that authorized the particular penalty - which in itself is i guess a form of "non-compliance" tax. Taft's attempt to associate "penalties" with executive regulation power (as opposed to legislative taxation power) seems counter to the actual examples of penalties as described in that part of the tax code - all of them lay out specific rules and amounts for determining what penalties to impose, rather than leaving it to regulatory discretion (with a few exceptions for possible waivers). This might be an attempt to ensure that the "penalties" are dispersed uniformly as articulated by the Constitution, which would go towards the case that it is merely another form of tax. | | | -- RohanGrey - 25 Jan 2012 |
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