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Comment by Alaskan005 | Hacker News Reader

In my personal opinion, the money does more good in Google's hands than in the government's hands.

Ok then: in my opinion my money is better in my hands, but I have a hard time convincing the IRS. My wife and my family agree with me too, by the way. Who is going to pay for the roads and the military and the......

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Corporations can't hold on to money forever: at some point it goes to actual people. For the sake of argument, without saying whether it's a good idea or not, you could make a revenue-neutral elimination of corporate tax by raising taxes on people.

I'm not an economist, so this is layman speculation, but it seems that taxing corporate money would encourage the company to re-invest it more quickly. Some have said that reducing corporate taxes (and increasing taxes on money when it actually goes to people) would provide more money to create jobs/grow the business. Wouldn't there also be a reduced incentive re-invest the money?

Taxing it would mean they had less of it to spend. They might spend it depending on tax breaks, but that might skew incentives in terms of forcing companies to spend the money on something for themselves rather than see it disappear in taxes. That something might not be the best investment though.

That guy's money will go somewhere eventually too, into local coffee shops, craft market, plasma TV.

Just because it goes somewhere, doesn't mean it goes to the right place.

The difference being that Google is not going by opinion, but rather by law. Not saying I like what Google is doing (or like that they can), but if you want Google's behavior to change, the only route is likely going to be to change the law.

I responded to his comment. But I agree that what Google is doing is common and I do not blame them since it seems legal. IMO, laws will change.

You might be right. What kinds of public goods have you created lately? I listed a bunch that Google has done.

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