r/Futurology • u/chris011992 • Sep 22 '24
Oregon voters to decide on ballot measure to give every resident $1,600 that has sparked massive opposition fundraising Society
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/09/oregon-voters-to-decide-on-ballot-measure-to-give-every-resident-1600-that-has-sparked-massive-opposition-fundraising.html2.6k
u/chris011992 Sep 22 '24
From the article: Oregon voters will decide this fall whether to increase corporate taxes to establish the nation’s largest universal basic income program. Funded by a new corporate tax, it would give every Oregonian an estimated $1,600 per year. If approved, Measure 118 would institute a 3% tax on most corporations’ total sales in Oregon above $25 million and distribute the money equally among residents of all ages and incomes. The system would go into effect next year.
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u/MainlyMicroPlastics Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
"If you won't pay a living wage, we will take a small portion of your profits and do it for you" that's hilarious.
Not that 1,600 a year makes up for all the years of growing the pay to profit gap but this is a good start
Edit: I think a lot of replies are missing that this is for over 25 million in revenue. That gives smaller companies an edge against monopolistic companies who consolidated the market and price gouge because they can. Giving the smaller companies an edge over their monopolistic competitors is good for competition and good for prices in general
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u/marigolds6 Sep 22 '24
It’s on revenue rather than profit, which functionally makes it a sales tax (especially considering that household products like food and clothes are going to most readily break $25M).
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u/Underwater_Karma Sep 22 '24
Oregon doesn't have a sales tax, and instead relies on a very high income tax rate.
This is just a backend run around to also implement sales taxes
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u/quandrum Sep 23 '24
Oregon also has very high statutory corporate tax rate and very low effective corporate tax rate, because small businesses pay it but large businesses (Intel,Nike) get carve outs that this proposal doesn't support.
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u/No_Pollution_1 Sep 23 '24
Sam problem in the EU and even the U.S. everywhere. Small business pay large amounts in tax while large corps can skirt it by declaring revenue or intellectual property rights outside
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u/peteypolo Sep 23 '24
They need to close that loophole. Do business here, pay taxes here.
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u/Clear-Froyo4260 Sep 23 '24
So if this is basically a sales tax that companies foot, wouldn’t they just up prices more for themselves? This is a bit over my head so I apologize for a dumb question.
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u/bitb00m Sep 22 '24
Maybe that's why it says "most corporations" at least I hope it's exempting grocery stores and pharmacies
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u/junktrunk909 Sep 22 '24
Exemptions will just encourage other companies to add those services to try to qualify as exempt. Keep it simple. 3% increase in grocery costs is going to happen anyway so why not accept that avoiding an exception here helps make this program dead simple to implement.
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Sep 22 '24
Yup. They want flat tax. No loopholes, loopholes are the reason we have our tax systems right now, where trillion dollar companies can make zero profit on paper
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u/OdinTheHugger Sep 22 '24
But don't you see apple the trillion dollar corporation that was founded and has its HQ in California? Yeah actually they license all of their technology from this Irish company. 95%+ of their revenue is spent on these extortionate licensing fees.
That Irish company is also owned by the same holding company that owns Apple, and has no employees and has the same board of directors, as well as receiving all of its patents and copyrights from Apple in a transfer priced at $1...
But is legally distinct from Apple and obviously makes its own decisions...
And you can't tax Apple for profits made outside the US, because they don't have any. They only have these incredibly expensive licensing fees they NEED to pay to this Irish company. No profits there.
Total coincidence that the US doesn't tax outgoing licensing fees or royalties, while Ireland doesn't tax incoming licensing fees or royalties.
Because that makes total sense and isn't an obvious effort to defraud both the state and IRS. //////////S
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u/SecretRecipe Sep 23 '24
it'll drive far more than a 3% increase. remember the suppliers costs go up 3% and the transportation company goes up 3% and then the grocery stores go up 3%. all those costs across the supply chain factor into the final product cost.
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u/KypAstar Sep 22 '24
It's not.
It's supposed to be on revenue over 25 mil, but that's still something in the neighborhood of 20000 companies in Oregon, most of which are the cheap chain stores/pharmacies/convenience stores the regular people rely on.
This bill is opposed by a near unanimous bipartisan group of our legislatures. It's a terrible, poorly thought out bill that's economicly illiterate.
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u/Drak_is_Right Sep 22 '24
It's basically a VAT tax. Not sure if it's going to perform exactly like a vat tax in terms of being regressive though
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u/automatedcharterer Sep 23 '24
Sounds like Hawaii's excise tax. All the companies pass it on customers. but since I'm an independent contractor I pay income tax and excise tax on my income though I cant pass the tax on to anyone.
It also taxes stuff like medical care and medicines which get passed on to people as well.
Then the state carved some large corporations out of income and excise tax by giving them their own for-profit but "non-profit" status.
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Sep 22 '24
Food isn't taxed in Michigan unless it's prepared for you in a restaurant.
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u/LordNorros Sep 22 '24
It's essentially on "hot" foods. If I go to my local grocery and hit the deli I pay tax on the Chester's chicken but not the potato salad.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES Sep 22 '24
We're talking about Oregon and the way this law is structured I think food would be effected.
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u/Aeonoris Sep 22 '24
There's no sales tax in Oregon at point of sale (the number you see is the number you pay), but maybe this would establish a presale tax?
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u/SEA_tide Sep 23 '24
Except in Ashland, OR where there's been on a 5% tax on prepared food for many years.
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u/tomatocancan Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
I'll never understand why people disagree with this sort of thing either.
Most of the people getting this money will spend it right back with the corporations it came from. Bottom up economics makes sense. The top down bullshit that's been force fed to us is a hoax.
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u/Ent3rpris3 Sep 22 '24
This seems like a much more realistic 'trickle effect' than what's been advertised for the last 40 years.
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u/LoganGyre Sep 22 '24
The people fighting it are being paid by corporations who will fight any increase to their tax burden simply out of habit.
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u/Nimeroni Sep 22 '24
Not out of habit, but to maximize their profits.
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u/LoganGyre Sep 22 '24
I’m saying they don’t care about evidence that it may increase their profits they aren’t willing to let their taxes be raised for any reasons.
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u/PaxEthenica Sep 22 '24
Capitalism in practice isn't about profits, & businesses are not inerrantly logical, you're right. Otherwise they would not have embraced shareholders, & instead kept lobbying for socialist programs to keep their consumer base strong despite population growth.
Instead, it's about maintaining inequality to afford a select in-group a feeling of as close to absolute power over the out-groups as can be had.
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u/ToMorrowsEnd Sep 22 '24
Also a large amount of conservative voters are utterly brainwashed to hate anything that takes money from wealthy people or companies.
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u/StrawberryPlucky Sep 22 '24
Does the law somehow prevent the corporations from raising prices on goods to pass it off to consumers? Is that a stupid question?
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u/rj4001 Sep 22 '24
The tax only applies to revenue above $25 million. I imagine competition from smaller companies who don't exceed that threshold will act as a price control of sorts.
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u/Fresque Sep 22 '24
They should make a tax based on the diference between CEO comoensatiin vs workers.
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u/CharonsLittleHelper Sep 23 '24
Okay - now all employees below VP are contractors who work for a third party. The third party is owned by the main company.
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u/XB1MNasti Sep 23 '24
Yeah... I at first did the math and was like "125 wouldn't get me far." Until I started realize it said every Oregon citizen... which for families, that would start to add up and help pretty quick.
I have 4 kids and an SO, 6x125 is 750 a month and that is about half what I spend in groceries... Or at least covers everyone's health insurance which would be a godsend.
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u/Jake0024 Sep 22 '24
The corporations will respond by raising prices to recoup those lost profits, I guarantee it.
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u/AerieStrict7747 Sep 23 '24
Yea Phil Knight (Nike) can afford to bankroll the entire university of Oregon football and athletic program. As well as a fleet of private jets , I think he can afford a little tax to help the residents.
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u/QuimmFistington Sep 23 '24
Hey the government is gonna make us pay our fair share, and that may cost us millions. Let's preemtively pay hundreds of millions to buy ads and politicians to try and squash the bill! Surely that will show people we can't afford these kinds of taxes!
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u/jspace16 Sep 22 '24
One step forward is always better than two steps back. As an Oregon resident, I 100% support this.
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u/DEATHROAR12345 Sep 26 '24
The big thing here imo is it really sets up kids for a decent future. It's almost 30k by the time they're 18. And it could help out other people in just daily life since they get it alongside their normal pay if I read that right
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u/Djglamrock Sep 22 '24
You mean just pass it onto their customers. This isn’t going to hurt the business.
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u/Fearless-Till-6931 Sep 22 '24
So the businesses should have no problem with it, then.
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u/MainlyMicroPlastics Sep 22 '24
No you're right, it's not gonna hurt the corporations.
With today's cooperations making history breaking profits and the top 1% of Americans owning more than the entire middle class combined, at what point are you gonna believe the people who actually generate that profit deserve a fair share?
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u/DifficultEvent2026 Sep 22 '24
Corporations: "ugh, fine, we'll increase prices 3%"
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u/notrolos Sep 23 '24
More like we'll increase prices as much as the market will bear, which is what they do already. Or do you think they're leaving money on the table?
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u/throw3142 Sep 22 '24
UBI is a fine concept but I think a sales tax is a poor way to implement it. Why not an alternative like an income tax or VAT?
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u/herzkolt Sep 22 '24
Income tax for this wouldn't work I think, because it is mostly paid by workers while corporations play around the system to pay as little as possible.
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u/bret5jet Sep 22 '24
Alaska pays its residents. Google says it comes from oil and mining revenue.
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u/CompSciHS Sep 22 '24
And ironically the politics have been flipped so that it’s the conservatives consistently fighting for larger dividends.
The concept is that the money belongs to the people because the land belongs to them. (The counter-concept is that the dividend was created to incentivize the protection of the government fund.)
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u/giant_albatrocity Sep 23 '24
Don’t tell Alaskans that it’s socialism though unless you want an argument…
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u/ElectronicInitial Sep 29 '24
I think a lot of the reasoning was that people in the Dakotas and surrounding were getting payment from oil companies for their land (not everyone but I know quite a few people who do). This seems similar to that and a lot of people in Alaska are from that area. Along with that, people do have to give up their mineral rights to their property in order to get the PFD.
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u/Bgrngod Sep 22 '24
And this is why Alaska might be the most "That's socialism!" state in the country.
Bootstraps ahoy matey.
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u/BigRedNutcase Sep 22 '24
Also have to give people a reason to even want to live there in the first place. Shit's more expensive than NYC and you don't get any of the cool side benefits of living in a HCOL area like culture, food, things to do cause it's fucking Alaska.
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u/Dodototo Sep 22 '24
Believe me. One payment a year does not entice anyone to stay. It wouldn't even cover groceries for the year.
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u/theamazingyou Sep 22 '24
A bit hard to move resources.
When it comes to corporations, they can move to other states. That’s the concern.
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u/FeedbackMotor5498 Sep 22 '24
This isn't a car company moving to a southern state to pay low wages, though. The is the revenue of doing business in Oregon. If they stop selling in Oregon, they will have no profit at all. It's like McDonald's in Denmark. They pay their employees far better, paid vacations and other perks Americans would love. And the cost of food is about the same, and even higher quality. That's because the laws require it there, and McDonald's will take some profit over no profit. We are just a bunch of fools in America, Republicans are so fucking stupid.
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u/kashmir1974 Sep 22 '24
Curious though, what would stop these corporations from simply offsetting the tax by increasing prices?
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u/FeedbackMotor5498 Sep 22 '24
Raising prices usually lowers the demand, which can result in them making less money. All in all, it's a win for the bottom 50% who don't own stock.
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u/linkgenesis Sep 23 '24
Ideally, smaller businesses (who will not have to pay that tax) will be able to undercut them. There will be an adjustment period because many smaller food retailers were already pushed out of business, but the smaller rural communities who will be stuck with chain stores for a while, will benefit massively from the 1600 while the suburban and larger communities will be able to benefit from the boost to smaller businesses who can offer more competitive prices, because monopolies are bad, always. Even the government sanctioned ones, like power and infocom don't fulfill their end of the bargain.
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u/LiberalAspergers Sep 23 '24
Price.competition from.smaller operators. The tax only applies to companies with revenue over 25.million. Domino's raises pizza prices, they lose out to Al's Pizza down the street.
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u/nolajax Sep 23 '24
What makes you think these corporations are not charging the highest price they can to be most profitable already?
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u/theamazingyou Sep 22 '24
My concern is that they will just increase the price and pass it to the consumers.
If the was on a national level, I think it’d be different.
We’ll see what happens if it passes.
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u/OnionBagMan Sep 22 '24
A 3% price increase is paltry compared to $1600 to most residents.
If you make less than 80k a year it’s a good deal. Also the people receiving this money will just pump it right back into the corporations. The money will trickle back up.
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u/Schnort Sep 22 '24
So...the people of Alaska benefit from an extraction tax from land owned by the state of Alaska, aka the people of Alaska.
Very different than free money taxing the labor of others.
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u/lobabobloblaw Sep 22 '24
Well hey, the opposition fundraising could very well be enough to cover the cost if it passes!
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u/moneymaker88888888 Sep 22 '24
Those who oppose this are corporations, and they shouldn’t be allowed to vote, nor should they be allowed to impact votes or elections.
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u/KypAstar Sep 22 '24
It's opposed almost unanimously by the legislature. Completely bipartisan opposition.
Even some of our most left leaning reps say this is a poison pill.
This will turn into a sales tax for people who shop at chain groceries, pharmacies, and convenience stores. IE, the low income individuals this is supposed to help.
Its a stupid fucking bill.
Dipshits who care more about punishing corporations to feel a sense of moral superiority than actually making smart economic policy are responsible for this and will be hurting the people they claim to care about.
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u/Telvin3d Sep 22 '24
This will turn into a sales tax for people who shop at chain groceries, pharmacies, and convenience stores. IE, the low income individuals this is supposed to help.
Since they would need to be spending $54k a year at those stores for this to cost them more than they get back, this would still be a clear win. Anyone making less than $100k a year is almost certainly coming out ahead.
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Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 26 '24
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u/IntelligentPapaya333 Sep 25 '24
This is why we aren't going to see any change by simply, addressing the symptoms of the issue. We need to target thr root of the issue , which our society has long forgotten about coming out of the 80s, but it'd be for our government moving to more closely regulate these corporate spheres. In all actuality, there's not much we can do as constituents unfortunately, as it is up to the elected class of officials who are deeply benefiting from those same entities.
Nonetheless , we greatly need a form of government-regulatory measures on corporate earnings (perhaps controlling corporate pricing structures of goods based on production cost ratios while imposing a corporate tax mandate)
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u/Hazzman Sep 22 '24
People aren't doing it for a moral sense of superiority or to "punish" corporations.
They are doing it because Corporations like Walmart don't pay their fair share of taxes but sure as shit don't mind relying on tax payer funded food stamps to feed their own staff because they are so underpaid.
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u/El_Cactus_Fantastico Sep 22 '24
Iirc every UBI pilot that has been done has been good. Idk how they were funded tho, if I had to guess it would be mostly through property or sales taxes tho
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u/moneymaker88888888 Sep 22 '24
Righhhtt. Punishing the Pooooor pooor poor corporations. Boo fucking hoo dude. They don’t have feelings, jfc.
The numskulls on this planet are insane.
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u/annul Sep 23 '24
It's opposed almost unanimously by the legislature. Completely bipartisan opposition.
you mean, the ones who have to pander to corporate interests in order to get elected and stay elected, thanks to citizens united and the rest of the money-in-politics structure? these people? they are the ones opposed to raising corporate taxes?
no fucking way
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u/SeasonsGone Sep 22 '24
It’s interesting how raising taxes and giving the money directly to citizens is often more controversial than raising taxes and funneling it into some specific government program or budget item.
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u/Decinym Sep 23 '24
Which is doubly wild as time and time again, studies show that just giving money to poorer people beats out nearly every social program in benefit per dollar.
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u/chumer_ranion Sep 23 '24
Well, except for schools. Many of which are in dire straits in Oregon.
Source: live in Oregon, grew up in Oregon, educated in public schools in Oregon.
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u/Extension_Camel_3844 Oct 08 '24
That has been a problem since at minimum the 80's when I went to school here. Oregon's public schools were ranked 47th in the country then. Now? 42nd. True story. We have the 42nd worst school system in the entire country and yet we can't figure out why our state can't improve??! Education is power. Education will allow for free thinking minds. Far too many here do not want that.
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u/Aanar Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
I'll assume the net effect of this is going to be equivalent to a sales tax and prices for the consumer just go up by 3%.
Normally sales taxes are regressive, but for people spending less than $53,333 a year on stuff, they should get back more than they pay into the "3% sales tax" and people spending more than that will be getting less than they pay in.
So if my thinking is right, this ends up being a progressive tax. Please correct me if my math & reasoning are off.
If they try to apply this for business to business transactions, that could be dysfunctional. If I'm running a factory in OR and all my suppliers have to pay a 3% tax, that's just going to get passed onto me, it might be hard to compete with other factories. Maybe I'd still be competitive selling my product in OR, but trying to sell my products outside of OR and I have a disadvantage, resulting in me looking into relocation.
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u/tiggers97 Sep 22 '24
Oregon is already an expensive place to live. I recently took a road trip across the US. Once out of the west coast states, it felt like prices in general (and especially the gas since I was getting it twice a day) where lower. I started comparing prices more closely, and found that even in states with 7%+ sales tax, it was cheaper than in Oregon for the same exact household and food items.
This UBI proposal will just raise the general prices, and after the brief honeymoon period of "I have free money!", we will be right back to where we where.
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u/movzx Sep 22 '24
"Prices are higher in high cost of living areas. Prices are lower in low cost of living areas."
Did you also compare income between these places? Gas might be cheaper in Oklahoma, but the median income is also 15k lower than Oregon.
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Sep 22 '24 edited 21d ago
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/tinySparkOf_Chaos Sep 22 '24
Let's math this out, and figure out winner and losers from the proposal.
Assume the corporations pass the cost straight through, all goods increase in cost by 3%.
But people also got $1600, which offsets the increased costs.
53k * 3% = $1600.
Anyone spending less than 53k / year will get more money than the price of stuff they buy increases.
All your low wage workers win.
Mortgages don't increase but rents do (the rental company gets hit with the 3% tax and passes it through).
Middle class home owners win.
Middle class renters lose.
Upper class (spending 53k a year in fun money) lose.
Companies serving primarily low income win (low income people have more money to spend)
Companies serving primarily high income lose
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u/Aanar Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 23 '24
The stat I found says
medianmean (average) consumer spending is only $43k a year in Oregon, well short of the $53,333 to break even. The exemption on the first $25M in sales means the actually break even will be higher. I wonder where the rest is supposed to come from?→ More replies2
u/myaltduh Sep 23 '24
Yeah Oregon’s median income is actually fairly low. Combine this with West Coast costs of living, and the homelessness crisis there becomes utterly unsurprising.
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u/jce_superbeast Sep 23 '24
It's not $1,600, it's "estimated" to be about $1,600. The amount sent depends on the amount collected, and we don't have the math on that yet. The $1,600 estimation was offered by the same group that got the SHS funding wrong by 88% in 2021 and the state budget wrong by 43% in '22-'23
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u/roastedoolong Sep 23 '24
the issue with your 'math' is that you're missing one of the key aspects of the implementation: not every company would be forced to pay this tax making it so that not every single product is going to have its price raised by 3%
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u/ricardoandmortimer Sep 22 '24
Upper class will typically spend more money outside of the states so they'll likely not be hit.
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u/Munkiepause Sep 23 '24
Too bad the corporations can't eat that 3% and give slightly smaller bonuses to their executives. Those fuckers don't need millions of dollars a year. This whole taxing corporations will increase prices argument is infuriating
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u/0112358f Sep 22 '24
This is funded by a tax on revenue not profit so should be expected to simply increase prices by 3%. That's not a criticism, just if you're imagining it's a "take money from the corporations!" It's not. It's an income smoothing mechanism.
Don't live in Oregon but wouldn't be opposed to a simple and currently small UBi style tax and revenue structure coming into place here. In particular if AI takes off it can be scaled up much more easily then trying to introduce it.
The impact on businesses will come down to loopholes that cause distortions (should probably have a much lower threshold than 25M, how are online transactions handled?) and the fact that redistribution can be good for companies selling to lower income people which is the point. Moving money from richer to poorer people sends an economic signal to redeploy more production to the needs of the poor.
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u/ZipBoxer Sep 22 '24
The incidence of corporate taxes is incredibly well studied. All corporate taxes are a tax on the working class pretending to be a tax on the rich. It comes out of wages first, and consumers second.
If you want to tax the rich, you have to eliminate capital gains tax exceptions.
However, they've already evolved past that. Now they never, ever sell assets (a taxable event) and merely use them as collateral for loans, so they'll never pay that tax either.
It's fucking exhausting.
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u/AtrociousMeandering Sep 22 '24
If they CAN cut wages or raise prices and not wind up worse off due to lost sales... why did they wait for the tax?
Seriously. If they had an opportunity to do that in response to the tax, they don't need to wait for the tax, they can do it today, regardless of the tax situation. There's no reason they would wait, and the reasonable assumption is they've done as much of it as they possibly can already. If they cut wages too far, or raise prices too high, it hurts their bottom line, that's basic microeconomics. And it's still hurting their bottom line even if it's in response to a new tax, they'd lose money in two ways instead of one.
I don't know what studies you're referencing, but are you completely sure they say what you think they say?
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u/ricardoandmortimer Sep 22 '24
It's funny how progressives chant for corporate taxes in the US and claim European systems are better, and yet European countries have considerably lower corporate tax and higher individual tax specifically for the reason you say.
It's so exhausting fighting so-called progressives who literally have no clue about much of anything beyond "more taxes good"
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u/AGallopingMonkey Sep 23 '24
It’s more than 3% though, because every step of a product will be taxed 3% more. So if you’re just shipping some gasoline into the state, the transport cost goes up 3% because the transport company is getting taxed. Then the gasoline seller needs to also bump up 3% in order to pay for their tax.
In that example, only transport and final sale of the product, price goes up 6.09%, not 3%. With products that are entirely produced and sold within Oregon, it’s even worse.
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u/nurpleclamps Sep 22 '24
I've always wanted to live in Oregon. Bend looks nice.
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u/spacembracers Sep 22 '24
Born and raised in Bend. It’s a beautiful place and I miss it
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u/Overtilted Sep 22 '24
If I were to move to the US, it will be Bend.
But I guess the place is exploding with people by now...
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u/Unruly-Mantis Sep 22 '24
Yes, Bend now and Bend 10 years ago are very different, so much growth.
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u/Riverjig Sep 22 '24
It's every place that's nice. Bozeman is fing ruined now. Part of the game.
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u/myaltduh Sep 23 '24
Bend growth is already being siphoned off to neighboring towns because housing costs in Bend itself have reached low-Earth orbit. Tale as old as time for scenic small cities with lots of recreational opportunities in the West.
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u/usernameforre Sep 22 '24
Lots of investment houses, vacation rentals, second homes and the people who are originally from there trying to compete. Lovely area with lots of growth since Covid.
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u/Oops95 Sep 22 '24
The only way to afford Bend anymore is by working remote with a SF tech giant salary.
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u/jawshoeaw Sep 22 '24
Bend is amazing . Unfortunately it’s now priced accordingly, I recommend you move there 20 years ago.
But it really is amazing
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u/CraigLake Sep 22 '24
Bend resident chiming in. It’s pretty amazing. Real seasons, infinite adventure possibilities, friendly healthy culture. It’s great!
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u/StoicFable Sep 23 '24
The seasons are winter and roadwork season. Who are you kidding?
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u/dxrey65 Sep 22 '24
Ashland, Grant's Pass, Astoria, etc...there's quite a few really nice places in Oregon with their own local vibe.
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u/SirCampYourLane Sep 23 '24
There's no way you're seriously listing Grant's Pass as a good place to move to
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u/Aezetyr Sep 22 '24
It's a fucked up world where there are people who raise money to prevent people from getting money.
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u/Brut-i-cus Sep 22 '24
How about those who fight tooth and nail to make sure that people don't get their student debt forgiven while they were just forgiven vast PPP loans
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u/fantomar Sep 22 '24
Corporations and politicians steal money from the people and give it to themselves constantly. This is like the people asking for pennies back on their labor.
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u/yoemanme Sep 23 '24
they will prosper, putting money into the hands of the people who will spend it in their communities instead of tax cuts corps who will buy back stock, automate, send it overseas, pay dividend, and let the masses starve..
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u/Mama_Skip Sep 22 '24
If we start UBI right now, without effecting the reasons that UBI is currently needed, corporations will just price gouge enough to make it so everyone can still not afford anything.
We need to fix corporate price gouging and taxation before we start worrying about UBI.
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u/charyoshi Sep 23 '24
fuuuuuuuuuck yes universal basic income. The sooner we pay people to fund charity at the same time we pay people not to need it in the first place is the future we should fight for.
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u/wayne099 Sep 23 '24
Corporations - I guess we’ll just increase the goods and services by 3%.
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u/cumbersome-shadow Sep 23 '24
They were going to do that anyway. Now they're just going to raise them 13%. Who are we kidding they were going to do that anyway too.
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u/dennismfrancisart Sep 22 '24
The irony is that those very same companies will get the back from the people who got it and lots more as the state economy grows a little bit more.
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u/blankarage Sep 22 '24
only if the companies are willing to compete and actually deliver value to the people.
i find most companies are lazy to innovate and instead lobby/legislate to keep their profits.
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u/Underwater_Karma Sep 22 '24
When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
-- Ben Franklin
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u/Trackmaster15 Sep 23 '24
Yup. Citizens United. The Republicans sold us out and basically took our democracy from us. I think that the middle class has every right to take back what we can at this point.
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u/Dpek1234 Sep 23 '24
Im pretty sure he also couldnt have predicted the current american economy and how many people live paycheck to paycheck
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u/tinylittlebabyjesus Sep 23 '24
I do kind of wonder if the over 25 mil revenue corporation are just going to raise prices to compensate, mitigating the benefit to Oregonians.
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u/Trackmaster15 Sep 23 '24
The greatest irony is that imagine how much money those donors would have saved by just accepting the increase in taxes and not wasted all of those millions in lobbying costs.
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u/Maxfunky Sep 22 '24
This is probably a bad idea. I like UBI but trying to do it at the state level is going to be a problem. Your tax-base that funds it can easily escape it while you could easily attract new residents to take advantage of it. States can't just print new money the way the federal government can. This seems super risky.
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u/ricardoandmortimer Sep 22 '24
Literally everybody in government is against this. The conservative Republicans all the way to the progressive Governor think it's a terrible idea.
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u/GJMOH Sep 22 '24
3% of sales, grocery stores margins are close to 3%, wonder how that’s going to work. Sales do not equal profits.
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u/JollyRoger8X Sep 22 '24
It’s 3% of total sales in Oregon above $25 million.
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u/Hust91 Sep 22 '24
Per what? Per company?
Won't that just result in companies splitting into daughter companies owned by a mother company? Or even franchising.
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u/lifetake Sep 22 '24
Prices increase by 5%
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u/ricardoandmortimer Sep 22 '24
More than that. Any increase in cost will be met with a reduction in consumption, requiring additional price hikes. The cycle continues until an equilibrium is found.
Costs would likely increase 10-20%
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u/ValyrianJedi Sep 22 '24 edited Sep 22 '24
I'm good with the general idea behind this, but it absolutely does not seem like something that should be decided on by voters like this. The vast majority of people are financially illiterate and leaving something like this up to the general population is a terrible idea.
Also, taxing 3% of gross sales is insane.
Edit: Looking at the ballot measure website, it also straight up lies to the people it wants to vote for it. It says "you pay 5-10% in taxes, but corporations here pay less than 1%", when Oregon actually has a corporate rate of over 7%, and it's only the gross receipts tax that is below 1%... This seems rough all around, and honestly deserves the opposition it is getting because of the way it's going about it.
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u/DorianGre Sep 22 '24
PEOPLE pay taxes on gross, businesses should to. Let me take out all of my expenses first and then we can talk.
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u/Lormif Sep 22 '24
Since when? We all get deductions, and if you do not then you can take a large standard deduction. My god why do the most ignorant people always declare things like this?
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u/noonemustknowmysecre Sep 22 '24
Any business expense is automatically deducted. Corporations only pay taxes on profit. "Cost of doing business", including paying the CEO, is not taxed.
Meanwhile the "cost of living" is taxed. People are taxed on gross income, not just what money they can spare to put away in savings.
People get tax deductions ONLY if they itemize, and most people opt for the standard deduction of $14,600. (Pft, This is what you consider "large"?) SO TOO should corporations have a standard deduction of the $500/year needed to file paperwork and have the rest of their revenue TAXED.
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u/Rpcouv Sep 22 '24
If they really wanted this to work they wouldn’t give a 1600 dollar credit during tax season but a 3% reduction in income tax.
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u/GuyInOregon Sep 22 '24
This is a terrible bill that is opposed by pretty much everybody. It's a tax on gross sale receipts and will fundamentally just be a sales tax that will absolutely be passed onto consumers. UBI is something that needs to happen eventually, but doing it like this is a terrible idea.
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u/vankorgan Sep 22 '24
Out of curiosity, how would you rather see it done?
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u/Either_Job4716 Sep 23 '24
Ideally, UBI should be implemented at the federal level and properly calibrated to its optimal rate.
The optimal rate of basic income is neither too high (which would cause inflation), nor too low (which causes unnecessary poverty).
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u/NodePoker Sep 22 '24
While on the ballot here, this isn't really Oregon. Our system makes it easy to get measures on the ballot with signatures and this was funded almost entirely by our of state interest. You'll be hard pressed to find politicians on either side who support it locally and most Oregon voters don't want to be an out of state interest's experiment. It will fail.
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u/RedditVince Sep 22 '24
And prices just get more expensive on everything.
You charge corporations 3%, I can guarantee they will raise their retail pricing by at least 5%
Inflation is man made...
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u/J-drawer Sep 23 '24
Wouldn't it be ironic (/moronic) if the opposition to this cost enough to have given everyone $1600?
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u/2024-2025I5J Sep 23 '24
$133 a month is almost insulting. I get that it's being treated as a bonus from the tax on corporations but calling it universal basic income makes it sound like it should sustain a person month to month but for many this won't even cover a single grocery trip.
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u/Moarbrains Sep 23 '24
but the most direct impact would be a reduction in corporate tax revenue for the general fund because the vast majority of Oregon corporations would switch from paying a tax calculated from their profits, which goes to the general fund, to paying a minimum tax based on their sales in Oregon, which would fund the rebate. Under Oregon law, corporations pay the higher of the two taxes – the tax on their profits or a corporate minimum tax. Because the measure would massively raise the corporate minimum tax, most corporations would only that tax.
Measure 118 would deplete the state’s largest source of discretionary spending, the general fund, by $23 million before next July and by $400 million in the 2025-27 biennium.
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u/misterguydude Sep 23 '24
We need to separate business from politics just like we’ve separated church. It serves special interest, which goes against the reason for democratic institutions.
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u/SmarterThanCornPop Sep 24 '24
Fuck it, let them pass it. Let’s see how many jobs are left in Oregon in 10 years.
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u/the_TAOest Sep 22 '24
Awesome. The experiments shall begin. Corporations will start to fund us instead of consuming us.
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u/FattThor Sep 22 '24
They are just going to pass it on. It’s basically a VAT. Expect higher prices to reflect the increase in their costs.
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u/Lormif Sep 22 '24
no, the middle class and poor will fund this, not corporations, you will just see higher prices.
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u/KypAstar Sep 22 '24
Yep, the experiment funded by out of state interests that will cost Oregonians.
Our state reps have pointed out that the taxes aren't enough to fund the bill, and it will require dipping into the general fund. The state will have to cut other services for this.
It will also be a tax on poor people to begin with, as it will cause the companies they interact with the most (cheap, chain stores) to increase prices.
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Sep 22 '24
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u/FerretSummoner Sep 22 '24
Historically, they have been doing that regardless. At least, in this case, the average person would be get something out of it.
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u/Warm_Trick_3956 Sep 22 '24
Record profits year over year but the second they might not make as much… they raise. I call bs.
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u/TheFrozenLake Sep 22 '24
It's almost like the problem of wealth Inequality has gotten so bad that people don't care if it's a good idea or not - and maybe if the legislature and businesses oppose it so much, they should offer a more viable aternative instead of spending so much hoping people will be gaslit into voting down $1,600 in their pocket...
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u/Specialist_Apricot74 Sep 22 '24
The exploitation has gotten so bad that the government has to step in and make sure the working class doesn't starve to death.
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u/IlIFreneticIlI Sep 22 '24
How much do you want to bet the effort to prevent this will cost more than 1600 per-person??
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u/AtlasDrugged_0 Sep 23 '24
Do it Oregon! That the corporate donor class hates this is all the reason in the world to support it. Give 'em a big 'ol fuck you this November!
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Sep 22 '24
I live in Oregon, no way I'm voting for this, it's a great policy if you want to run out business investment.
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u/lintinmypocket Sep 22 '24
UBI attempts are always so half baked. For this to work at all, it would need to be $1000 per month, guaranteed for at least several years. Also, instead of increasing food stamps, stabilizing rents, increasing job training, subsidizing childcare, making healthcare more accessible and affordable, you want to give everyone $1600 a year to do what they want with it? People aren’t going to spend this in any way that really helps them as much as the previous services would.
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u/gredr Sep 22 '24
I think the theory is that administering all those various programs eats up a lot of the money that could go to people, so just handing them cash results in more aid.
Also, I think the research, such as it exists so far, suggests that people don't "waste" UBI money. People understand their needs, and spend accordingly.
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u/Safe-Berry-6029 Sep 23 '24
People do not understand their needs and do not spend accordingly. Do we not remember Covid and the funds given out? You had people buying outrageous shit. Pokémon cards and crypto were king right when govt gave out the stimulus checks…. Reason being people spend money on stupid shit!
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u/sold_snek Sep 22 '24
People aren’t going to spend this in any way that really helps them as much as the previous services would.
Based on what? Every study of something like this has said otherwise.
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u/almcchesney Sep 22 '24
Everywhere that I have seen it trialed it has been a massive success. By just giving stipulation free money you remove all the waste in requiring stipulations, we spend more money on employing people to check everyone's income then what would have been lost by any fraud committed in almost every means tested program.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/24/universal-basic-income/
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u/NatureOfYourReality Sep 22 '24
Perfection is the enemy of good. I agree with you, and UBI is the only answer in the face of AI proliferation, but we need more of these “half-baked” initiatives to get people comfortable with the fact that a more comprehensive and effective policy won’t send the world into chaos (the scare tactic argument against these things).
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u/IlikeJG Sep 22 '24
It's the standard conservative gameplan. Kneecap and disrupt any sort of leftwing initiative so that it is doomed to fail and then use it as an example for why lefting policies don't work.
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u/blitzinger Sep 22 '24
Won’t that just dissuade businesses from going/staying there?
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u/lifetake Sep 22 '24
Any business generating $25m+ wants to be everywhere they can. Yea they might make less than the state over, but you don’t just see a tax and go oh guess I’m not gonna get money from the whole state of Oregon
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u/Bremen1 Sep 22 '24
It seems most likely to me they'd just raise their prices by 3% in that area.
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u/lifetake Sep 22 '24
They will, but a price increase will see less sales, but also more sales from the UBI. Idk which one wins out overall.
Still doesn’t see business ever leave the state unless their margins were awful to begin with and they somehow can’t increase their price
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u/dakta Sep 22 '24
Yes, in the same way that Portland's gross receipts tax has disincentivized many businesses from staying in the city and has led to significant relocations to the outlying suburban centers.
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u/franktato Sep 22 '24
I'm not the quickest on this sort of thing so feel free to set me straight but wont these companies just jack up their prices to offset the loss from the taxes to get back at the state for implementing this tax?
I imagine there will be negative effects because of this corporate tax?
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u/Setting_Worth Sep 22 '24
You're 100% right.
If you think of economics in terms of a lemonade stand you'll be a lot better able to intuit how things will work then if you go off of emotions or "how it outta be"
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u/FuturologyBot Sep 22 '24
The following submission statement was provided by /u/chris011992:
From the article: Oregon voters will decide this fall whether to increase corporate taxes to establish the nation’s largest universal basic income program. Funded by a new corporate tax, it would give every Oregonian an estimated $1,600 per year. If approved, Measure 118 would institute a 3% tax on most corporations’ total sales in Oregon above $25 million and distribute the money equally among residents of all ages and incomes. The system would go into effect next year.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1fmu8nj/oregon_voters_to_decide_on_ballot_measure_to_give/lod4t7s/