[HN Gopher] Louis Rossmann explains why he left New York
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Louis Rossmann explains why he left New York
Author : danuker
Score : 36 points
Date : 2022-12-10 17:51 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| perfecthjrjth wrote:
| I think businesses should move away from NY, CA and other states
| to states where it is easy to do business.
| Cipater wrote:
| Companies are headquartered in states like NY and California
| for a reason.
| dev-3892 wrote:
| i can't hear 'easy to do business' and not also hear 'i wish i
| could just sell poison apples to people without all this
| government getting in my way'.
|
| regulation is what makes a market trustworthy. a trustworthy
| market is an efficient market.
| protastus wrote:
| Tax code reform (simplification) is completely orthogonal to
| public safety.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Just move them to Delaware, no need to worry about anything
| because you can hide your ownership in a structure so complex
| they'll never figure out who to tax!
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| It's his own fault for not getting council at the appropriate
| time.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I don't blame people for being too trusting and not entering
| into conflict with a state with bottomless pockets and a strong
| desire to win at any cost to avoid setting precedents.
|
| I was hounded by California tax collectors over a mistake they
| made, it was clear they weren't going to listen to reason on
| how they were obviously wrong given their own documentation and
| a lawsuit was going to be my only recourse. I opted to just
| give them the money, it was far less than the cost of a
| lawsuit. I consider it a cheap lesson in dealing with
| California tax collectors something I never want to risk having
| to do again.
| DerekL wrote:
| * counsel
| susssin wrote:
| New York city is like a really antiquated legacy codebase with
| tons of redundant checks that were added with good intentions and
| impossible to remove because you don't know what's truly holding
| the system together. It's far too complex for an individual to
| see the big picture well enough to slash the right things, and
| there's certainly an expectation that lawmakers to continue
| adding complexity in the name of simplicity but that obviously
| fails because they're overspecialized to the point where they are
| so far removed from the problem and without any kind of skin in
| the game they have no incentive to get their hands dirty and
| understand the plight of the regulated. Sometimes I wonder if the
| best course of action is to rewrite, but as with a codebase
| that's usually a mistake.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Oh damn he finally did it.
| theossuary wrote:
| A lot of people are making this about how unfair New York is, as
| if the issue is New York (or other liberal cities). Its not. The
| issue is our government has been hollowed out by big business
| interests and their political supporters; it's gotten to the
| point where there's no recourse for individuals. We need to write
| laws that have actual protections for individuals, and actual
| penalties. If a law guarantees a right, but has no recourse if
| that right is taken, well then the law doesn't actually guarantee
| anything at all.
|
| Chomsky has an interesting take that seems relevant too:
|
| > And the other leading propaganda theme -- and I don't mean by
| that, you know, like, just what you hear in the newspapers- read
| in the newspapers and so on, like the entertainment industry and
| television and everything else -- is anti-politics. Meaning,
| setting up a picture -- it's called anti-politics -- the picture
| -- but a very specific kind of anti-politics -- you have to
| establish the image, you know, get into people's heads, that the
| Government is the enemy- the Federal Government. State
| Governments are okay, because they can be sort of controlled by
| business anyway, so it doesn't matter. But the Federal Government
| is sometimes a little too big to be pushed around, so it's the
| enemy. And it cannot be, nobody can dream of the possibility,
| that the Government is of, by, and for the people. That's
| impossible. It's an enemy to be hated and feared.
|
| https://chomsky.info/19960413/
| jokoon wrote:
| That's pretty sad.
|
| At the same time, New York is not a simple city. So I can't
| imagine how things are over there, there is a lot of pressure
| from a very dense and expensive city.
|
| Tax collection is the pinnacle of a well functioning of society.
| You never really know how those tax agencies make those
| decisions, and it's not impossible there are politics at play.
|
| To be really honest I'm quite happy to live in the EU. We have
| other kinds of problems, but it seems peaceful, but American
| problems scare me.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Sorry to hear the story. Reminds me EU VAT audit mess. Sometimes
| I dream we could make some virtual businesses completely in
| cryptospace to just avoid real world kafkesque bureaucracy we
| have now. And I am not about avoiding paying taxes, I am
| absolutely fine to pay % of what I get onto my personal account.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Thanks for confirming that cryoto is mainly about tax evasion.
| By the way, EU VAT is pretty much straight forward. No idea why
| some people cannot be bothered with the simplest of basic
| requirements to conduct business in a certain jurisdiction.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Are you kidding? Just telco & SaaS: https://ec.europa.eu/taxa
| tion_customs/business/vat/telecommu... An if you reach
| certain scale and do mistakes you risk 25 years of prison in
| some countries.
| hef19898 wrote:
| So, for some reason corporations cannot be bothered with
| proper tax consultation and services? I know compliance
| sucks, all that difficult to navigate rules and such, and
| distract from innovative disruption, but in order to avoid
| "25 years of prison in certain countries" those rules all
| well worth respecting. Most SMEs do without making a fuzz
| about it on social media.
| milesvp wrote:
| >>EU VAT is pretty much straight forward.
|
| You are directly contradicting what the parent is
| commenting on. I honestly can't tell if your current
| comment is trying to be sarcastic, but you are clearly
| not putting forth consistent arguments. I personally
| sincerely doubt EU vat is straightforward. Accounting
| itself is not straight forward and you can't do any taxes
| without accounting. I'm a big fan of corporations paying
| for failure in compliance, but your tone could be
| slightly more generous. 25 years could be a big deal if
| one country requires fifo cost accounting and another
| requires lifo cost accounting. Do you comply with the one
| that puts you in jail? do you keep 2 books? do you keep
| seperate books for each country? Then, which do you
| actually use to make business decisions? These are kind
| of hard questions to answer, and can require considerable
| resources.
| devonkim wrote:
| From what I've read about VAT vs income taxes in terms of
| politics to make a gross generalization European income
| taxes are about as simple as US sales taxes for consumers
| and European VAT is about as complicated as US income
| taxes. The political levers of power and legislative
| tooling makes one easier to touch than the another. I'm
| generally a fan of the spirit of the law over the letter
| of the law and given the means to hide sources of wealth
| it seems easier to enforce compliance upon consumption
| rather than anything else (of course being mindful of the
| largely regressive nature of consumption taxes).
|
| Compliance that punishes smaller businesses
| disproportionately to multinationals seems awkward, and
| it's also unfortunately true that increasing taxes on
| corporations (like any cost of business) tends to be
| passed onto buyers of goods and services rather than the
| intent to structurally promote divestment from consumer-
| hostile practices.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You do what every company that has to follow GAAP on top
| of other accounting rules does, two books, properly
| audited and bridged. Maybe that stuff isn't straight
| forward for everyone, it is for pros in the field. It
| serves to have those pros do these jobs for you. Like,
| you know, a professional company.
|
| And yes, using the correct software suits and processes,
| intra EU VAT _is_ straight forward and done by litteraly
| thousands of small businesses every single day. And then
| there is the less straight forward aspect around
| _optimizing_ taxes and VAT. But that last bit seems not
| to be the problem here, is it?
| azmodeus wrote:
| You seem to know a lot about EU VAT,can you recommend any
| companies, toools, or resources to learn more?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Those folks used to have some resources on their website:
|
| https://macocustoms.sgs.com/?lang=en
|
| All my experuence comes from running the logistics and
| supply chains cross border and being involved in the
| proper system and reporting set-up. One of the lessons
| learned: get proper tax and customs experts, and do what
| they say. Also get proper accounting experts.
| [deleted]
| jjeaff wrote:
| PaulsWallet wrote:
| This is wrong and you should just watch the video before
| getting on your soapbox. Or at least click on it and see the
| title which almost certainly tells you why.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| paleotrope wrote:
| If we can avoid saying I'm victim blaming, he clearly made
| mistakes. If someone is giving you money (front of the line/rush
| service) in most tax jurisdictions, you are going to owe a tax on
| that. The website errors of not paying local sales tax well
| that's just ...dude.... you were seriously playing with fire on
| that one.
|
| Also, if you have a target on your back you have to make sure
| your stuff is spotless. It's not fair but it's just the way it
| is.
| himinlomax wrote:
| He says that the error rate on his tax reporting was
| established eventually by the auditors at less than 0.1% of the
| total amount due, so I'm not sure what you're going on about.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| It seems odd for NY State's tax office to use relatively tough
| methods to check tax compliance. Is that commonly experienced by
| SMEs there?
| PaulsWallet wrote:
| At one point in the video, Rossman does imply that he is
| getting special attention because tech lobbyists (i.e. Apple)
| are trying to attack him because he lobbies against Apple when
| it comes to Right to Repair and has done so for years. Not only
| through criticism on YouTube but in government hearings.
| Specifically hearings about Right to Repair.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| That seems like a big claim... he doesn't seem to offer any
| proof for it.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| He's getting audited again - his CPA said that Rossmann is the
| first client who's gotten audited just after the previous audit
| finished.
|
| see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvHt1Q3k-44
| canucker2016 wrote:
| His payment for the amount due on the first audit was
| postmarked by the due date but arrived after the due date since
| he sent the payment via registered mail.
|
| Now NY State is going after him for missed payment plus
| interest.
|
| see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXvuOD1D0gM
| protastus wrote:
| He mentions a CPA at the end but I didn't catch any mention of an
| attorney. I wonder why.
|
| The state bureaucracy doesn't care about you. The tax code is
| enormous and only gets bigger. The bureaucracy's game is to claim
| you screwed up with minimal transparency. Nobody will volunteer
| to do a deep dive on your case, nobody has an incentive to help
| you, and nobody is accountable for their mistakes or lack of
| effort.
|
| It's very difficult to play with these rules, and an attorney can
| help change the game.
| danuker wrote:
| TL; DW: the state tax authority abused him.
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