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The @JesseDrucker article template:
1. Identify tax break
2. Confirm high-income people/corporations receive benefit
3. Intentionally misrepresent material facts
4. Assert corruption
5. Inflame readers sense of outrage
6. Rinse/repeat
THREAD 1/10 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/business/tax-breaks-wealthy-virus.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/2...
1. Identify tax break
2. Confirm high-income people/corporations receive benefit
3. Intentionally misrepresent material facts
4. Assert corruption
5. Inflame readers sense of outrage
6. Rinse/repeat
THREAD 1/10 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/business/tax-breaks-wealthy-virus.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/2...
MISREPRESENTATION: "One provision... increases the amount of deductions companies are permitted to take on the interest they pay on large quantities of debt. Only companies with at least $25 million in annual receipts can qualify for that break."
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FACT: "That break" being interest deductions, companies with less than $25m already may deduct their interest FULLY. So smaller companies do, in fact, "qualify" for "that break" -- and in fact may deduct MORE than larger companies.
3/10
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MISREPRESENTATION: "Another change lets people deduct even more of their businesses’ losses from any winnings they reaped in the stock market... Only households earning at least $500,000 a year — the top 1 percent of American taxpayers — are eligible."
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FACT: Households earning less than $500,000 are, and always have been, able to deduct ALL of their business losses. So yes, the other 99% "are eligible," Mr. Drucker.
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MISREPRESENTATION: "The biggest tax break permits wealthy investors in, say, the real estate or energy businesses to use only-on-paper financial losses — such as from writing down, or depreciating, the value of assets — to reduce the taxes..."
6/10
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FACT: Depreciation is not an "only-on-paper financial loss." It is a deduction for an expenditure actually made. You may only take a depreciation deduction for money that& #39;s gone out the door. That& #39;s real, not only-on-paper.
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And why do you think he wrote "in, say, real estate or energy" when it benefits all industries? Why didn& #39;t he write "in, say, retail or manufacturing"? Because he& #39;s trying to hook the policy to less popular industries for emotional effect, regardless of the facts?
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And why does he only mention that losses may offset "capital gains from investments"? Why doesn& #39;t he mention that it also may offset salary? Could it be because he is trying to stir populist resentment -- again regardless of the facts?
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Finally, he discusses NOLs as being used by companies that are "profitable," and then uses GAAP rules as the objective definition of "profitable." But GAAP doesn& #39;t measure true economic profit any more than tax accounting does. Both deviate from economic principles.
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