Google May Acquire Fitbit

KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
You might should change the title. It is proposed, but Google has not acquired Fitbit yet!
More than a little attention is being given to how big Google (Facebook, Amazon, etc) is, and I think they may have been among the companies that showed tremendous profits while paying almost no taxes.
Maybe it will go through without a hitch, but the confluence of their veritably unchallenged extreme success, antitrust laws, and popular opinion might result in more reflection on what this merger would mean than has been given to the big tech companies in the recent past!
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
You might should change the title. It is proposed, but Google has not acquired Fitbit yet!
More than a little attention is being given to how big Google (Facebook, Amazon, etc) is, and I think they may have been among the companies that showed tremendous profits while paying almost no taxes.
Maybe it will go through without a hitch, but the confluence of their veritably unchallenged extreme success, antitrust laws, and popular opinion might result in more reflection on what this merger would mean than has been given to the big tech companies in the recent past!
Some highly profitable companies, like Amazon - and many other companies - pay little or no federal income taxes in the current year because of a tax law called "loss carry-forward". You can write off your losses for years after they occur when you've become profitable. GM and Ford did it, and many start-ups use it as a strategy for growth. Lose money in the near-term by spending to build scale and marketshare, and then write off the losses in the future against profits is a very popular strategy for getting tax payers to finance growth. Lyft, Uber, Beyond Meat, numerous high-tech start-ups, and many other companies are using this strategy as I type this. Funny how politicians never want to discuss loss carry-foward, because it is a difficult concept to explain to most of the electorate. IMO, it should be eliminated, and it would stop the madness. As I've noted before, the Amazon board of directors would probably open themselves to a shareholder class action suit if Amazon didn't write off losses as they legally can, because the directors have a fiduciary responsibility to govern in the best interest of the shareholders. The tax laws are the problem here, not the companies.
 
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KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
Some highly profitable companies, like Amazon - and many other companies - pay little or no federal income taxes in the current year because of a tax law called "loss carry-forward". You can write off your losses for years after they occur when you've become profitable. GM and Ford did it, and many start-ups use it as a strategy for growth. Lose money in the near-term by spending to build scale and marketshare, and then write of the losses in the future against profits is a very popular strategy for getting tax payers to finance growth. Lyft, Uber, Beyond Meat, numerous high-tech start-ups, and many other companies are using this strategy as I type this. Funny how politicians never want to discuss loss carry-foward, because it is a difficult concept to explain to most of the electorate. IMO, it should be eliminated, and it would stop the madness. As I've noted before, the Amazon board of directors would probably open themselves to a shareholder class action suit if Amazon didn't write off losses as they legally can, because the directors have a fiduciary responsibility to govern in the best interest of the shareholders. The tax laws are the problem here, not the companies.
True, but since when did public opinion fall silent to legal use of such devices?
It certainly makes sense to take advantage of such laws, but it is the discord between the law and public opnion that often changes the law.
I think the law has some merit, but when applied on the scale of these operations, it seems an abuse of the law!
We need to determine limits to where the law is providing the desired benefits to "help a new company get a start" vs being abused!
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
True, but since when did public opinion fall silent to legal use of such devices?
It certainly makes sense to take advantage of such laws, but it is the discord between the law and public opnion that often changes the law.
I think the law has some merit, but when applied on the scale of these operations, it seems an abuse of the law!
We need to determine limits to where the law is providing the desired benefits to "help a new company get a start" vs being abused!
I'm much more hardcore than you, Kurt. I think allowing the write-off of losses, even in the tax year they accrue is the wrong thing to do, and I think it should be eliminated. It is nothing more than making other taxpayers subsidize mistakes or bad judgment. And that includes individuals, since loss write-offs also accrue to individual taxpayers. I don't want to have to subsidize your losses either, and you shouldn't subsidize mine. I let TurboTax do it for me, but I think the tax law should be changed. As you've probably gathered from other posts, I'm very far to the right on economic issues, and that makes me hate special-interest tax loopholes as much as I hate hand-outs. The carried interest loophole also pisses me off.

Back to FitBit, no one needs social networking in their lives. If you don't like what a particular social network is doing, leave. If you don't like being tracked, don't get a smart phone, get just a cellular phone. Get a VPN for internet use. Secure your local area networks. Delete cookies after every use. Stay off of all Google software. Privacy is a choice anyone can implement.
 
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Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
Or buy a Garmin :)
A company which was owned by a holding company in the Cayman Islands, and then reincorporated in Switzerland in 2010. The only reasoning was that the move was "in the best interest of the shareholders", and to be close to their European markets. Uh huh. And they're USA NASDAQ listed. The epitome of trust, I can see it. ;-)
 
davidscott

davidscott

Audioholic Ninja
Didn't know that but I'm gonna keep my Garmin watch for now. Thanks (I think) for the info.:)
 
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