Hire Good Designers - <AUTHOR> http://bleikamp.com/hire-good-designers.html <comment><USER3> This is pretty silly; all designers should be _good_ designers, but most specialise in different mediums e.g. you usually wouldn't hire a print designer for the web, or a web designer for an iPhone app as they don't understand the HIG.

<comment><USER4> I think the point of the post is that good designers should be generalists. A _good designer_ would read (or re-read) the iOS HIG in order to have a good idea of the platform's guidelines before beginning work.

<comment><USER5> If that is what the author is trying to say, then I think they are stating the blindingly obvious. Hire people who understand the fundamentals - that goes for every single job and is a given.

"There is nothing special about the web that makes it more or less challenging than designing on an iPad. They are just different."

Differences are exactly what makes something special. Specialists are those people who have in-depth knowledge of the differences and know how to make use of them ... and know how to make use of those differences _now_ , not after they experiment and figure things out from first principles.

So advertising for an OSX designer, or an Android designer is a sound decision. I've run a team of Solaris sysadmins and yes I could have hired Linux sysadmins (unix is unix as the cliche goes) ... but I won't - <USER2> admins may know the fundamentals of unix, but I want people who really understand Solaris and how to get the most out of it. And I don't want to wait whilst a Linux sysadmin learns the differences between them.

To be a little critical of the author, it doesn't sound like he has much experience as a designer - the blog post sounds like something written by someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know. Isn't the saying that the 'devil is in the details' (or differences) ... I would have thought that a good designer would understand that and never argue that all you need is generalist knowledge.

<comment><AUTHOR> "I've run a team of Solaris sysadmins and yes I could have hired Linux sysadmins…"

Now you're comparing system administration to design - this doesn't really work. Technical skills like this don't translate well, and I never claimed they do.

The post is about UI and interaction design and those principles are the same across all platforms. Design patterns for a specific device, operating system, or medium (e.g. the browser) are not something you need to be a specialist to learn, analyze, or pick up - you need to understand the fundamentals of design.

Early iPhone designers who built great apps had spent much of their careers designing on the web. They had to learn and come up with new design patterns, but since they were good, it was well within their skill set.

<comment><USER5> Technical skills like this don't translate well ..."

Heheh I knew I should never have used an analogy, there is always something that won't quite hold true to the point you are trying to make :) The main point I'm trying to make is I believe in any field, the details are always important and things like patterns are shortcuts to speed up a process, but they aren't a fix-all for whatever problem you are trying to solve.

If you compare the best iphone apps today to the best iphone apps from the start, I think most people would argue that today's apps are far slicker and easier to use. Why is that? it's because people have built on previous experience of what worked and what didn't. Experience matters, understanding the differences matters, specialist knowledge matters and it's why advertising for a specific type of designer matters.

I will agree with you that a good designer can, with enough time, achieve the same results as a 'specialist' designer - but that's the whole reason people advertise for a specific skillset, they don't want to wait.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think what he is trying to say is that you should get designers who aren't tied down into a niche part of design, as this would often indicate that they aren't really designers but merely people who use photoshop and happen to make their money doing Wordpress design or Shopify design etc.

What I think he is missing and why I think he is basically giving bad advice is that sometimes you have to label yourself in such a way that you minimize friction from a getting hired point of view.

Many clients believe that there is a difference between a good Wordpress designer and a good iPhone designer, but obviously the truth is that if they are anything worth they don't care what they have to design for.

Design is not simply how it looks but as much how it works.

</comment><comment><USER7> And this is is why it makes sense to buy a car designed by someone with experience designing wedding dresses.

Oh, wait - perhaps knowledge of the medium and its constraints _is_ important on occasion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Coming up with extremes is a really valuable skill. So clever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Blanket statements kill me. Yes you should hire a good designer. But you should attempt to target a niche when it makes sense.

If I am making an iPhone app I'd like a designer who has experience with it. So it is the difference between "I want a designer with OS X experience" and "I want a OSX Designer". Aren't they almost one and the same?

</comment><comment><USER9> What Ben is getting at is that a truly good designer is a person who has little aversion to what medium they're working on. Additionally, I think he's also coded in a bit of a slant toward most of the businesses out there that are hiring who only associate design with certain products or languages. An honest mistake, sure, especially for those who don't know about design.

But we're beginning to enter an era where if you run a business and your adement about having a well-designed product, then you should be willing to take the time to develop a cursory knowledge of the industry. Be able to differentiate between buzzwords and the all-too-familiar "insert development platform here" designer. Although his argument is a bit understated, Ben's point is clear: don't waste time with people who aren't absolutely head-over- heels about design. They cost more and sometimes require more resources, but the return on that investment will surprise most people. Even if they don't believe it, people respond to good design.

</comment><comment><USER10> I believe that in addition for a good designer the skill set required is to understand the overall user experience.

Coming up with a great looking photoshop comps can be achieved by a lot, but creating a consistent user experience is the most critical.

I am not sure that all the 'designers' do understand that. And this is an area where Apple is well known to spend a lot of time for all their apps.

</comment><comment><USER11> A good designer will learn the medium they need to solve a problem. Great post.

</comment><comment><USER12> "If you can design one thing, you can design everything."

 _— Massimo Vignelli._

<comment><USER13> Exactly. If you can design a chair, you can also design a rocket-ship.

<comment><USER14> I need someone to paint my house. Does anyone know that guy who stencils rats around London?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Summary Brew – Summaries for Top 300 HN Stories and Books - <AUTHOR> https://summarybrew.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I made this project during a very difficult time of my life. I was unemployed and was having a non stop roller coaster in my marriage. This project was created due to my own frustrations of having multiple tabs open of articles and not reading them ... and just hoarding on tabs (some have been open for 2 years). This is the first iteration. Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. Any suggestions are also welcome. Also awaiting any other comments.

</comment><comment><USER2> Well done! I hope things are better now :) Quick suggestion: Include a line describing what the website does on the main page, users can go to the about page and figure it out but it would be better to have a quick intro of what the site is all about as soon as they visit it. You can probably remove it once the website is more well known but the title isn't self explanatory, so an intro would help.

Stack used? Probably Elixir+Phoenix judging from your post history, what are your impressions about that stack?

I use pinboard archival account for this use-case, but I think some readers here might find this site useful :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your kind words ... as for my personal life, I am still fighting to make things better.

I did think of adding a quick line on the main page, but never implemented it, thinking it will be self explanatory, but you are right, to have it until the site gets popular.

Yes the stack is Elixir + Phoenix. I was a rails and meteor guy prior to that. I like really like Elixir as a language, the excellent documentation helped quite a lot. Also the community around it is very eager to help. As for Phoenix, again its the community weight that shows its strength, being helpful and adding more open source libraries every week. I think if there was one feature where rails at the moment triumphs phoenix is in the number of open source libraries/packages/gems. Elixir + Phoenix sips on server memory.

Could you kindly explain more about how a pinboard archival account compares to summarybrew.

Again thanks for leaving a comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great job! Thank you.

Quick suggestion: could you show the summaries directly on your first page, without the user needing to clicks links? (Otherwise, we are back to part of the original problem: need to open many tabs to read each story's summary, or do a lot of back and forth between front-page and post's summary).

In case there would be too much text when doing this, another way to solve this would be to unroll the summary dynamically when user clicks "summary" (instead of opening a new page). Hope this is useful!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm I did have for a moment this page as the home page - [https://summarybrew.com/summaries/top](https://summarybrew.com/summaries/top), but wasnt sure if people will like having that as the home page.

I should do a survey about which page should be in the front, well to ask any HN readers who now check out the site, could you let me know that is the current home page the way to go or is this one [https://summarybrew.com/summaries/top](https://summarybrew.com/summaries/top)

Also your idea of unrolling the entire summary text on clicking something like "summary" is awesome, didnt think of that.

Thank you kindly for your words of support and your suggestions.

<comment><USER4> I'd like to see the full summary and with column (Pinterest-like), with height limiting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you should display the best summary on the home page list, and a link to know more about and other summaries. Put a minimum threshold for votes to increase first-page quality, and voila, I have a newsletter that I would love to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now I think that is a neat idea, a combination of the post and the best summary on the home page or like the first 2 lines of the summary, since some can run quite long, with a link for the rest of the summaries.

Thanks bud for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> why not just a long long page (300 does not really need paging) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not sure if I got your question correctly, but to answer, to the best of my understanding ... its the top 300 posts at any given time ... and they change everyday (even every hour)

<comment><USER6> He means that you can list all of the 300 posts in the page and get rid of the next and prev page buttons</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Developer Program membership no longer required to test apps - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jfkingsley/status/607993615420235776

<comment><AUTHOR> _" Simply sign in with your Apple ID, and turn your idea into an app that you can touch on your iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch. Download Xcode 7 beta and try it yourself today. Program membership is not required."_

details: [https://developer.apple.com/xcode/](https://developer.apple.com/xcode/)</comment>


Experts Disagree on Top Applications for 5G - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/wireless/optimisim-and-skepticism-meet-headtohead-at-5g-forum <comment><USER2> We had this with 3G circa 2003. Mobile operators started to provide services, which at the time made sense. Remember: no YouTube yet, almost no mobile sites. Furthermore there is more money in services than in transferring bytes. However they couldn't compete with the services created by countless startups. They eventually became ISPs. They can try to sell services once more but it can't end up differently.</comment>


Counting Pageviews: 1, 2, 8, 15 - <AUTHOR> http://markevanstech.com/2007/10/22/counting-pageviews-1-2-8-15/

<comment><USER2> the comments on that page seem to be more useful than article itself.

\---

I'm a web analyst for a major financial services firm. Using state-of-the-art software, provided by the leading web analytics vendor, I monitor traffic flows through several web sites maintained by my company. My goal is to study the online experience, in order to improve it, within the context of our business model and overall company strategies. This is done using quantitative (web analytics) and qualitative analysis (market research, usability testing, etc.).

I've been a web analyst since the late 1990's, and this article seems almost as dated. Web analytics, as a discipline, has evolved several times over, since web server log files were first used to track traffic, in the mid-1990's. The latest technology, commonly called "page tagging," is infinitely more accurate, and is customizable for capturing true business metrics.

Further, there is a Web Analytics Association who is educating organizations in, lobbying for, and standardizing the collection and use of key performance indicators for the web. The most basic metrics are the Unique User, the Visit, and the Page View. No one in this growing industry disputes this, and the data collection methodologies used by the leading web analytics vendors, varies slightly, if at all. The disparities between the vendors' products lie mainly in their delivery methods.

The web world, especially advertisers and those who directly rely on web sites for revenue, would all best be served if they abandoned the arbitrary standard set by the NetRatings and ComScores of the world. Their rating (and business) models are sorely outdated, and do not meet the measurement demands of the "web 2.0," world.</comment>


Stephen Hillenburg, Creator of 'SpongeBob SquarePants,' Has Died at 57 - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27/671247547/stephen-hillenburg-creator-of-spongebob-squarepants-has-died-at-57 <comment><USER2> As far as I recall, SpongeBob was the _only_ animated show that _every_ member of our family liked. RIP.</comment>


In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/In-Memoriam-Christopher-Hitchens-19492011 <comment><USER2> Hitchens was essentially a Marxist (by his own admission) who was also in favor of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the foreign policy it represented. So there was very little I agreed with him on.

But I'm terribly upset about this and I'll tell you why.

Because of his willingness to debate. I'd literally scan right wing talk radio schedules for his name because you just knew it would be a great show. In a world where so many people in our modern society hide in their little cliques I think a smart person who is willing to have their ideas challenged is the most valuable person of all.

Losing a voice like that is a true tragedy.

So, with all due respect, I hope he is wrong in his beliefs about the after life because if there is a heaven he's surely earned his place in it.

Edit: On that note this is awesome: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4JJqXISBiI> (though skip the first 4 minutes of the host self aggrandizement)

<comment><USER3> Anyone who knew Hitchens knows that "heaven" as depicted by cristianity is a "celestial North Korea, where the sole purpose is to praise the dear leader incessantly, compelled to love someone you fear (essence of sadomasochism). You'd think the Lord himself would get bored of this after a couple of billion years"...

So, wishing him in heaven from another atheist as you say you are is really saying you don't know much of his work and life.

<comment><USER4> Hitchens never seemed to understand that "North Korea" isn't the Christian conception of heaven.

To wish for him to be surrounded for all eternity by those he loves most, in the presence of the source of all love, truth and beauty... I think that's something we'd all like to experience along with him.

Edit: Unclear phrasing

<comment><USER5> I think Stephen Fry put it best during a tour of Salt Lake City that was conducted by a Mormon evangelist:

\----

She gave us a good tour and we saw this tabernacle here and this here and so on and then at one point she said, "I just want to tell you a little about the church of the Latter Day Saints." And we all politely stood and then she said how in the afterlife all families will be reunited. "You'll be with your families forever!"

So I put my hand up and said, "What happens if you've been good?"

<http://bigthink.com/ideas/17866>

<comment><USER6> As a former Mormon missionary, I can assure you he was not the first person to think of that particular comeback.

<comment><USER7> Comeback? As an honest question, maybe it deserves an answer. I mean, sure tongue in cheek, but any cookie-cutter idea of heaven is bound to leave some cold. So if you dislike your family, then Mormonism isn't for you?

<comment><USER6> > So if you dislike your family, then Mormonism isn't for you?

Yeah, pretty much.

Edit: OK, that was unnecessarily flippant. I personally never heard that statement as an honest question, only as a ha-ha-only-serious comeback. It turns out that all the people I met who didn't like their families felt bad about it, and realized it wasn't the way things should be.

<comment><USER7> WOw, that's a good answer. It even feels right. I'm not kidding, and thanks for your response on such a touchy issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a person of long-held religious conviction I am deeply saddened to see this worthy adversary go. He had an uncanny ability to go straight for your mostly deeply held beliefs with the most trenchant rhetoric and yet somehow made you like him anyway.

I think it's because with Hitchens, you knew he spoke from the integrity of his own convictions. He was nobody's man, on no one's bandwagon, carrying water for no political agenda other than his own desire to see the world become a better place. His libertarianism or Marxism was just a function of where his own intellect led him, and he never compromised for fashion or acceptance. That gave him gravitas, ethos. How else could you go after _Mother Theresa_ and not get run out of... _the World_ on a rail?

Only Hitchens. He was often compared to Orwell and H.L. Mencken, and he was one of the few writers for whom the comparison was as a peer rather than a distant echo of a greater time. Who will pick up his mantle? Who has the intellect, wit or courage of their convictions that compares with Hitchens?

At the moment I simply can't think of anyone.

<comment><USER9> I don't think a finer thing could be said about a man.

<http://www.ajkesslerblog.com/a-hell-of-a-eulogy/>

<comment><USER8> Thanks AJ, I appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The first time I read Christopher Hitchens was his takedown of Mother Teresa - "The Missionary Position". It was emblematic of his writing - shocking, irreverent, but beautifully written and argued. The most intellectually honest pundit I have ever read - even when I disagreed with him. Sad to see him go.

</comment><comment><USER11> Above all, I really respect him for his piece on waterboarding. For those of you who didn't see it/hear about it, he wanted to try to settle the debate on whether waterboarding is torture or not.

So he let himself be waterboarded.

VF Article (site's getting hit hard): [http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens...](http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808)

Youtube video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7u-Wk1aU-E>

The title of the article? "Believe Me, It's Torture".

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/16/christopher- hitc...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/16/christopher-hitchens- dies-aged-62?CMP=twt_fd)

 _Hitchens gave short shrift to the "insulting" suggestion that cancer might persuade him to change his position where reason had not, arguing that to ditch principles "held for a lifetime, in the hope of gaining favour at the last minute" would be a "hucksterish choice", and urging those who had taken it upon themselves to pray for him not to "trouble deaf heaven with your bootless cries"._

<comment><USER13> The guardian 'obituary' is also quite informative (including a reasonably good amount of biography): [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/16/christopher- hitc...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/16/christopher-hitchens- obituary)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Christoper Hitchens. Rest in Peace. One of the most articulate people, always incisive, even when I disagreed with him.

I saw Hitchens speak at the New York Public Library, as part of their Live! series. Everyone retired to the garden afterwards, to take drinks.

I spoke with Hitchens briefly. He called Mother Theresa "a bitch". I criticized his diction and argued that bitch was the wrong epithet. I don't recall my exact argument, but he conceded my point. I was elated, given that I considered (and still consider) Hitchens one of the most eloquent orators of our generation. In deference to him and his passing, I have mulled my choice of language in this comment.

I am still grateful that I had the chance to engage this great polemicist.

<comment><USER15> That's actually an interesting anecdote, because it demonstrates a willingness to admit when he was wrong, something that is often uncommon among so-called "great thinkers" - especially when they're engaging with a member of the "ordinary public". (My apologies if you're actually quite extraordinary.)

<comment><USER14> I think it's one of his most admirable qualities, namely that he will admit fault, change his position, and correct himself when he overspeaks.

 _My apologies if you're actually quite extraordinary._

None taken.

[edit: A question I asked him at the NYPL, 55:30 in the video [http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/god-not-great-debate- between-...](http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/god-not-great-debate-between- christopher-hitchens-and-al-sharpton)

Q: In the beginning of the talk you expressed antipathy towards deism in principle, predicated along this particular interpretation of God as a supreme dictator and judge. Is that correct?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: That would be correct, yes.

Q: Now, if I could play devil's advocate for God for a moment. Could you appreciate a God who watches us and our actions eagerly and with great interest because he created a world where everything is permitted?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Yes, I can picture it, but I'm not without horror. (laughter) ]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Astroid: [http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/Asteroid- Name...](http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/Asteroid-Named-for- Christopher-Hitchens)

"An astroid...has been named after Vanity Fair contributing editor Christopher Hitchens. The asteroid orbits Mars, Jupiter, and Earth. It's an ironic but fitting honor for an iconoclast who has spent much of his life shaking his fist at the heavens and the deities they may or may not host."

</comment><comment><USER17> "God is Not Great" is trending on Twitter right now... (Hilarious material too.) Too bad Hitchens missed it.

<comment><USER18> A fitting exit on his part. Got them riled up one last time.

Update: #hitchslap seems to be doing well, also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One of the foremost intellectuals - I disagreed with him on Iraq but scoured youtube to watch his debates - mostly against religious rabbis. There really was no one like him.

""That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." \- Christopher Hitchens

</comment><comment><USER20> My favourite Hitchens moment:

<http://youtube.com/watch?v=BP51NnoVErA>

</comment><comment><USER21> There was a Munk Debate last year where Hitchens debated Tony Blair on whether religion was a force for good in the world. I highly recommend it: <http://www.munkdebates.com/debates/Religion>

Everyone knew Hitchens didn't have much time left, so it was great to see him doing what he does best against someone as high-profile as Blair.

<comment><USER22> And he beat Blair, who is no slouch either when it comes to debating.

He was an amazing person. He could write and speak with such force, yet such complexity and refinement at the same time. I deeply admired him even when I disagreed with him completely.

Farewell, Hitch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Such a sharp thinker, with unbelievable wit and depth of memory.

You can get a sense of his political style from his fascination with the remark from Israeli peace activist Israel Shahak, "there are beginning to be some encouraging signs of polarization". Meaning that usually, well almost always, you have to choose sides. Draw the line between the sides yourself if necessary.

It's Hitchens' writings that introduced me to the early, dry, humorous works of Evelyn Waugh (best known is "Scoop", but also Decline and Fall, and the Sword of Honour trilogy). Some of Hitchens' best writing was literary appreciation, not polemics.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hitch asked us to think, to question, and to appreciate. There is surely no better embodiment of a hacker ethic than someone like Christopher Hitchens: a unique voice who challenged the world not to accept the status quo.

</comment><comment><USER25> I knew he didn't have long, but this still feels so sudden. I got so much out of his way of framing things. I'm grateful that he wrote and spoke so much while he was here.

</comment><comment><USER26> A good landing page from VF is an excellent starter for those who are tiptoeing into Hitchens for the first time. <http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/christopher-hitchens>

</comment><comment><USER27> It would be nice if HN could put up the black bar at the top of the page today for Hitch.

</comment><comment><USER28> We shall have to work faster.

<http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehuda>

<comment><USER29> You know, I think it's _really_ distasteful that you people use the deaths of people who probably wouldn't have even agreed with the message of that essay to promote the ideas in that essay.

<comment><USER30> He went in for cancer treatment, so he clearly wanted to avoid death, which is what the essay is about.

<comment><USER31> Christopher is largely dismissive of the life-extension techniques that transhumanists espouse, such as cryogenic preservation: [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/11/hitchens-...](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/11/hitchens-201011?currentPage=all)

<comment><USER28> Your site says you operate under Crocker's rules, Julian, so please hear me out. (And to Phil Welch: I understand, but allow me the claim that he probably would have agreed with the message. And even if the distastefulness depends on the _probability_ of a dead man's agreement with a position, should we not prevent ourselves from lashing out at people who post the message so that people may at least read and decide for themselves on an issue as important as this?)

Firstly, Christopher is not dismissive of life-extension techniques that transhumanists espouse. If he could live longer _right now_ due to a technique formerly classified a "espoused by transhumanists," he would choose to, as is evinced all over that essay. Rather, he is largely dismissive of life- extension techniques that _don't work_. The transhumanism part has nothing to do with it.

In that essay, cryonics is lumped in with the paragraph that discusses _bad advice_. So we can agree that Christopher considers cryonics as bad science, the same way he considers eating the granulated essence of the peach pit to prevent overwhelming growth of a malignant neoplasm bad science.

On the other hand, the rest of the essay discusses good science, that is, science which has been proven to work. He discusses its "near-miraculous" quality.

Perfusion of chemicals to preserve and prepare brain tissue is already textbook science, just not applied to whole brains. The case of Clive Wearing is one piece of an assortment of evidence that consciousness is a clever illusion (the philosopher of consciousness, Daniel Dennett, can say a lot here). Ultimately, cryonics is science that (by definition) has not been proved to work, but nonetheless serious science. Please don't deny that. Harvard neuroscientist Kenneth Hayworth explains this much better than I could, so I leave the floor to him:

[http://brainpreservation.org/documents/killed_by_bad_philoso...](http://brainpreservation.org/documents/killed_by_bad_philosophy.pdf)

This issue is much too important to worry about what's distasteful.

<comment><USER31> _Christopher is largely dismissive of the life-extension techniques that transhumanists espouse, such as cryogenic preservation_

I should have been clearer:

"Christopher Hitchens believes that most of the techniques that transhumanists think will lead to radically longer lifespans will _not work_."

I think that we are not in disagreement.

<comment><USER28> I see. Then I lay the claim that Hitchens did not have enough medical expertise to know what will or will not work, and conditional on something working, he would have espoused it, and conditional on it not working, he would have not have espoused it. As such, I further lay the claim that he would have been in favor of allowing people to evaluate the underlying science for themselves, _in case he made a mistake and it does work_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not unexpected, he's been ill for a while. I will miss his razor wit and intellect. The clarity of his thought, writing and speech was a breath of cool fresh air amidst the unfortunate smog that is modern media, especially television. Am currently reading Hitch-22, have already read "God is not Great" and would recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER33> I first learned of Christopher Hitchens in the run-up to Iraq, which he espoused. I chalked him up as a Bad Guy, and moved my limited attention span on down the pike. Only recently had I realized that he was a lot deeper than I'd given him credit for - and now he's dead.

Life stinks.

<comment><USER34> Well, the Iraq war is interesting. The US sold a bunch of chemical/biological weapons to the Iraqis, and then years later used that as a pretext for war, being fairly sure that they would find them. Problem was, they weren't there any more, so the US looked stupid.

What happened to those weapons of terror? Well, the Kurds can probably tell you. Suffice it to say that not everyone was a big fan of Saddam, and some people were legitimately happy to see the US overthrow Saddam.

The main problems are this

1) bogus pretext for the war, lying to your own people

2) the means they used (bombing civilian infrastructure, cutting off power supplies to hospitals etc)

And on that note, the US has this insane idea that if they interfere with other countries, mess with their economics etc then it makes people upset with $local_dictator... but it doesn't work like that, it just makes them and everyone else in the world pissed off at the US.

3) What they did afterwards. Sticking around and trying to make the Iraqis pay for it all by looting their resources. Not good.

Afghanistan is even worse. The soviet union stuck their dick in the meat- grinder that is Afghanistan and were there for 20 years and it destroyed them and bankrupted them economically. How is the US going to fare any differently? Oh, you spent a trillion dollars on this war and your economy is in the hole for a trillion dollars. What a mysterious coincidence!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> #GodIsNotGreat is trending worldwide. It's quite entertaining to see the live timeline of people freaking out: <http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23GodIsNotGreat>

<comment><USER36> Seems like Twitter censored it from the trending spot; a pity.

<comment><USER14> @johnwilander: #GodIsNotGreat pulled from trends because christians protest. But #ReasonsToBeatYourGirlfriend allowed. Stay classy @Twitter

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> He was my favourite thinker and orator, I'm very sad to see him go.

</comment><comment><USER38> Ah, shit.

<comment><USER39> You stole those words from me! (just kidding)

RIP.

<comment><USER38> You want 'em? I'm getting tired of them.

<comment><USER39> This has been too depressing of a year.

Where's the good news?!

<comment><USER40> We will find out in 80 years time when the eulogies are written.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> He's in a better place, now.

<http://explosm.net/comics/2645/>

<comment><USER42> Nice observation!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I saw him on Morning Joe about 18 months ago. I like the idea of what they are trying to do with that show, I like that they have both sides on it, but it has more than enough grab ass (it's 2 hours too long every day..) Anyhow, they were getting ready to engage him in a serious conversation but it was a grab- ass session between segments, I can't remember the subject but they were goading folks to make some statement on something really absurd (it was sexist or Jersey Shore or something, I wish I could remember it) but Mika (the news reader lady) tried to get him to voice an opinion and he very eloquently said "pass" it was a bit flowery though and had just a hint of an insult back for even being asked to talk about it.

I don't know if anyone had ever done that before, they clearly weren't prepared for it. He was there for something serious and he kept to it, regardless of views, much respect to the guy. In a pop-media bubble gum bullshit news and entertainment world he had a mission and kept to it. A tragic loss we need more of him and more like him.

</comment><comment><USER44> dammit. hitchens barely got his trousers off.

<comment><USER27> Always made me smile when he finished off a debate with the "We've barely got our trousers off" line.

<comment><USER14> Did he do this often?

I was only aware of him using this turn of phrase when debating O'Reilly ("We barely got our trousers off, we should pursue this.")

[youtube link taken down by Fox News, sorry]

<comment><USER27> Here's another time: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm3whAxMgdc>. I'm pretty sure I've heard him use it a few times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Hitchens was wrong about a lot in my view, but for many atheists he was an important figure.

He eloquently made the case for our faith in empirical evidence and the scientific knowing of reality, and he didn't pussy out at the end. Knowing he was dying, and soon on his way into that void, still looked that motherfucker in the face, and stayed frosty.

Wish he could have died from old age, though.

<comment><USER46> "empirical evidence and the scientific knowing of reality"

Not sure what you mean by this, do you really believe that science validates a specific view on what constitutes reality?

<comment><USER47> Science defines our best view of reality, period. And by best, I mean most accurate representation of objective reality.

<comment><USER45> Yes, this is _exactly_ what I meant, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Too short, but he won at life.

<comment><USER49> 62 years is OK for someone who burned the candle of his life at both ends the way he did.

<comment><USER50> "... and found it gave a lovely light", in his words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Moments of his life in pictures.

[http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/12/christoph...](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/12/christopher- hitchens-slideshow-201112#slide=1)

</comment><comment><USER52> He and his family are in my....well, in my sincere thoughts that I say in my head directed towards a nonspecific metaphorical anthropomorphic being.

</comment><comment><USER18> For anyone looking for a quick way to get a handle on who he was search YouTube for "hitchslap".

</comment><comment><USER53> Damn. Miss you.

</comment><comment><USER54> He was a straight up debater who could discuss ideas on their merits, and seemed to make up his own mind on issues. Gone too soon.

</comment><comment><USER55> Not to be blunt, but I never understood why a drunken advocate of a murderous war gets such props no matter what his facility with words may have been.

</comment><comment><USER56> test

</comment><comment><USER57> Okay, really.

With all due respect to the passing of a fellow human, this story has absolutely nothing to do with hackers, with software development, with the startup business... I know people are going to reply to this with some reference to "but it is of intellectual interest!" -- but really, there are lots of different places on the Internet (thousands, maybe millions!) to discuss lots of different things. If you have begun to look at Hacker News as your sole source of news and information in the world -- of which such stories and their upvoting may be a sign -- you really need to diversify your life. It will be better for your health, and for your work.

It would be great if we could allow this place remain a silo of thought on technical and business matters, and seek out other places and people for other sorts of information and discourse.

<comment><USER58> There is some truth to what you say, but who is going to be the arbiter of what is "hacker" content and what is not? You? And where does it end? Is a blog post detailing how to deal with stock options really hacker content, for example?

HN is still a pretty small community, and regardless of whether or not it upvotes strict tech articles or not I think is besides the point. I come here because it's like being in the center of an intellectual panopticon, and to a large extent, I trust people here to show me things that will make me grow. I'm not interested in _everything_ posted here, but it is also not important to me (and I imagine a lot of other people as well) that all the articles here are strictly super technical.

<comment><USER57> There's a variety of places from where we can get our news. For example, I'm super-concerned about the end result of the Euro crisis (which directly affects global businesses, such as the online businesses many of us are building, far more than is ever discussed here) -- but rather than looking for economic insight here, or posting articles about the matter here for discussion, I turn to the Financial Times, and talk to my friends who work in finance.

You have to find the best outlet for information and discussions regarding the topic at hand; as it stands, Hacker News is an excellent place for discussion about technical topics, but if we continue to have more of this mainstream- type stuff because of a more general audience that chooses to use this as their version of CNN, we're going to quickly alienate more technical-minded people who come here to _avoid_ general news topics.

If you want this place to remain special, you have to keep it special.

<comment><USER58> > If you want this place to remain special, you have to keep it special.

I agree with, but this is also #1 story on the frontpage right now, which makes your statement not indictment a flood of "bad" content in the "new" section, but an indictment the HN population for upvoting it. If HNers didn't believe it was relevant content, why vote it up in the first place? HN is small enough that I just have a lot of trouble believing this is the result of user dilution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Wow, right after America gave up the ghost in Iraq too.

From <http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2011/11/oser-dire.html>:

" Why does it also not delight me that the extent of the allegations against him, at least on some showings, is "unwanted advances"? It might be argued, by the cynical or the naive, that all "advances" begin that way. True, a period of a matter of months is specified, but don't I seem to recall, in President Obama's jaunty account of his courtship, that it took him a certain amount of time to "wear down" his intended target? I dare say that many of us could say the same, while reminiscing among friends, and still hope to avoid getting too many sidelong looks. But in the present circumstances there seems to be a danger of a straight-out politicization of the sexual harassment issue, with many people deciding it in advance on the simple basis of campaign calculations, or—to put it more crudely—of whose ox is being gored. This appears to represent a general coarsening by silence, and yet another crude element in a depressing campaign. "

-Hitchens

I have always suspected that Christopher Hitchens is really a child of Indianapolis or Topeka who spent a year in London while an undergraduate at the North Dakota State Technical and Agricultural Community College or some such and returned with an accent and a ubiquitous unopened umbrella so thoroughly does his Englishness come off as an affect. And, to crib from our friends across the pond, he comes off as a real tosser. "I dare say"? It's as if, sensing his own impending demise, he's angling to be played by Maggie Smith in the biopic.

Any man willing to gratuitously fondle the mother tongue as Hitch does above is obviously going to be an apologist for molestation. If you're a liberal, then you'll find it particularly appalling that Hitch first made his conservative bones, you'll pardon the expression, not by cheering for the death of a million Iraqis, but by stroking feverishly over Monica and Kathleen Willey. This was evidence of Clinton's despicable character, whereas here we are in grave danger of "politicizing . . . the sexual harassment issue," as if chalking it up as an issue has not by fucking default cast it into the baleful form of politics.

<comment><USER60> This is in bad taste. Also, I have no idea what it's about, but does "Any man willing to gratuitously fondle the mother tongue as Hitch does above is obviously going to be an apologist for molestation" really constitute a valid argument?</comment></comment>


Can we know what animals are thinking? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.economist.com/can-we-know-what-animals-are-thinking-83991bc994c4 <comment><AUTHOR> It seems this has been submitted before, but I found it fascinating and it's a subject I've seen discussed with interesting results here before. Perhaps it will get some more activity going this time around :)</comment>


Finnish campaigners seek crowdsourced change to copyright legislation - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-01/24/finland-copyright-law-crowdsource

<comment><USER2> As a Finn I don't hold my breath over that the the vote, if it gets to a point parliament can vote on it (which I hope it does), will make a difference. Most likely it will be shot down by the Government parties as the copyright holders lobby-machine has quite strong influence. To make matters worst, most of the parties MPs vote what the party says them to vote regardless what the individual MP seems to be thinking.

Don't get me wrong, of course I want that the vote will pass, but I'll rather see the vote being 'shot down' than not have it at all. At least it will generate (more) discussion. We can always start the process over until we can get a positive outcome.

Now that I think this more, the timing might actually be just right for this to make a real impact as the the 9-year old girls confiscated Winnie The Pooh laptop case should still be fresh in peoples memories..

<comment><USER3> The problem is that 99.99% of these motions to propose a new law are not written by people who understand parliamentary procedure and drafting of valid motions.

passing a new law may require altering existing law or striking down old laws - the "conseqensials" get this wrong and you will lose.

and there the whole question of time tabling if the government can control when the motion is time tabled it might fall off if time runs out if they schedule it at the end of session for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This has about as good chances of succeeding as the US Death Star project.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have an example, worldwide, of any of these petitions being successful in effecting change? (I'm not implying here that it has or hasn't happened)

<comment><USER6> This is much more than just a petition, though, even compared to a White House petition, which still has almost no chance of solving anything, other than receiving a patronizing and vague response, if that. The proposals in this "petition" get on the floor in Parliament it seems (if it passes the 50,000 mark), and they have to vote on it.

I really like the idea, and I wish more countries adopted this. If you're not a big fan of direct democracy and citizen-referendums like in Germany, this one still allows the representatives to have the final say on it. So nothing changes from the republic point of view, but it does offer regular citizens much better access to the Parliament and getting it to vote on laws they care about.

Of course they can still vote no, and they might, but that's why you need to build enough awareness and also try to change the politicians' mind on the issue.

<comment><USER5> But are there any examples of one of these issues getting to Parliament and successfully voted on? (as in voted in support of the motion)

<comment><USER7> In Finland, there hasn't yet been a vote about a petition in Parliament. The first petition with enough signatures was submitted in October, and the signatures will first have to be verified.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax in the UK in 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34504474 <comment><USER2> Global companies offshoring profits and not paying enough tax (in the eyes of many countries) was a hot topic at the last G20 summit in Brisbane.

This isn't limited to Facebook, as the article explains. The issue and background here is that when large companies operate globally, each country has its own local subsidiary, owned by the global entity. Money is made in each country by selling goods or services. How are the profits sent upstream to the parent company? By charging costs for goods; or license fees for services. As the company chooses their own costs and license fees, they can effectively control in which entity they make a profit and which they don't. This is also how companies shift profits to no- or low- tax jurisdictions. See: Apple and their large amounts of cash held outside of the USA.

With increased globalisation, this is an issue for many countries. In Australia, for example (where I live), the roll out and success of Uber means that the taxi company tax base will erode. If Uber shifts profits overseas, the Australian Government gets less tax but still has to provide the same level (or greater) services. Uber's a better service, we want it to succeed, but tax is needed for necessary services.

While companies continue to do this, the answer is information sharing between countries' tax offices and laws to ensure a certain amount of profits must stay on-shore, while not dis-incentivising multi-nationals from doing business in each country. As this already has political attention, I'd expect laws in most major countries to deal with this over the next 5 years.

But Facebook are taking the piss here.

<comment><USER3> Stories like this make me question if corporate tax even makes sense. However well designed, a tax code with today's complexities is going to have holes. If a savings of even one per mill may mean millions, corporations are going to spend insane amounts of money to hire the best experts to use every last loophole.

Why don't we cut down everything to a couple of manageable groups that can be tightened down? I think the following set of taxes should capture mostly everything:

\- Personal income including gifts, inheritances, capital gains, all on a set of progressive scales. This should include work benefits (like company cars) and probably include loans taken out.

\- Use of public resources (property tax, vehicle registration tax, RF use...), taxed based on the specific usage (e.g. vehicle weight, or even kilometers driven).

\- A consumption tax (VAT) could be added, although this doesn't seem necessary to me.

Thinking about this for a couple of minutes, I don't see any obvious problems. Applicability of the personal income tax would be a crucial point, and care would need to be taken to avoid loopholes. Why aren't tax systems as simple as that?

<comment><USER4> The big problem with this is that, under a simple tax system, if a government wants to increase it's tax revenue it is extremely easy for voters to understand what is happening. Governments prefer to make complicated tax laws because they are easier to spin.

<comment><USER5> Ah yes governments always trying to make things too complicated!! Argh! Why cant we replace the govt with the private sector! They never do anything that would obscure or needlessly complicate things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> TIL we pay 10-20x more corp tax than Facebook.

Sometimes I feel like a fool, but we've always said from day 1 try to do things as honestly as possible which I'm quite proud of, but there really doesn't seem to be much practical upside apart from not being outed and shamed.

First world problem I guess, at least we're turning a profit.

It is starting to make me a bit bitter though. For example, we've spent a LOT of time making sure we file and pay the full VAT due on all our sales which is insanely complicated. Then we suffer further with the new VAT Moss rules which are aimed at targeting these big businesses who are avoiding it as best possible, but the end consequences being an even bigger burden for small businesses like us.

Makes me wonder if we decided to exit if we could get a higher multiplier. Firstly we represent a reduced risk to the buyer, and secondly the buyer might see it as opportunity to absorb us into their accounting practises which would make us significantly more profitable overnight. I guess that is a potential benefit, but the idea of it ending like that doesn't sit comfortably with me.

<comment><USER2> You're not a fool, you're just not a multi-national with the ability to legally avoid/minimize tax.

<comment><USER6> Along the way we've been offered ways to get around this and that which we've politely declined. Most obvious one being put your HQ in some country you've never been to in your life, we'd save buckets.

Also, if you get down to the metal with VAT there's a lot of ambiguity (opportunity).

My experience is that scale is not a prerequisite for it being economically beneficial.

<comment><USER7> They didn't suggest "paying" yourself by loans from the offshore entity did they?

<comment><USER6> I don't believe so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Re-posting my comment from the Guardian thread that came up earlier ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10371728](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10371728) )

Corporation tax in the UK is payable on 'profits subject to corporation tax'. In laymen's terms this is roughly equivalent to to accounting profit.

Employee salaries, bonuses, etc are generally deductible; if you pay me 50K, that's 50K out of your bottom line.

The employees in question likely pay a variety of taxes including but not limited to the standard income tax. In an extreme scenario (recent graduate + highest tax band) that could be 61% rate.

(For comparison, the 2015 rate for Corporation Tax is 20%; so as far as the Exchequer is concerned, a salary payment is preferable, at least in immediate terms).

In summary, I think there's a discussion to be had here about abuse of taxation frameworks but the headline here is bait; the bonuses are irrelevant, any oddities regarding transfer payments etc. are what should be focused on.

edit: My position on taxation in general is that we should be focusing on Capital Gains Tax (taxes the gain on appreciation of assets such as shares) and Income Tax (taxes income from sources such as employment, share dividends).

Taxing corporations seems like it can only ever be arbitrary at some level, because they don't.... 'exist', for lack of a better term. They can be ephemeral, relocate, etc.

<comment><USER6> What about scrapping corp tax, and replacing with a higher VAT rate?

<comment><USER9> The public would go mental. VAT is seen as being most onerous on low earners.

Something like a very low "turnover tax" for businesses could potentially work though.

We take about £40bn in corporation tax each year. Total business revenue in the UK is around £3.2tn, so a 1.25% turnover tax would cover it.

<comment><USER10> Or just tax dividends as normal income.

<comment><USER9> We are not far away from that with the new regime, but ultimately that's mostly disproportionately onerous on small, risk taking entrepreneurs and small businesses.

<comment><USER10> For those people they would clearly stop drawing dividends as there would be no tax advantage to doing so. I'm not sure how you could say it is onerous (other than the fact they may have to pay more tax than they would have).

<comment><USER9> For right or wrong, the British tax code has long recognized that those putting their own capital at risk do not necessarily have the same safety nets of typical employees and taxes their rewards at a lower rate. This is why both dividend taxes and capital gains taxes are lower than income taxes, and also why Entrepreneur Relief exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The UK press seems to have a field day when it comes to multi-national corporations not paying corporation tax.

We will no doubt shortly have a number of MPs telling us how unacceptable this is and that Facebook need to start paying up.

This all irks me a little.

362 Facebook staff on an average salary of say £65,000 will contribute at least £7,230,696.60 in taxes and NI to HMRC. Let's also not pretend that £65,000 is the average salary at Facebook UK, it's likely much higher.

Then we can look at those 'stock' bonuses that much of the article seems to point towards. There will likely be capital gains tax paid by employees on the sales of those assets down the line.

The UK has seen a strong economic recovery and remains a global financial centre and the business friendly tax policies of the UK likely contribute heavily towards this.

If I had a choice between Facebook paying £4,327 in corporation tax but employing over 350 highly skilled individuals in the UK, or relocating to somewhere like Dublin due to aggressive taxation policies. I know what I would pick.

<comment><USER12> I utterly reject this argument

> 362 Facebook staff on an average salary of say £65,000 will contribute at > least £7,230,696.60 in taxes and NI to HMRC. Let's also not pretend that > £65,000 is the average salary at Facebook UK, it's likely much higher.

First of all, that's Facebook employees paying tax. Not Facebook. That's their money that they are taxed on and they pay it.

Secondly, no one is asking for Facebook to pay tax on nothing. They should pay it on profits. It was tax payers money that built the Great British Telecommunications Infrastructure that Facebook 100% depends on for it's operations here.

> If I had a choice between Facebook paying £4,327 in corporation tax but > employing over 350 highly skilled individuals in the UK, or relocating to > somewhere like Dublin due to aggressive taxation policies. I know what I > would pick.

No one is going to give up all the money they can earn in a country that has one of the lowest corporation tax rates in the world. Facebook is not going to convince it's key employees to leave Britain, uproot their families and go live in the desert or china. Any threat by a company to leave one of the strongest economies in the world is a pathetic bluff.

<comment><USER13> > First of all, that's Facebook employees paying tax. Not Facebook. That's > their money that they are taxed on and they pay it.

Why is this distinction even relevant? Facebook then needs to pay its employees more to make up for the difference. No matter who the government taxes, everyone involved will shift their habits to compensate for it.

<comment><USER14> It's relevant because companies that are not multi-national can't afford to engage in these sort of tax reducing practices. If you want to get rid of corporate taxes altogether, that would be different, but suggesting that it's okay for Facebook to pay less than other companies because their employees pay income tax doesn't make sense. The tax code should provide a level playing field for all companies. You shouldn't get a break just because you can afford to move money around the globe.

<comment><USER13> If we got rid of corporate taxes altogether it _would_ be different, and it would likely "provide a level playing field for all companies". And I'm not sure why companies that are not multi-national can't afford to do this too.. if their corporate taxes are absurdly high like they are here in the U.S., they are free to offshore their operations just like U.S. companies do, or lobby their government to reduce or eliminate corporate taxes altogether. In that respect, the playing field _is_ level because the global economy is now the playing field.

<comment><USER14> This just isn't true. Small businesses can't afford to hire accountants and set up and manage global offices and tax codes. That means small companies are disproportionately taxed for their profits.

In addition, isn't the whole point of corporate taxes to provide money to the country in which that business is making a profit? We may live in a global economy, but we don't all live in a single country. Businesses should be taxed appropriately for their revenues in a country or not be taxed at all. Saying that it's okay to avoid paying taxes because you can afford to move money offshore is hardly a level playing field and gives money to countries based on their advantageous tax codes, not to the profits achieved in that country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No-one expects companies to pay the full whack of tax. But Facebook is taking the piss. They need to be a bit careful, because they risk causing much tighter tax regulation in EU.

Citizens don't see this behaviour and think "well done, got one over on the government". Most citizens are infuriated by this scumbag behaviour.

And before anyone says "they're just obeying the law" \-- we don't know that. They're clearly not evading tax, just aggressively avoiding it, but some tax avoidance schemes haven't been tested in courts yet.

<comment><USER16> > _" No-one expects companies to pay the full whack of tax."_

Why? I don't understand why this is considered acceptable. I'm expected to pay the full whack of tax (income, VAT, etc), but somehow it's taken as given that corporations will pay 'less than they're supposed to'. How can we fix anything if this is the prevailing attitude?

<comment><USER17> In this case, Facebook did pay the full whack of tax. The article implies they avoided paying corporation tax by paying out large bonuses, causing them to have been operating at a loss (on paper). If that is the case, then I don't think that's such a bad thing. All of their employees will still pay tax on their bonuses, so it's not like the tax payer is being completely robbed. At least their workers are getting a cut of the profit, rather than having it all go to Facebook's coffers and the government (in the form of corporation tax).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My one-man-show consultancy pays far more than that in UK corporation tax. Of course that pisses me off, regardless of how you paint this whole tax avoidance scheme.

Someone said that "paying tax is for poor", and this goes a long way to support it.

<comment><USER19> An alternative point of view: if your one-man-show consultancy was not IR35 compliant, paying corporation tax instead of NI and PAYE (i.e. salary) would be a sign that you're avoiding tax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So they paid next to no corporation tax. Meanwhile their employees will have paid a stack of income tax & the new rules on VAT should mean that all Facebook Ad sales to UK customers are subject to UK VAT.

I don't think the UK is being shortchanged all _that_ much. When Google/FB et al were able to shift Ad sales to low-VAT regime holding companies, _that_ was definitely taking the piss. This? Meh.

<comment><USER21> This argument is not valid. Yes they are paying VAT and income tax. So what? They should also be paying corporation tax. A start up competitor would have to pay VAT, income tax _and_ corporation tax.

<comment><USER22> Not if that competitor made a loss the way facebook has here.

<comment><USER10> That wouldn't be an option in the way it is to Facebook if the competitor was based wholly in the UK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm asking someone who is more knowledgeable than me on this topic. What would happen if you replace all (most) tax with VAT?

That would mean everywhere there is a real transaction, that generates greater value, that is where the tax is. It would also make it impossible for big companies to do tax evasion - since you limit the effects to the 'leaves' of the tree that is the economic system, you can catch the money before it escapes put the company 'tree' structure, out of the reach of the state.

<comment><USER24> The issue with VAT is that as usually applied it is an extremely regressive tax. Poorer people spend a far higher proportion on their income on purchases that have VAT applied. If more categories of basic goods were zero-rated or exempt, or if other mechanisms were used to make the VAT burden less regressive, then it might be viable.

<comment><USER25> That's how most of Europe does VAT: food, cultural and other essential products enjoy a very reduced VAT rate in many (but not all) countries here[1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value- added_tax#Tax_rates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax#Tax_rates)

<comment><USER26> There can still be VAT for things poor people buy. Is there chocolate on your biscuit? Then it's "luxury" and you have to pay VAT.

<comment><USER27> True, but at least the price label in the supermarket is the final price you pay, no nasty surprises at checkout. VAT is already included in the advertised price, so you know exactly how much you'll have to pay. Apparently, the same is not true of sales tax in (some states of?) the US.

It doesn't say the VAT rate on the label, but you can figure that out from your receipt after solving a bin packing problem :) Receipts contain a listing of the different VAT rates (e.g. in Germany, x€ at 19% and y€ at 7%)

<comment><USER26> > but at least the price label in the supermarket is the final price you pay, > no nasty surprises at checkout

Er, that's how nearly everywhere does it. And is irrelevant to whether VAT or income tax should be the main way to raise money

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nevi-me From my tax knowledge, in South Africa it's difficult to get away with paying ridiculously low amounts of tax consistently. The corporate tax rate is 28% taxed on worldwide earnings. Though you prepare returns as a single entity (i.e. each subsidiary files its returns and the holding company would also file its own return), there are transfer pricing provisions, as well as provisions for connected persons (related parties/companies) that make it difficult to just keep 'profits' in Ireland without paying taxes on them.

If I could argue that if FB was headquartered in SA it would be paying at least 20% effective taxes, then surely the issue would be that the specific countries (US and EU) have lenient tax laws. Companies will keep gaming the system if lawmakers don't have the appetite to ignore company lobbying and do what's best for the income of their countries.

Whether the issue is that they don't want to lose the business of these tech companies is something else. South Africa started imposing VAT on digital services sold by foreign companies last year. As a result my Google Play Music subs started costing me 14% more, funny enough as I technically shouldn't even be having All Access as I'm in an 'unsupported country'. Apple still charges me the same for music, which means someone had to take the loss to keep the value the same. Nonetheless, some people are unhappy, but our country gets to benefit with the extra 14% collected.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's a good headline but in this case, HMRC made somewhere between two and five times as much money through Facebook's accounting choice here than had they kept the money as corporate profit.

That's because the Facebook paid out those profits to employees as bonuses. That wiped out the corporate profit but the employees have paid income taxes which are much, much higher than corporation tax.

This is significantly different from the corporate tax dodging companies like Amazon EU do by bribing EU states into letting them have a super-low corporate rate if they put all the EU books through that country. Not saying that Facebook aren't also doing that, that's just not what this is about.

<comment><USER29> I wonder what the response would have been had it turned out Facebook were going to pay their employees less, because they'd be making more profit that way ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Am I alone in thinking corporation tax is idiotic?

I think corporations are incredibly immoral institutions (due to skewed incentive structures), however - ultimately it's a collection of investors, owners and employees.

Why not be honest and tax the corporations on the outflow of capital? ie. dividens, wages and sales tax

Corporate tax is ultimately a populist hidden tax on the whole economy b/c no one "feels" it. If you raise it everyone will whoop and cheer (b/c fuck big co!) and not appreciate it's impact on salaries or retirement funds.

Maybe I'm missing something?

</comment><comment><USER31> Corporations don't pay tax even when they do. The tax is a cost passed on to the end consumer. I'd rather see a combination of a progressive consumption tax (necessities < luxuries) combined with trade tariffs that's appropriate for the country being traded with. This would circumvent the shell company trick.

<comment><USER32> The idea that all taxes are just costs passed onto the consumer is patently abusrd, if they could easily raise prices to that level and have people pay, they already would have. It effects profit margins much more than it does the prices they set.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The thing that large corporations should remember is the the UK is one of the few countries in the world that can pass retrospective legislation and then enforce it (this has happened on tax issues as recently as the 2000s). At some stage a UK government is going to claw back this money and I think it won't be pretty for anyone. (NB I fundamentally don't agree with the concept of retrospective legislation I'm merely saying the UK can do it.)

<comment><USER33> I found this _ex post facto_ -ing, so I dug up a relevant link: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8496921.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8496921.stm)

The law in question is the Finance Act of 2008.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't know if is the case of Facebook, but in general this is the story of most of tech companies, all are located in Ireland where they pay so much less taxes, and in rest of EU countries all this big companies pay this quantities or in the worse case the government return money.

EU is totally broken, one market with one tax per country; Obviously, all companies go to the country with less taxes. And the different is not 1% or 2% is like 10% or more.

<comment><USER26> > all are located in Ireland where they pay so much less taxes

Another reason for Ireland was that there was a very lax view of European Data Protection law there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Its most recent Companies House filing shows the company as making a pre-tax > loss of £28.5m last year, but the firm also paid its 362 UK staff a total of > £35.4m in share bonuses.

So £35m was distributed as income towards the employees. This means the employees are paid extra, have more money to contribute and spend locally, and have paid the correct income taxes on the bonuses. How is this a bad thing?

<comment><USER15> Facebook reaps the rewards of the UK infrastructure. Facebook should behave as a responsible citizen and help fund that infrastructure.

If they don't want to behave like responsible citizens they can fuck off.

<comment><USER35> > Facebook reaps the rewards of the UK infrastructure. Facebook should behave > as a responsible citizen and help fund that infrastructure.

Paying their employees an extra £96,000 (on average) per head isn't them being responsible? The money is being paid to UK employees who will (in theory) spend it in the UK. I'd have a problem if they did what Apple are doing in the US - sitting on wads of cash because it's too expensive to bring it back into the states, but this is a win for everyone. The money is redistributed back to the employees, and taxed appropriately, how is that a problem?

<comment><USER32> its only responsible in the sense that they have to pay the caliber of tallent they want to attract that much. Its not like facebook is paying them more out of the goodness of their own hearts.

Also you can make the arguement that its the employees themselves paying these taxes, not facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What's the point of having a company like FB or Starbucks in your country if they're an incredible net loss to the economy? Why not stop attracting these kinds of businesses or even actively seek to kick them out? I mean, assuming that fixing the tax laws for corporations is impossible, which I think at this point is a fair assumption.

With numbers like this, it'd be easy to morally justify looting, and other otherwise criminal activities against both these types of corporations and the government that allows them existence. It'd seem to start tearing down at the social fabric in many countries, not just the UK, where the poor are actually taxed more than these corporations. With just a little more poverty and misery, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we started seeing violence and social upheaval as people realize they have no other recourse.

And who could blame people if they reacted this way?

</comment><comment><USER37> FB is playing the game that corporations play all over the world - global tax arbitrage. They shift operations, losses and profits to different countries based on tax policy.

The similar thing happens here in the US at the State level. It isn't uncommon for large companies to pack up and move their operations to lower tax States, or to actually bargain with individual States over who will give them the best deal. Here in Massachusetts, Fidelity packed up and left for North Carolina and Texas - they found it was cheaper to move employees than pay the taxes.

This will likely continue as long as different countries (and States) have different tax schemes - and that isn't going away anytime soon.

Soon we'll probably have a renewed call for a lower tax rate here in the US for companies to repatriate those revenues.

<comment><USER38> Tax policy, but not just tax policy. Companies also place their operations based on cost (total operating cost, including logistics costs and whatever). For instance, it is not a surprise that so many computers and smartphones are made in China.

<comment><USER37> Completely agree - but if you look at these global companies, many just locate their headquarters in tax-free zones while not having a substantial amount of employees, or engage in tax avoidance strategies like the Double Irish. But you're right - it's not typically only for tax reasons.

<comment><USER38> Another reason is that tax havens (such as Cayman Islands, or within EU also Luxembourg or London) often have substantial amounts of financial services - lawyers and other experts are available. So, for the logistics of running headquarter functions, it's not necessarily that taxes are low, it's also that there's available expertise for operation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Shameful. Just shameful. I don't care how it gets sugar coated, if you claim to be working for the good of humanity (in facebooks case by connecting people together) and then you loophole yourself out of paying taxes, you are morally bankrupt.

<comment><USER40> If the tax law allows it, they have no reason to pay more than they do. To do so would be not in the interests of their owners/shareholders.

If you have a problem with tax "loopholes" then fix the tax law. Don't blame a business for paying only the tax it is legally obligated to pay. Would YOU pay more taxes than you have to?

<comment><USER15> >Would YOU pay more taxes than you have to?

Most people pay more tax than they need to because they don't have access to devious accountants who create excessive tax-avoidance schemes.

Most of these schemes are neither normal tax planning nor a bit of tax avoidance. They are aggressive tax avoidance that exploit the regulations in weird ways. They're legal, but only because the regulations were malformed (and will get re-made) or because the schemes haven't been tested in courts.

And the way UK tax authorities work is rightly to use courts as a measure of last resort, preferring negotiation instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Excellent. Paying the smallest amount of taxes one is legally obligated to pay is one of the most noble of endeavors.

If every country got their "fair share" of revenue the total taxes on $1.00 would be approximately $1.50.

</comment><comment><USER42> I worry about the drip-drip-drip of information that the British public can (and probably will) use to end up at the conclusion that leaving Europe in the future will be the silver bullet to all of the issues.

Immigration from Europe > Leave Europe (we're an island!)

Can't deport or be cruel to alleged terrorists > Leave Europe (we don't need the European Convention on Human Rights)

Can't stop corporations playing the tax system > Leave Europe (the borders become hard, the taxes unavoidable)

Our press don't really need more reasons to whip up the anti-EU mob, corps shouldn't help them do so.

</comment><comment><USER43> Not from me: As an accountant, most people are not going to be happy with my comment, as it goes against the Group Think here, but this number likely makes sense for the following reasons: 1) Facebook is an American company so discussing up its U.K. Income tax is click bate, pure and simple. American companies pay the majority of income taxes to the US, of which Facebook had at $1.9B tax bill in 2014. 2) there are very complex cross-border income tax rules, where at a high level, other countries will make a corporation pay income tax on business income earned in its country. However, it says right in the article, Facebook UK had a taxable loss last year, and in most jurisdictions you can use prior year losses to reduce current year taxes payable, which is likely what is happening here. 3) they would be paying a lot of other taxes to the UK government. The article mentions employees meaning there will be a host of payroll taxes. There would also be sale tax. The article implies shirking the system, but believe me, governments want and get their money. In summary, this article is click bait trying to get people angry at things they do not understand unless you work as an accountant or tax lawyer..

Source: [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3ofo13/facebook_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3ofo13/facebook_paid_4327_of_uk_corporation_tax_in_2014/cvwz9ft)

</comment><comment><USER44> Tech companies don't show profits as long as there's place for development. They're still paying tax on everything else, including renting offices, paying salaries and bonuses etc.

<comment><USER15> > paying salaries

Isn't that a tax paid by the employee, not employer?

Starbucks tried to say that they paid a lot in VAT, but that's a tax paid by the customer not the business.

<comment><USER44> > Isn't that a tax paid by the employee, not employer

I don't know why people still fall for this. The government may say whatever it wants, but the value of the paycheck is market determined which means taxes are taken from both sides. Unequally, of course, depending on how (in)elastic work supply and demand are.

<comment><USER45> But of course Starbucks claims VAT back so the net VAT paid to the UK government is not the same as the gross

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> "It's about the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. At the end of the day tax evasion is illegal, when you're deliberately setting out to not pay your tax by hiding your money,"

This is so wrong. Close these loopholes so a million dollar accountant and a regular accountant play by the same rules.

It's as if a soccer didn't have an offsides rule and then some complained about teams taking advantage of offsides. Change the law and move on. Don't complain about companies exploiting a huge hole you created.

</comment><comment><USER47> So...the employees likely pay a larger amount in income taxes than Facebook would have paid in corporate taxes, and the remainder goes to the actual UK employees rather than shareholders in the US. Isn't this the best possible outcome for the UK? Is this article just pure mood affiliation (greedy corporations!), or is there something I'm missing?

</comment><comment><USER48> Trump's solution? Cut the U.S. corporate tax rate to 15% from the current top rate of 35%. This would make corporate inversion unnecessary. I think he also had the idea of capping tax at 10% for companies wanting to bring their money back.

At some point you have to ask yourself "why are companies doing this?" and fix the root cause.

<comment><USER49> Creating a race to the bottom is the opposite of fixing the root cause. The US already has a way to deal with this as it's the system used internally between states: levy taxes where sales happen.

<comment><USER48> So the idea is to punish corporates into submission instead of making it so cheap to do business in the USA they don't wanna go elsewhere?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The article is ultra thin on informations. What is the news? That FB UK transfered profits out of the UK to avoid corporation tax?

Is that a problem? I honestly don't know. What is the intention of corporation tax?

I would think that the "who uses our streets and is protected by our police has to pay for it" tax is VAT. How is FB doing in terms of VAT?

</comment><comment><USER51> There are several main pain points :

\- companies need to be treated as "unitary" \- that is passing profits around internally should not affect the tax paid

\- profit is the least definable of all measures. Revenue is something companies don't like to lie about.

\- this change will have to come to small and even consumers to be fair (my wife and I are a unitary item ? Can we share tax allowances?)

\- even if we decide on treating companies as one black box, choose a better metric to tax on (revenue, dividends) we still do not have a formula for distributing across national borders. Should the US get all Facebooks profits? No. Should Facebook pay UK based on number of UK users it has? Doubtful. So ....

We are not going to see this end well - unitary treatment seems obvious but a international agreement on how to divide tax will need another two world wars to sort out.

</comment><comment><USER52> The basic problem here is that business is now global whereas taxation is still at the nation state level. Countries have to compete for business and smaller states with limited resources can bring in money by becomming tax havens. I don't really know of any solution to this.

I think it's worth pointing out that even from the perspective of most businesses this situation sucks. Smaller companies or startups lack the resources to benefit from tax avoidance schemes so are at a disadvantage to their larger competitors.

And if you do start a company that is growing large you don't really have much choice but to start doing it too. You won't be able to compete if you are paying 20% and the competition is paying 2%. You have to do it because everyone else is doing it.

</comment><comment><USER53> Less taxes == more money in our pockets. Facebook higher taxed == FB Ads more expensive == Higher product prices for the consumers

Taxes are always as result paid by the consumers/employees, never by "businesses".

Money saved by Facebook corresponds to money saved in our pockets.

</comment><comment><USER54> They should have a new tax where a companies profits are estimated globally and then a percentage of that is allocated to the countries where it trades based on the amount of trade done there. So if facebook's global profits are $2.9bn and it does 50% of trade in the US then it should be taxed as having made 1.45bn there and then pay US tax (35%) there so $507m there, even if they claim all the profits were made in some tax haven.

It seems a simple solution but there is probably not much lobbying money in the politicians bringing it about.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'd kind of like to spend a day with the people who think up these schemes and pick their brains (lawyers, accountants, CFOs, whoever works on this). Not because I want to "optimize taxes" but because I'm genuinely curious about how they tick, if they see it as a game of sorts etc.

You have a complicated legal framework and try to optimize in it. At the end of the day I'd still wonder...gee is it "ok" that we pay only that much but like I said I'd like to see how this general problem is approached.

</comment><comment><USER56> As others have pointed out, this is far from unique to FB. I'd be surprised if any large multinational corporation didn't do such creative "optimizations" globally.

E.g. British companies doing the same thing in the US:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/09...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/09/11/AR2006091100429.html)

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

</comment><comment><USER57> Thats why you get some good finance people, to use the system against itself.

Aslong as it is legal great, mabye the UK should fix some tax laws if that is the case, if it is not legal fine them..

</comment><comment><USER58> The £4,327 tax is only talking about the UK subsidiary, right? Because from their income statement [1], they paid $1.97B in income tax on $4.91B income before tax for a rate of 40.12%.

I might be misinterpreting something, but I think we should be careful to accuse them of abusing loopholes if they're still paying such a high rate overall.

[1] [http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=FB&annual](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=FB&annual)

</comment><comment><USER59> Why not reduce corporate income tax and add 1% revenue tax? If you can't afford 1% you are gonna go bust anyway.

<comment><USER60> So, the generic answer for why we favor income or value-added taxes over revenue taxes is that (1) we want to encourage investment, so marginal business expenses are essentially tax-free, and (2) revenue taxes limit the ability for competitive middlemen (who can lower transaction costs) and give massive advantage to vertically integrated semi-monopolies.

<comment><USER59> Sure, but maybe the benefits outweigh costs. Revenue tax reduces accounting costs, simplifies models, it's better for small startups etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> > The average UK salary is £26,500 on which employees pay a total of £5,392.80 > in income tax and national insurance contributions.

Whoa, what? That's some hefty tax for the 26k bracket!

<comment><USER62> Half of that is national insurance which is concentrated on £8k - £35k band, counteracting the progressive income tax bands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> The political point here is that big corps are unfairly draining a lot of money out of the local systems they operate in. This leads to reducing services locally, starving the unemployed and the poor and straining middle classes big time. Exhilarating amounts of money are funnelled and stockpiled under the name of unaccountable entities named Apples, Googles etc. against many millions poor that wil need basic income to survive sooner than later. Is this the world we need, really? The principle is simple: local branch entities pay taxes locally just as any local small business.

</comment><comment><USER64> Instead of corporate tax the employees are being charged individual tax. I think eventually the government gets the money.

</comment><comment><USER65> Does anybody have any recommendations for decent books or articles on corporate tax evasion?

</comment><comment><USER66> So, Facebook provides a free service to millions of people in the UK, and people are pissed that Facebook isn't PAYING more for the privilege of giving them free stuff?

Sounds like a bunch of ungrateful children to me.

</comment><comment><USER67> Why do people think that taxation follows a simple accounting mechanism of collect-and-spend? Taxation is collateral for a soverign to get loans and bonds. Taxes do not pay for anything.

</comment><comment><USER68> Outstanding. Tax competition is a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER50> What is the news here? FB was making a loss last year, so why should they pay corporation tax?

<comment><USER69> > FB was making a loss last year

They don't make actual losses - they pay all of their profits as "license fees" to some offshore entity to get their accounting show no profits. This probably means Luxemburg or Netherlands where they have a personalized deal with the tax authorities and the taxation of immaterial property is very low.

In reality they made a shitload of money, and are using creative accounting to make it look like they made a loss. This is tax evasion, not making a loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> In terms of providing social value, Facebook employees far surpass any government's employees. In just a few years Facebook has revolutionized how people connect with each other, whereas governments have, in general, barely been able to maintain the accomplishments of previous generations. This despite the fact that government generally force people to pay about one fifth of their labor, whereas Facebook offers its services for free. Governments should wither and die in favor of more socially beneficial organizations like Facebook.

<comment><USER71> You're taking a highly subjective view and presenting it as fact. That Facebook is a "socially beneficial organization" is extremely debatable. I would argue that Facebook has actually had a detrimental effect on social cohesion.

<comment><USER70> Facebook offers free services to ordinary people to help them stay in touch with their friends. It also offers a paid services to businesses to help them communicate to actual and potential customers. Anyone who uses Facebook can stop at any time. People use Facebook by choice.

In contrast, governments are violent organizations specialize in coercion. Governments extract their revenue by force or threat of force and use their revenue to fund institutions and projects that people would not pay for voluntarily. Governments maintain power by direct force (police and military), by deceit and misinformation (control of the money supply, compulsory education), by monopolizing necessary institutions and services (dispute resolution, security), and by appealing to people's greed and envy. It is nearly impossible to opt out of government services, especially in the sense of not paying for them (taxes).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > "We have to ensure our taxes are simple to eliminate loopholes, and that > taxes are low to increase our competitiveness, so that companies choose to > base themselves here."

Pick one. You can't have both.

</comment><comment><USER72> "It means Facebook's UK corporation tax bill was less than the tax the average UK employee paid on their salary."

"The average UK salary is £26,500 on which employees pay a total of £5,392.80 in income tax and national insurance contributions."

Corporation tax and personal tax are not the same thing so I don't see how they can be compared. In fact, in terms of taxes paid to HMRC, they would have _been_ paid more tax overall.

However, considering they made a pre-tax loss, they should have probably reviewed those payouts of which I assume was shared amongst those on top.

<comment><USER73> If they reduce their profit to zero by paying out to the employees this means they don't have to pay any corporate tax, and the employee has to pay income tax. The personal income tax rate is generally higher than corporate, so why is this a bad thing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I don't have a hope that this tax issue will be solved any time soon. There are hundreds of billions dollars involved globally, and when you are talking about that much money... It's very hard to do much about it, let's be realistic.

I quite agree about the attitude expressed here (Let's Just Give Up on Taxing Big Corporations, [http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-08/multination...](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-08/multinationals- don-t-pay-taxes-but-citizens-don-t-object) ). It's not fair but there's not that much that can be done.

<comment><USER75> That would give them a permanent unfair advantage over small and medium sized companies. In my country such companies employs loads of people.

<comment><USER74> But they have that advantage already, they can afford to do things as described in the original link. They employ a bunch of accountants, offshore experts, etc.

I am not exactly sure if similar means as described in the article I've linked would change much.</comment></comment></comment>