HC proposes profit sharing

[ivwshane]

Not giving employees bonuses and giving them paltry amounts of bonuses are completely different. Unless there is some idiotic "employees must get x amount or y percentage of their total compensation to qualify" garbage, which no company will do (hint, it will turn a bad quarter into a terrible one) they won't be breaking any laws.


And even then, the very idea that employees simply benefiting more from the company doing well makes them work harder (and get more money) is obviously put forth by someone that has never run an actual business. Let's say your company sells cables. How well you do is very dependent on the price of copper as well as how much wire you sell.

You seem to be stuck on the argument no one has made: all business will be required to participate.

It's just another tool in the tool box.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I'd love people to talk about solutions like this more and even apply peer pressure to make it possible however as I've previously said ordering them or giving a tax incentive will just encourage behavior we don't want. Forcing them would take too much Political capital to get passed. I'd rather the effort be spent on expanding jobs, affordable training and some type of benefits.

 

[Mxylplyx]

My company distributes 15% of it's profits to it's employees, ALL of it's employees, in a yearly profit sharing distribution into our pre-tax retirement accounts. It's been as high as 35 days pay, or 1.5 months gross salary some years. Very nice benefit, and makes it very hard to leave.

 

[werepossum]

Interesting. Take a sum that otherwise would be danced around avoiding taxes, pay out 15% to place it in the hands of people who have to pay back 25%.

I do enjoy some gems on the website:

Profit sharing is offered to employees that a company feels are valuable to their operation. Of course this group makes more money than easily replaceable workers. And it's not because of the profit sharing program. Cause and effect are the other way around.

We're covering the costs of a new tax break by increasing taxes. Wait... strike that... we must insist on calling this "closing loopholes" to keep the voting masses on our side.

And if there are tax loopholes which you feel should be eliminated, why not just eliminate them and be done with it? Why must these two items be specifically linked together? Close loopholes to pay for healthcare. Close loopholes to fund education. Close loopholes to add more money to the federal balance sheet. I mean, if you don't get your profit-sharing tax plan passed, are you not going to eliminate these "loopholes" you feel shouldn't be there (and which you haven't even identified yet)?

I mean, seriously, is the reason why some corporations don't extend profit-sharing to the masses is because they haven't yet had the opportunity for Hillary to explain the concepts to them?

Agreed, and well said. Still, any time a progressive is calling for closing "tax loopholes" by creating new loopholes encouraging participation by increasing payroll rather than spending that money on glorious new government programs, she deserves some kudos. This would be akin to a conservative Republican introducing an anti-abortion bill that supported poor pregnant women rather than by attempting to cause them pain or inconvenience while getting abortions - it might not be a good or practical idea, but it's least it's thinking outside the narrow, rigid cone of ideology. And generally speaking, if a company must spend or pay more in taxes, then encouraging it to spend money in payroll to avoid this rather than paying more after-tax dividends as a good idea in theory at least.

EDIT: This can be done in bonuses as well, but it's easy for the CXOs to rationalize that since these profits are due to their outstanding leadership, they should get the bulk of the bonus pool. Profit sharing is more tightly regulated and reviewed, and it typically better helps the average employee, so encouraging it with tax code, while probably not very effective, is nice.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

What if you don't work for a corporation? There aren't any shareholders... How does she propose this "Profit Sharing"?

And I do get profit sharing, it's called a bonus.

 

[FerrelGeek]

Feed the class envy. Standard lib playbook. The sheep gobble it up.

Of course there will always be variations.

But in general, owners do not see value in the easily-replaceable workers. And businesses are continually making internal improvements to the work requirements of the lowest employees specifically to make these workers easier and easier to replace.

Business owners are not going to look at Hillary's ideas and say "Now that someone has finally explained this to us, we're all-aboard giving this profit-sharing plan a go!"


And it's not just owners of multi-billion dollar international conglomerates. I know a lot of small business owners who view their employees as leeches on the business. I don't see this plan of Hillary's changing much of anything other than angering up voters who want higher incomes, against "the other side who's message is 'You have to work more hours.'"

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Feed the class envy. Standard lib playbook. The sheep gobble it up.

I'm so tired of this statement its perfectly fine for Mr. Adelson (sp?) to spend 100 million on elections but god forbid a politician speaks to people about getting more money.

 

[werepossum]

What if you don't work for a corporation? There aren't any shareholders... How does she propose this "Profit Sharing"?

And I do get profit sharing, it's called a bonus.

For small businesses, sure. That works well. As businesses begin to grow larger, both must be better explained and enforced with consistency, lest the company end up defending a buttload of discrimination lawsuits. There are differences though. Profit sharing depends on the company (or a division within that company) turning a profit; it is usually heavily prescribed and formulaic. Bonuses in larger companies are more often contractual and tied to individual performance goals for the individual or for a subunit, or as a regular part of an employee's pay (e.g. Christmas bonus.) Thus one might by law or custom be required to pay some bonuses even in a year with big losses, as we saw with some of the "too big to fail" companies. Conversely, profit sharing might be giving up profit without any additional gain if employees don't understand their parts or don't believe they can really materially affect the company's profitability to an extent sufficient to change behavior.

I'd suggest this as an example of a profit sharing plan done very well, combining the benefits of bonuses as well as profit sharing. http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/heres-what-happened-when-i-introduced-profit-sharing/?_r=0

Done correctly, it's a win-win for employer and employee.

 

[unokitty]

A Democratic Party Presidential Candidate proposes to give away other people's money.

Why is this in news?

Uno

 

[werepossum]

A Democratic Party Presidential Candidate proposes to give away other people's money.

Why is this in news?

Uno

Because this time's she's proposing cutting taxes to encourage companies to give away part of their profits rather than proposing that government simply seize it and redistribute it.

It's a real man-bites-dog story.

 

[smackababy]

You seem to be stuck on the argument no one has made: all business will be required to participate.

It's just another tool in the tool box.

I never made that argument at all. I made the argument that businesses that DO partake can easily adjust numbers to not only pay less base salary (on the expectation of profit sharing), but to not pay out those profit sharing bonuses easily.

 

[1prophet]

Of course there will always be variations.

But in general, owners do not see value in the easily-replaceable workers. And businesses are continually making internal improvements to the work requirements of the lowest employees specifically to make these workers easier and easier to replace.

Business owners are not going to look at Hillary's ideas and say "Now that someone has finally explained this to us, we're all-aboard giving this profit-sharing plan a go!"


And it's not just owners of multi-billion dollar international conglomerates. I know a lot of small business owners who view their employees as leeches on the business. I don't see this plan of Hillary's changing much of anything other than angering up voters who want higher incomes, against "the other side who's message is 'You have to work more hours.'"

Employees that are leeches is a sign of poor management, especially in a small business.

 

[FelixDeCat]

If Hillary took office there would be no profits to share

 

[Fanatical Meat]

N/m f'ing mobile site

 

[Fanatical Meat]

F'ing mobile site

 

[Fanatical Meat]

If Hillary took office there would be no profits to share, just deleted emails, missing Rose law firm billing records, White Water, Benghazi, Travelgate, etc.

Assuming she is guilty on all which even you have to admit is a stretch Felix.
Exactly how would that impact corporate profits?

 

[FelixDeCat]

:|

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Shit worked pretty good under Bills watch. Even has some bipartisan bills passed. I doubt it will be much different of a playbook under Hillary.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Bronco Bama.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

That's because Bill signed bills that were brought up by a Republican controlled House & Senate. He wasn't an obstructionist like Bronco Bama.

Remind me how Obama fits into this discussion.

 

[umbrella39]

Remind me how Obama fits into this discussion.

It's his conservative brain defect on full display... he can't help himself.

 

[rcpratt]

I assume my existing 10% bonus (modified by corporate performance metrics) would qualify, so it would probably just mean more tax breaks for my company.

 

[ivwshane]

So the negative responses range from:

People are worried this would be abused by companies.
Employees don't deserve to share in their companies profit.
Just another corporate tax hand out.
Very few companies would want to do this.

Is that an accurate summary?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

^^^Yes it is

 

[smackababy]

So the negative responses range from:

People are worried this would be abused by companies.
Employees don't deserve to share in their companies profit.
Just another corporate tax hand out.
Very few companies would want to do this.

Is that an accurate summary?

And what are the positive responses? "Using some made up numbers, you get more money with this plan!"