Truly. At some point, there is a person with far more money than their family would ever need, even only counting annual interest earned instead of principal.
Current CEO has net worth of >$100 million. In fairness, the poorest board member of intuit has half a dozen positions earning $150,000 to $350,000 and _may_ not have accumulated true financial independence. But other board members have over $200 Million.
Those people make the following decision Every. Single. Year: “let’s try to get the government to make taxes far harder and riskier for hundreds of millions of Americans so that I can be even more rich than I already am.”
It would be more excusable if they merely hadn’t lobbied for Americans at all, someone else did, and they reacted quickly to additionally reap the benefits of the same policy.
But when you are already well past having all the money your family could ever need, and choose to try to get the government to fuck over hundreds of millions of people, then the blame
lands on you just as much as the politician.
I think if you are going to be charitable, they aren’t just looking after their own bottom line. Intuit employs 14,000 people, so they are also doing as much as possible to keep their jobs.
Of course, that is still a drop in the bucket compared to how many people suffer because of their lobbying, but it isn’t about simply one person being greedy for themselves.
TurboTax/Intuit are bad guys for other reasons. Like trying to mislead customers like the article details, but I don't think lobbying the government to ensure their industry is not eradicated is necessarily immoral. They have perfectly reasonable motivations there. Most of us would act the same way in their position. It isn't their job to consider the societal ramifications of those laws. It is the governments job to see that lobbying and not let it outweigh the clear societal harm in just acquiescing to TurboTax/Intuit.
runnerup|3 years ago
Current CEO has net worth of >$100 million. In fairness, the poorest board member of intuit has half a dozen positions earning $150,000 to $350,000 and _may_ not have accumulated true financial independence. But other board members have over $200 Million.
Those people make the following decision Every. Single. Year: “let’s try to get the government to make taxes far harder and riskier for hundreds of millions of Americans so that I can be even more rich than I already am.”
It would be more excusable if they merely hadn’t lobbied for Americans at all, someone else did, and they reacted quickly to additionally reap the benefits of the same policy.
But when you are already well past having all the money your family could ever need, and choose to try to get the government to fuck over hundreds of millions of people, then the blame lands on you just as much as the politician.
cortesoft|3 years ago
Of course, that is still a drop in the bucket compared to how many people suffer because of their lobbying, but it isn’t about simply one person being greedy for themselves.
slg|3 years ago