Before the pandemic hit, few people had ever used the video conferencing platform Zoom. Fast forward to 2021 and it’s a household name for anyone who has tried to work, learn, or host a virtual event. The company saw its net income jump from roughly $25 million to $672 million in the last year, but one thing remains unchanged on the company’s latest financial report : current federal tax expense held steady at $0. Cue the angry tweets from politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders GOP believes Democrats handing them winning 2022 campaign Senators in the dark on parliamentarian's decision World passes 3 million coronavirus deaths MORE (I-Vt.), complaining that this is yet another indication of a “rigged tax code” that “benefits the wealthy & powerful.” While Sanders is correct that many aspects of the U.S. tax system do favor the wealthy, this is not one of them. Companies like Zoom and Amazon are the wrong targets for a very simple reason that politicians choose to ignore: Paying employees with stock options is a good thing. Many start-up companies (like Zoom and Amazon once were) are cash-strapped and can’t afford to pay their employees what they are worth, so they make up the difference with stock options. These options don’t just go to the “wealthy and powerful” corporate executives, they go to the engineers, sales team, HR — even Amazon’s warehouse workers once received this benefit. This is nothing new. When I picked up a barista job at Starbucks in the early 2000s, the company was happy to share stories of baristas who now drove fancy cars thanks to the company’s employee stock plan. ADVERTISEMENT So how do companies use stock compensation to “game the system” and “avoid” federal income tax? They follow the rules. The dirty truth is that companies like Zoom and Amazon have almost no control over how stock compensation will impact their tax bill. The reason for the dramatic tax-saving effects has to do with ...
United for change
Can policing be reformed?
The question of police legitimacy was brought to the forefront of American society in 1991 when the brutal beating of Rodney King , an unarmed black man, was caught on video tape. The officers were acquitted of the charges, and Los Angeles erupted in riots. People were demanding changes in policing that seemingly never came. Three decades later we are still fighting the same fight. The movement calling for police reform was reignited by a police officer killing an unarmed black man, Michael Brown, in 2014. Ever since then we have witnessed an increasing number of unarmed black men and women dying at the hands of police officers, most recently Daunte Wright, whose death caused Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) to say that policing in the U.S. “can’t be reformed .” But policing can be reformed, and must be. The organizational structures and practices of policing need to be altered to sustain any long-term solutions to the crisis of police legitimacy. We must focus on changing the culture of policing and its organizational dynamics by concentrating on the people we recruit and how they are trained. ADVERTISEMENT Requiring a college education, particularly a four-year degree, is one way to initiate change. College-educated police officers are significantly less likely to use force , fire their weapons , receive citizen complaints or support abuse of authority by police officers . They are less likely to have authoritarian beliefs and are more likely to use reasonable force and communicate better with the community . But research finds that agencies that require college education have high screening standards and greater training opportunities, which correlate with a reduction in use of force. Therefore, mandatory college education should be coupled with higher standards and training practices to improve policing and police-community relations. As for police training practices, the focus should shift from predominantly physical skills, such ...
Why Sikh Americans again feel targeted after the Indianapolis shooting
Simran Jeet Singh ( @simran ) is a scholar and historian of South Asia, a senior fellow for the Sikh Coalition , the author of a guide for reporters covering Sikhism and a 2020 Equality Fellow for the Open Society Foundations. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN. (CNN) On Thursday night, a gunman killed eight people and injured several others before killing himself at a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis. Four of the eight dead identified as Sikh and the facility was known to employ a significant number of members of the Sikh community. Simran Jeet Singh The shooting came just days after Sikhs, who comprise the world's fifth-largest religious community, celebrated Vaisakhi, the most significant holiday of our calendar, and also as the state of Indiana was honoring its Sikh residents with an awareness and appreciation month -- one of several states to do so. The FBI has not determined the killer's motives -- and may never do so given that he turned the gun on himself and is now deceased. Sikh Americans once again feel targeted. As we come upon 20 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the racist backlash that ensued, we cannot ignore the long history of hate violence against Sikhs in this country. FBI hate crime data shows Sikhs to be one of the most commonly targeted religious groups -- behind Jews and Muslims -- in modern America. We also know that much of the violence that Sikhs face has to do with the cultural and religious illiteracy of others. Despite being one of the world's largest religions, most Americans do not know who Sikhs are. A 2013 study led by the Stanford Innovation Lab and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund found that 70% of Americans misidentified Sikhs when shown a Sikh man in a picture, with many believing they were Muslim. Read More The distinctive Sikh appearance -- which often includes ...
Joe Biden’s audacious gambles
Sign up to get our new weekly column as a newsletter. We're looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. (CNN) Tom Stoppard's play, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," begins with the two minor characters from "Hamlet" betting on the toss of a coin. It comes up heads ... and heads ... and heads -- 92 times in a row -- and Guildenstern has to keep handing over his money. "I'm afraid it isn't your day," says Rosencrantz. "Life is a gamble, at terrible odds," says another character near the end of the 1966 play , "if it was a bet you wouldn't take it." This week President Joe Biden continued taking some hard bets, hoping the coins will land his way. He set the pattern in January, days before he took office, by outlining a huge Covid relief package amounting to $1.9 trillion and then topped it last month with a proposal for a $2 trillion infrastructure bill. On Wednesday he made another consequential gamble by announcing he would pull all US troops out of Afghanistan , a decision his predecessors were tempted to make, but didn't. Along with new tensions with Russia and China, Biden is facing leadership challenges in the wake of the mass shooting in Indianapolis, police violence in Minnesota, Chicago and elsewhere and the stubbornly high rate of Covid-19 cases. The White House revealed that he would speak to a joint session of Congress on April 28 -- ratcheting up the stakes of the prime-time presidential ritual by scheduling it just two days before his 100th day in office, a milestone that shapes perceptions of new presidents. Read More When Biden goes to the Capitol that was overrun by rioters enraged that he, and not Donald Trump would be certified as the winner of the 2020 election -- and when he enters the House chamber that had to be defended at gunpoint on that chaotic January 6 -- it will be a defining moment, either an opportunity to show that he ...
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Reveals He Couldn’t Fit In Porsche After It Was Bought And Shipped To US For Latest Film
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson revealed in a post Sunday on Instagram that he couldn’t fit into a Porsche that was bought and shipped to the United States for his latest film. “Aaaaand guess who’s too big to fit in yet another sports car and now we have to change the entire shot sequence around,” the 48-year-old actor captioned his post on Instagram about filming for his movie “Red Notice” with Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds. (RELATED: Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Considers Running For Office) View this post on Instagram A post shared by therock (@therock) “For our @netflix globe trotting heist movie, RED NOTICE, my writer/director @rawsonthurber (pictured here on the ground setting up the new camera angle) wrote this INSANE chase sequence where I hop in this iconic Porsche and be the bad ass behind the wheel that I am,” he added. “Well, after months of prep and costs [money] buying and shipping this car over to the states – it’s time to rehearse the big chase sequence.” (RELATED: Gal Gadot Hypes Upcoming ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ With Unreal Shot) The “Central Intelligence” star then went on to share exactly what happened on the set when the director Rawson and Johnson were ready to shoot the scene. You can read it in its entirety here . But basically Johnson attempted to get into the car and got “stuck” because “his back is a bit too wide.” He wrote that, he continued to “struggle trying to shimmy into this Porsche like a big ass brown marshmallow getting shoved into a coin slot” with the director finally realizing he couldn’t fit. The “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” star said after a few “uncomfortable” seconds of silence the director, actor and the entire crew just started “laughing” their “asses off” and chucked it all up to this year. For those wondering if another car was brought on for ‘The Rock” or what ended up happening, the superstar actor said they found ...
