Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by VegettoEX » Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:53 am

I think we're getting a bit beyond the original point/question of the thread at this point, but thus far it's still tangentially-connected and worthwhile, productive conversation. The only thing I'd ask is that maybe we reign in some of the accusatory/passive-aggressive language. We know that we communicate ideas more effectively when we're not — intentionally or otherwise — talking down to people. The opportunity to educate is a great one, so take advantage of it.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by JulieYBM » Thu Apr 26, 2018 9:18 am

It's pretty amazing to me as someone who only just discovered in the past year or so that our political system--heck, our 'thought system'--is such a façade. I used to think like so many of us that there was only GOP and Democrat but in the past year I've learned that the Democrats aren't even really Democrats anymore, they're just center-right Republican-lites and it's blown my mind. Learning about the progressive ideas our presidents were fighting for in the early 1900s is fascinating. Did you know President Taft argued for two or three months of paid vacation per year by law? In other modern nations our fellow humans have at least one month by law and possibly even more if their unions were crafty enough. Taft was a republican, for god's sake! It really shows you just how far-right into authoritarian neo-feudalism our nation has swung and why it is important that--like with taxes being progressive--we shift back to the left politically and in our media. Even the majority of republican voters believe in many, many progressive and solidly left ideas (living wage, free college, Medicare For All, legalizing weed). I've learned not to blame GOP voters as a whole, but rather GOP leaders. We have Trump because people were desperate and even if he was lying at least he was running as a populist leftist (and he was lying). Clinton just ran with empty platitudes and clichés. It still pisses me off that I couldn't vote for Sanders or wasn't educated enough to vote for Jill Stein. :lol:

Anyhoo, the moral of the story is to pay your taxes and eat an apple a day!
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by VegettoEX » Thu Apr 26, 2018 9:21 am

JulieYBM wrote:or wasn't educated enough to vote for Jill Stein. :lol:
I'll just keep it short: with this we have certainly extended beyond the point of the thread.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Thu Apr 26, 2018 9:26 am

I'll apologize up front then for that one swipe I took at the broader community here towards the very end of my first post here (which wasn't really aimed at anyone in particular) and for my initial reaction to Vegeta_Sama's post: assuming that either of those were things that Mike was thinking of or referring to in his post. While I disagree vehemently with Lusso Saiyan's points here, nothing else said in either of my posts here was said with the intent of talking down at him: just adding in further to the counterpoints against his views.

Fact is, the reason that I made both my posts in this thread so link-intensive is for exactly the reasons that Mike just noted: to hopefully better inform and educate anyone that might be reading this about some fairly critical real world issues, and with the utmost respect to their intelligence.
JulieYBM wrote:It's pretty amazing to me as someone who only just discovered in the past year or so that our political system--heck, our 'thought system'--is such a façade. I used to think like so many of us that there was only GOP and Democrat but in the past year I've learned that the Democrats aren't even really Democrats anymore, they're just center-right Republican-lites and it's blown my mind. Learning about the progressive ideas our presidents were fighting for in the early 1900s is fascinating. Did you know President Taft argued for two or three months of paid vacation per year by law?
While I'm thrilled at the enthusiasm here, I'll just quickly echo a similar sentiment I've been saying in other topics regarding vastly less important things like U.S. anime fandom history: nothing ever exists or comes about inside of a vacuum. These problems that we've been facing as well as the arguments and viewpoints surrounding them, like so many things that young people on the internet today often assume up front "no one ever knew about this before the internet!"... yeah, no. A LOT of people actually did know as a matter of fact. For a great many decades before even I was born. And have written, filmed, ranted, and sang about them at great, great, great, great, great lengths. And even spoken about them on national television in front of millions of viewers. For as long as I've been alive, and then some.

Always remember that just because something is newly discovered for you (royal "you") doesn't necessarily mean that its just as equally fresh and mind blowingly revelatory for everyone else in most other parts of the world/country. People have been discussing and writing (and also making music and art as well) about most all of these very issues for a great many, many, many, many long decades now. Even a guy like Bernie Sanders wasn't ENTIRELY unknown or obscure to everyone throughout the entire whole of the populace.

People have noticed. People have cared. People have been onto the scam. People have been outraged and devastated by this shit (and for goddamn sure have been feeling the real world impact of them). For long, long, looooooooooong many years now. This conversation/debate/battle for the betterment of humanity has been raging on for quite awhile now... and all the internet has done is amplified it even further (and it was pretty fucking amplified to begin with) and carried it forward into the next century on a much more unified and interconnected stage.

In short, welcome to the shitshow. Better late than never. Glad to have you with us.
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Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by Ryuji-Otogi » Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:40 pm

Another rich guy hiding some of his money away. Not surprising at all. I hardly blame him, the highest earners in Japan pay half their income in taxes.

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by majinwarman » Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:14 pm

Ryuji-Otogi wrote:Another rich guy hiding some of his money away. Not surprising at all. I hardly blame him, the highest earners in Japan pay half their income in taxes.
But, he should still pay his taxes like everyone else.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by Attitudefan » Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:35 pm

Kunzait, thanks for sharing. Many of those people and their works shared are something I have already seen/read/heard. Alan Watt is also someone I would look into regarding the organization and people who are more behind the scenes.

Freeza might be more of a self-reflection than anything else with light of some of this information... well maybe.
My favourite art style (and animation) outside Toriyama who worked on Dragon Ball: Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, Masaki Satō, Minoru Maeda, Takeo Ide, Hisashi Eguchi, Katsumi Aoshima, Tomekichi Takeuchi, Masahiro Shimanuki, Kazuya Hisada

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by ABED » Sat Apr 28, 2018 6:45 am

How is Freeza a self reflection?
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by MrTennek » Sat Apr 28, 2018 11:55 pm

I like the shows but reading all of this the dudes scummy AF. :thumbdown:

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by Attitudefan » Sun Apr 29, 2018 5:25 am

ABED wrote:How is Freeza a self reflection?
I was jumping the shark a bit, which is why I said maybe. I just feel that since he was probably around the people based off Freeza during this time period when Toriyama was making a lot of money from Dragon Ball. Wouldn't shock me if he was already using tax heavens by this time and involved with some really shady people.
My favourite art style (and animation) outside Toriyama who worked on Dragon Ball: Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, Masaki Satō, Minoru Maeda, Takeo Ide, Hisashi Eguchi, Katsumi Aoshima, Tomekichi Takeuchi, Masahiro Shimanuki, Kazuya Hisada

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by ABED » Sun Apr 29, 2018 6:43 am

Again, what Freeza did was conquer planets and sell them to the highest bidder. Toriyama's accountants put his money in countries with lower tax rates to lower what he's legally obligated to pay. That's not dishonest unless he is telling people he's less wealthy than he actually is. Even then, equivocating him with a fictional monster like Freeza or a thug like Capone is one step too far.
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Sun Apr 29, 2018 10:23 am

ABED wrote:Again, what Freeza did was conquer planets and sell them to the highest bidder. Toriyama's accountants put his money in countries with lower tax rates to lower what he's legally obligated to pay. That's not dishonest unless he is telling people he's less wealthy than he actually is. Even then, equivocating him with a fictional monster like Freeza or a thug like Capone is one step too far.
Again, from Toriyama's own mouth:
Akira Toriyama, Daizenshuu 2 Super Interview wrote:Having become the strongest on the Earth, Goku and co. had also beat the Saiyans who came from outside of Earth and then they went out into the universe. I came up with Freeza around the time of the Bubble, and the land shark was the worst person of all. So I made him the #1 land shark in the universe.
Freeza's whole "planet selling" shtick was taken from IRL shady real estate tycoons from during Japan's 1980s Bubble Economy (who in some ways were not too dissimilar from similar U.S. real estate CEOs who were largely responsible for America's own 2000s housing bubble and subsequent economic crash). What most of these companies do (buy and sell off toxic loans to people who they know in advance won't be able to afford to pay them, thus making a nice tidy profit for themselves as they erode, damage, and cripple the overall economy around them in their wake) is often - though hardly always - TECHNICALLY legal via taking advantage of loopholes... but its hardly ethical and does plenty of damage to the lives of ordinary people. Obviously they're hardly on or anywhere remotely near Freeza's Space Hitler levels of pure evil, of course... but they're also by NO means anyone who's worth defending the honor and integrity of either. They're not murderers, but they're definitely still pretty slimy.

Tax havens are likewise legal, sure... but taking advantage of them is in no way "harmless" and has actual, tangible consequences on the economy, and thus on average people's lives (via the richest people worming their way out of paying their fair share into their home country's tax pool, leaving that financial burden to those poorer under them to ultimately make up the difference for). Its only not "dishonest" in terms of it not technically being against the law: though in all honesty, it probably SHOULD be, like so many other incredibly shady financial practices that are often legal mainly due to corrupt bribery in politics from business leaders who keep these sorts of regulatory laws from being passed just so they can make a few extra profit points, despite the damage that it ultimately does.

Paradise Papers aside, is Toriyama breaking any laws purely by taking advantage of tax shelters? No. Is he on the same level as a (fictional) mass murdering, genocidal psycho like Freeza, or even a real life mob boss like Al Capone? No and no, obviously. But he's probably, to one degree or another, on similar footing as the kinds of real estate scam artists that he took some inspiration from (by his own admission) in creating Freeza's Planet Sharking organization... which still doesn't make him a criminal or a monster, but someone who's nonetheless complicit in the sorts of iffy financial dealings that, in a cumulative sense, ebbs and chips away at the overall financial stability of his home country (and to some degree, the broader global economy) simply in order to save a few extra bucks for himself.

That's not a "crime" in a legal sense, no... but it also certainly isn't victimless either. These things ultimately have real consequences on real people in the end.

And that's assuming of course that he wasn't simply genuinely inattentive to what his accountants and brokers were doing with his money, as he claims he was (which is normally the sort of claim that I'm often highly skeptical of in general, but I'll grant him the benefit of the doubt on since I ultimately have no possible way of knowing what was going through his mind, and the guy is notoriously scatterbrained IRL as most of his fans know, which lends him at least a hair bit more credence in that department).
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Kunzait's Wuxia Thread
Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by ABED » Sun Apr 29, 2018 10:36 am

I wouldn't look to Toriyama for an explanation for the housing crisis. Those land sharks (can't write that without thinking of the SNL sketch) and shady bankers weren't the cause, they were a symptom. I'm well aware of the origins of Freeza. While interesting, I still don't like the equivocation.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by LuckyCat » Sun Apr 29, 2018 2:43 pm

I do support progressive taxes (for some of the reasons Jacob and Kunzait thoughtfully outlined and also because larger income earners, particularly corporations, do use significantly more government resources than say Jimmy with a part-time job at McDonalds.) However, as a property owner myself, I can see why Toriyama would want to pay as a few taxes as legally possible. If I invested a bunch of money in say China, got a big return, and then the government there started adding new taxes, I’d sure as heck fight tooth and nail not to pay. Government overreach can be as much of a problem as tax evasion.

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by majinwarman » Sun Apr 29, 2018 5:33 pm

ABED wrote:Again, what Freeza did was conquer planets and sell them to the highest bidder. Toriyama's accountants put his money in countries with lower tax rates to lower what he's legally obligated to pay. That's not dishonest unless he is telling people he's less wealthy than he actually is. Even then, equivocating him with a fictional monster like Freeza or a thug like Capone is one step too far.
I agree. We don't need to consider him a horrible person because he took advantage of other countries's laws.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by ABED » Sun Apr 29, 2018 6:04 pm

majinwarman wrote:
ABED wrote:Again, what Freeza did was conquer planets and sell them to the highest bidder. Toriyama's accountants put his money in countries with lower tax rates to lower what he's legally obligated to pay. That's not dishonest unless he is telling people he's less wealthy than he actually is. Even then, equivocating him with a fictional monster like Freeza or a thug like Capone is one step too far.
I agree. We don't need to consider him a horrible person because he took advantage of other countries's laws.
And if Japan allows him to put some of his money elsewhere, he's not taking advantage of something in an unethical way. He would still be conforming to Japan's tax laws.
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by JulieYBM » Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:57 am

When politicians are bought and paid for the legislature they initiate does not exactly hold any moral weight. Just because something is technically legal that doesn't mean it is right. Toriyama fucked up by not knowing where his money was going and he should be adult enough to make up for said fuck up with tighter understanding of where his money is going.

I do wish Toriyama would take more inspiration from real world events, though. Imagine how much fun it would be seeing Gokuu beating the shit out of a character who pretends to advocate one thing but then pushes for policy based on what their donor wants or military industrial complex investors or health care insurance company executives. Something nice and cathartic! Someone that can really offend the code of the martial artist!
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by JazzMazz » Mon Apr 30, 2018 2:15 am

JulieYBM wrote:When politicians are bought and paid for the legislature they initiate does not exactly hold any moral weight. Just because something is technically legal that doesn't mean it is right. Toriyama fucked up by not knowing where his money was going and he should be adult enough to make up for said fuck up with tighter understanding of where his money is going.

I do wish Toriyama would take more inspiration from real world events, though. Imagine how much fun it would be seeing Gokuu beating the shit out of a character who pretends to advocate one thing but then pushes for policy based on what their donor wants or military industrial complex investors or health care insurance company executives. Something nice and cathartic! Someone that can really offend the code of the martial artist!
So um, anime Frost pretty much?

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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by JulieYBM » Mon Apr 30, 2018 2:18 am

JazzMazz wrote:
JulieYBM wrote:When politicians are bought and paid for the legislature they initiate does not exactly hold any moral weight. Just because something is technically legal that doesn't mean it is right. Toriyama fucked up by not knowing where his money was going and he should be adult enough to make up for said fuck up with tighter understanding of where his money is going.

I do wish Toriyama would take more inspiration from real world events, though. Imagine how much fun it would be seeing Gokuu beating the shit out of a character who pretends to advocate one thing but then pushes for policy based on what their donor wants or military industrial complex investors or health care insurance company executives. Something nice and cathartic! Someone that can really offend the code of the martial artist!
So um, anime Frost pretty much?
God, I wish Frost had had that aspect played up more. Making him a full-on parody of the United States military and government post-World War II would have made for a brilliant story arc or movie.
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Re: Why hasn't Toriyama paid his taxes yet?

Post by JazzMazz » Mon Apr 30, 2018 2:43 am

JulieYBM wrote:
JazzMazz wrote:
JulieYBM wrote:When politicians are bought and paid for the legislature they initiate does not exactly hold any moral weight. Just because something is technically legal that doesn't mean it is right. Toriyama fucked up by not knowing where his money was going and he should be adult enough to make up for said fuck up with tighter understanding of where his money is going.

I do wish Toriyama would take more inspiration from real world events, though. Imagine how much fun it would be seeing Gokuu beating the shit out of a character who pretends to advocate one thing but then pushes for policy based on what their donor wants or military industrial complex investors or health care insurance company executives. Something nice and cathartic! Someone that can really offend the code of the martial artist!
So um, anime Frost pretty much?
God, I wish Frost had had that aspect played up more. Making him a full-on parody of the United States military and government post-World War II would have made for a brilliant story arc or movie.
I don't think Toriyama particularly cares about that sort of thing, or would think to parody it. I think just some more stuff about him being this planet selling warlord disguised as a force for peace would be interesting enough as a basic concept.

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