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Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

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Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#51

Post by [deleted] »

javajosh wrote: post #42
javajosh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We put all candidates online, for free. They are not allowed to spend money on getting elected - although they can spend their time (generally speaking, sometimes studying, a particular problem, history, how other countries do it, etc). Citizens subscribe to individuals, and groups of individuals, that best reflect their views. Additionally, citizens will be exposed to views that are slightly or significantly differe…

Right speech is independent of its volume. Money can only increase volume, so get rid of it. Money isn't speech, it's amplification of speech, and as such should not be protected.

[deleted]

Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#52

Post by narag »

oDot wrote: post #6

I've always wondered, why can't we just pay one tax? Say make income tax 1.5x what it's now and cancel all other taxes. That way it'll be even easier!

The goal is not making it easier, but maximizing income for the collecting entity. And guess what: there are different entities competing for maximum extraction.

The most infuriating situation is when a tax taxes already taxed money, so in fact you are paying taxes for paying taxes.

Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#53

Post by raarts »

gnopgnip wrote: post #22
noobermin wrote: post #20

I'm going to say this until I'm blue in the face: fix money in politics, and half of these issues will no longer be intractable.

How can you fix money in politics without making the whole system worse?

Do you think making politicians dependant on funding makes politics better?

Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#54

Post by Qantourisc »

rayiner wrote: post #46
chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #24

Just for thought: suppose the tax system became so simplified that only goods X, Y,and Z were taxed at rates a,b,c. You pay aX+bY+cZ in taxes per year. It would be easy for voters to campaign their politicians to lower tax rates and easily verify. Obviously in the real world there aren't 3 levers to adjust: there are probably thousands or tens of thousands. Apart from the lobbying, politicians may themselves desire t…

That's exactly why we have a proliferation of taxes and tax breaks instead of a simple tax system. Perform a thought experiment. Say we just have a straight 35% income tax. Now, say you need to raise additional revenues. Do you (1) raise the single tax; or (2) impose a new tax on some specific part of the economy? Option (1) gets everybody mad at you. Option (2) gets only a tiny number of people mad at you. Same thin…

I get mad at option 2 each time they do this, we got more crap to deal with, more rules, more bureaucracy, more paperwork. If you want to raise taxes, fine, but stop trying to hide it and extract in every corner.

I do however agree you need some control about where you ask taxes on, but keep it simple. And reuse those tax-levers whenever possible.

Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#55

Post by double0jimb0 »

chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #24

Just for thought: suppose the tax system became so simplified that only goods X, Y,and Z were taxed at rates a,b,c. You pay aX+bY+cZ in taxes per year. It would be easy for voters to campaign their politicians to lower tax rates and easily verify. Obviously in the real world there aren't 3 levers to adjust: there are probably thousands or tens of thousands. Apart from the lobbying, politicians may themselves desire t…

A complex tax system allows competition within the tax advising service provider market. You get what you pay for... the original American Way (tm).

Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#56

Post by kenning »

rayiner wrote: post #46
chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #24

Just for thought: suppose the tax system became so simplified that only goods X, Y,and Z were taxed at rates a,b,c. You pay aX+bY+cZ in taxes per year. It would be easy for voters to campaign their politicians to lower tax rates and easily verify. Obviously in the real world there aren't 3 levers to adjust: there are probably thousands or tens of thousands. Apart from the lobbying, politicians may themselves desire t…

That's exactly why we have a proliferation of taxes and tax breaks instead of a simple tax system. Perform a thought experiment. Say we just have a straight 35% income tax. Now, say you need to raise additional revenues. Do you (1) raise the single tax; or (2) impose a new tax on some specific part of the economy? Option (1) gets everybody mad at you. Option (2) gets only a tiny number of people mad at you. Same thin…

Yeah but a flat tax would be extremely regressive. If you had a simple equation like tax% = x/4 + 10, where x is your tax percentile, politicians could loudly say that they wish to increase or decrease the slope of the line and people would know that increasing slope would mean a more progressive tax.

Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#57

Post by cmurf »

chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #24

Just for thought: suppose the tax system became so simplified that only goods X, Y,and Z were taxed at rates a,b,c. You pay aX+bY+cZ in taxes per year. It would be easy for voters to campaign their politicians to lower tax rates and easily verify. Obviously in the real world there aren't 3 levers to adjust: there are probably thousands or tens of thousands. Apart from the lobbying, politicians may themselves desire t…

We basically have that, except it's goods X, Y, Z are untaxed at rates a, b, c. That is, those goods are tax exempt, a.k.a. they're deductible expenses. Some of those goods get you a tax credit.

Multiply this by tens of thousands. And you get them in various ways, a handful are on form 1040, a bunch more are on form 1040A but those are just categories the actual deductions are found in a booklet that lists the specific goods and what their category is for 1040a, and there's literally asstonnes that have their own private worksheets to compute the deduction or credit, some of which must be filed, most of which don't even get filed but you have to do them to correctly compute the deduction or credit.

It's this complicated because a tiny lobby with a lot of influence manages to go their own private "line" item deduction, and almost no one knows about this. It's accountants and tax preparation software.

Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#58

Post by bmajz »

undersuit wrote: post #43
bmajz wrote: post #29

I was pretty surprised to see Zoe Lofgren's name pop up as an anti tax filing simplification advocate. She's the rep from CA's 19th District which covers San Jose (but not the rest of Silicon Valley) and generally a straight down the line liberal. This is not even Intuit's core district -- that would Anna Eshoo's 17th (previously 14th) district which covers Mountain View and Palo Alto. As a resident of this district,…

According to open data[1] the largest contributor to her campaign is Intuit and it's employees. [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N000...

Well, would you look at that? Poking around this site will be fun.

Re: Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process

#59

Post by hnal943 »

Y_Y wrote: post #9

I wonder if it would be ok for the IRS to charge for this service. Maybe then it would be justifiable to the Republicans who oppose on the basis that it would make raising takes easier.

You think it would be more palatable to Republicans if more money went to the government for the privilege of making taxes less transparent?
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