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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

#251

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

mullen wrote: post #156
smt88 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Campaigning is restricted to a short time period, perhaps 6 months. 2) Every candidate gets a (small) fixed budget, paid for by tax-payers. (This is already the practice in some countries.) 3) Ads are subject to the same laws that govern ads for products: say whatever you want, but you can be sued for lying. Any of those ideas sound good?

> 1) Campaigning is restricted to a short time period, perhaps 6 months. You can't do this without limiting Free Speech. > 2) Every candidate gets a (small) fixed budget, paid for by tax-payers. (This is already the practice in some countries.) Might be possible. > 3) Ads are subject to the same laws that govern ads for products: say whatever you want, but you can be sued for lying. Lying is Free Speech.

Lying is a felony in several situations.

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

#252

Post by quadrangle »

avmich wrote: post #242
quadrangle wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"IRS gets a loan" is metaphorically true in a sense but really doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The IRS doesn't actually get money from taxpayers at all. The IRS is just the bureaucracy that determines things. The money that you "pay" in federal taxes is just dollars that are deleted out of existence so that the dollars created by federal spending don't create inflation. The federal government's "cash flow" is made up en…

> The money that you "pay" in federal taxes is just dollars that are deleted out of existence so that the dollars created by federal spending don't create inflation. Does it mean that taxation in another country is different than taxation in US? Especially in a country where local currency has a fixed exchange rate to US dollar? They presumably can't create money that easily.

Yes, it's TOTALLY different. The U.S. power globally is EXTREMELY tied to the use of the dollar internationally. Everyone else who uses dollars (or has currency pegged to the dollar) is under major economic control and influence of the U.S. Oil priced in dollars is huge.

When the U.S. left the gold standard it was giant fuck you to all the countries who held dollars and could no longer exchange them for gold. The U.S. maintains and exercises military power globally in part to protect the dominance of the dollar.

Note also that state/local taxes in the U.S. are completely different from federal because they can't just make dollars and can only spend dollars received through taxes (which are not deleted in that case) or received from federal spending (or in some cases through the state itself doing business in the market).

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

#253

Post by quadrangle »

avmich wrote: post #241
hermitdev wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of US citizens that pay federal income tax is closer to 35%. All forms of income tax ought be abolished. A consumption tax of around 18% would provide the same federal revenue. It would simplify tax reporting (i.e. reduce expenditures on tax reporting), and increase the tax base (people living on trust funds would pay in at a higher rater). Look into the "Fair Tax" for a well reasoned proposal for such a t…

Answering to one of replies. > Federal "revenue" is a mistaken concept. The federal government just deletes money via taxation in order to offset the created money from spending. The government doesn't need or have any dollars, they are the source of the fiat currency in itself. Does it mean that taxation in USA works differently than taxation in a country with currency tied to US dollar by a fixed exchange rate? In…

replied in other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13992751

but YES, different

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

#254

Post by cookiecaper »

hnal943 wrote: post #48
keithnz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In new zealand, we got rid of having to do tax returns for salaried/wage earners a number of years ago. Makes life easy for a vast majority of people. You can still do a return if you want to though. For the tax department it cuts down on how much infrastructure they need.

I think that's optimizing the wrong thing; people should be aware of the amount they are paying in taxes.

I agree. In fact, withholding should be done away entirely. Try taking money from people in a non-transparent way and see how well that goes.

It's amazing how quickly someone's feeling on taxation can flip once tax season means writing a check instead of getting a refund.

Of course, that's exactly why the system is set up the way it is; a number on a pay slip feels much less real than dollars that you have to fork over, so people hardly realize the extent to which the government is fleecing them.

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

#255

Post by tempestn »

fattire wrote: post #184
tempestn wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was popular among people who got to try the pilot program. That doesn't necessarily mean it would be popular among the general public, especially opponents campaigning heavily against it.

It doesn't necessarily mean that, but it's the strongest evidence I could possibly imagine that it would.

It's strong evidence, yes. And I certainly support the change. I'm just saying I don't think it would be a given just because the pilot program was popular among participants. People vote against their interests all the time when campaigned in the right way.

Edit: Also I noticed my previous comment was missing a word. Should have been, "Especially with opponents campaigning heavily against it."

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

#257

Post by [deleted] »

ericd wrote: post #205
scythe wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that people are capable of getting to "FPTP is kinda bad", and they have heard enough about experiments with instant-runoff and scoring (incl. approval) methods, where some election had a weird result, that they realize a single-winner system won't fix things, but everyone's conclusion is: "some kind of proportional system" You can't implement a real government with a metasyntactic electoral sy…

Interesting link, but don't you think it's a bit complicated? I think the opacity of the determination method could lead to a lot of mistrust from the general public. What's the problem with just assigning a number 0-10 for every candidate that you care to, and summing up the points? Or just instant runoff?

[deleted]

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

#258

Post by Paul-ish »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #142
pillowkusis wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual people already have a limit: https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/limits.php That said, allowing only individual entities to donate would be an improvement. But money would still find its way through, in unlimited amounts, through 1. SuperPACs, which are not allowed to communicate with a candidate, technically, but can receieve an infinite amount of money to further interests that are functionally identica…

Both solved by only allowing politicians in office to receive money directly from individuals at the rate limit and of course their pay checks. SuperPAC's can't give them money. Lobbyists can't give them money. That eliminates large part of the incentive. There's other to tackle such as advertising. One way to do that might be that any paid advertisements for or against a politician must be paid for by the politician…

If I write a blog post gushing about some politician or attacking another, is that considered an ad or contribution?

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

#259

Post by fjdlwlv »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #190
quadrangle wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, zero FEDERAL income tax but most of those pay for SS, Medicare, and state taxes. Those in a lump sum vs withholdings would still be a different experience.

That's not withholding though (as the parent referred to; withholding towards your federal income tax bill); as you mention, that's payroll taxes, which you're going to get in retirement back as entitlements. Consider what would happen if the IRS was efficient enough (through these automated tax accounting systems) to not get an interest free loan from working America for an entire year (ie dynamically modifying ever…

Social security is not funded to pay back what current workers pay in

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

#260

Post by fjdlwlv »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #246
MaysonL wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you realize that Social Security and Medicare taxes are actually income taxes: they go up directly the more you make.

No. Social security is only taxed on your first $127,200 of annual income. Anything over that is not assessed social security tax. Medicare is 1.45% of your income with no limit, and an additional 0.9% on income over $200k/year. I'm unsure where you would get the idea that those rates increase as your income increases.

Parent did not say rates increase.
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