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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

#381

Post by pilom »

lsaferite wrote: post #114
pilom wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest argument against it is that it is incredibly regressive. Poor people generally spend higher percentages of their income on stuff where rich people save higher percentages of their incomes. So for example, Joe makes 51k/year but spends 50k/year. At the 23% tax rate that FairTax proposes, he pays $11.5k - a $2.5k "prebate". This works out to an effective tax rate of ~18% (with today's tax plan Joe's effecti…

But Susan still paid 3.5x as much in actual dollars. I guess I just fundamentally disagree with taxing my labor (or investing acumen). I'd be fully on-board with a high consumption tax though.

I guess I look at it as Susan gets 5 times as much benefit from a stable society (they would both lose their incomes if society collapsed or the country were bombed, etc) and thus should pay _at least_ 5 times as much as Joe.

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

#382

Post by dboreham »

bluejekyll wrote: post #276
dboreham wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm familiar with the UK system too. It is possible to get closer to it in the US than most people realize. For example you can calculate the correct tax to withhold and instruct your employer's payroll people to do so. Most people seem to not know this or nor care and as a result end up over withholding and the resulting "refund". It is perfectly possible to end up with roughly correct tax withheld although you do o…

You need to be careful with this though, if you underpay throughout the year by too much, you will end up both owing and potentially have a tax penalty.

Of course. To be assessed a penalty you have to screw up pretty badly though, at least on the first try.

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

#383

Post by nsxwolf »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #322
nsxwolf wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just have a 1% flat tax, and if government needs more, they can use lotteries.

Like the recent Obamacare repeal debacle has shown, a lot of people believe they have a simple solution to complex issues, until they actually try to implement it.

Your example doesn't make sense. That bill didn't represent a repeal or a simple solution of any kind, just some fairly meaningless modifications to Obamacare that nobody even wanted to vote on.

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

#384

Post by kwoff »

I'm an American working in the Netherlands. Filing US taxes has improved, a lot last year in my opinion, since it got easier to file electronically for free... But compare: I got a letter from the Dutch government a few weeks ago saying I don't need to do anything since as far as they can tell my situation hasn't changed since last year. In the US, some people believe that the tax return that they get every year is some kind of bonus. Here, my employer withholds the correct amount. Why is that so hard?

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

#385

Post by maerF0x0 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #165
barrkel wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A flat tax hurts people with lower income more, because they have less disposable income to begin with - a lower proportion of their income is discretionary.

Why does it matter if its discretionary?

ok. Good talk everyone.

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

#386

Post by smt88 »

narag wrote: post #335
smt88 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With deductions, rich people end up paying very little for income tax You're utterly wrong. The wealthiest 0.001% paid 17.6% of their income in taxes in 2012[1]. That's not "very little" -- it's likely in the tens of millions per person . The top 1% paid even more than that. Some corporations will avoid income tax altogether, as will some small-business owners, but individuals still pay substantial amounts of incom…

You're utterly wrong. The wealthiest 0.001% paid 17.6% of their income in taxes in 2012[1]. That's not "very little" So you say I'm wrong and you say it's not very little and in the middle of both sentences you say that richest people pay less than 20%. WOW!!! To put it in perspective, in some european countries the nominal rate for the highest income is about 40%, approaching 50%.

You're completely changing the argument.

I said wealthy people prevent sensible, non-regressive taxes. You said that can't be right because rich people don't pay taxes. I showed you that they pay millions in taxes, on average.

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

#387

Post by nickpsecurity »

Paul-ish wrote: post #258
nickpsecurity wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Only if they paid you to do it. Keeping records of that stuff has side benefit of spotting whose full of shit. In any case, there might be an exception for blog authors who aren't celebrities because they won't have the effect of a corporate, media campaign. Huge difference between paid ads everywhere vs some bloggers talking. What you describe is already happening against major candidates but didn't change the election. Those paying to win got furthest with one winning.

Hence my focus on cutting the pay or payments.

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

#388

Post by Paul-ish »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #387
Paul-ish wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Only if they paid you to do it. Keeping records of that stuff has side benefit of spotting whose full of shit. In any case, there might be an exception for blog authors who aren't celebrities because they won't have the effect of a corporate, media campaign. Huge difference between paid ads everywhere vs some bloggers talking. What you describe is already happening against major candidates but didn't change the elect…

Yeah, but what if someone unrelated to the candidates paid me to blog for or against a candidate?

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

#389

Post by kakapupu »

lagadu wrote: post #328
kakapupu wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they can use government to actually offset the power that corporations have (through plain capital and through regulatory capture) You're saying people can "use" the government to compensate for the government itself preventing competition with their cronies. Isn't that a bit of a fool's errand, even disregarding the fact that in reality we don't use the government - the government very much uses us.

>the government very much uses us. No, we put the government and the rules it has to follow in place to ensure that it has our best interests and nothing else in mind. They are a tool we use to make sure the state is run the way we want it to be.

> we put the government and the rules it has to follow in place

Who's "we"? It's not any living person in the world today.

You may also have noticed how the government doesn't even follow its own rules?

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

#390

Post by bingomad123 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #178
bingomad123 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taxes already on the books that they might have previously unintentionally evaded. I agree with Grover Norquist. It might be counter intuitive but I would rather leave it to Turbo-tax to figure out the details than signing the form sent to me by IRS. Let IRS do the extra work of catching me if they think I am filing fraudulent taxes. Grover Norquist's view might be counter-intuitive but I a agree with him.

You can refer to TurboTax all you like, but you just basically admitted that you're committing tax fraud and challenging society to catch you.

Tax fraud is a super gray area. I will be surprised to find any person who has not violated IRS regulation.
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