Live data from Hacker News

Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

nytimes.com

341–350 of 438 posts

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it isn't random. Some cops just look for the fastest cars while others will look for out of state license plates. And some will even go as far as basing it off of the demographics of the driver. We would never tolerate a speed limit that allows difference races to go different max speeds, but allowing selective enforcement by cops enables any cop to do this.

Speed is just a red herring anyway; as you said it's all about selective enforcement. I'd rather there were NOT any speed limit enforcement at all UNLESS there's another infraction. Even more ideally self-driving cars would just save us. However until then I'd prefer that laws like Washington State's 'keep right except to pass' were strongly enforced.

>However until then I'd prefer that laws like Washington State's 'keep right except to pass' were strongly enforced.

I recently drove from Tuscon, AZ to Cleveland, OH. All 8 states I drove through have them, but somewhere around Misouri signs get smaller and less frequent, and they stop being strictly enforced. Ohio recently started pushing to enforce this law. It seems as exits get more frequent and less lanes are available, (road maintenance in 4 season territory costs a lot, so there are more 2 lane highway spans than 3-4) lots of drivers decide that the speed limit +x MPH is fast enough for everyone, FU if you're behind me. I'd guess it added +/- 8 hours to the trip.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Removing deductions has nothing to do with the tax curve. You could do that with the current curve and tweak it accordingly. In theory, but (serious) advocates of the flat tax generally are proposing both.

My impression is that most advocates want the flat part which reduces taxes on high incomes and then are pretty hand wavy about deductions.

This might be the case in the US, but be aware that most advocates of flat taxes globally - including almost all economists who do so - advocate precisely for removing deductions.

In New Zealand, for example, all prominent advocates of flat taxes are also proponents of not following Australia or the UK's example of having GST/VAT exemptions for some categories of goods.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stock transactions make your taxes very not boring. Pub 550 ( https://www.irs.gov/publications/p550 ) is one of the most complicated areas of personal income tax.

It is boring for the IRS's computers, which calculate everything the IRS needs to know automatically from the data sent by my brokerage firm.

I suppose it matters what type of activity you have. For most people doing equity-only trades in a single brokerage, the IRS can handle things themselves.

There are ways to make things exceedingly complex:

1. Have activity cross-brokerage (e.g. cross-account wash sales) as no entity cleanly tracks this.

2. Have straddles (e.g. put options on equity) which are under complex rules and AFAIK brokerages don't handle correctly (often failing to even identify them).

3. Constructively sale stock using options/shorting as rules are ambiguous and brokers don't implement the entirety of it.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a straightforward answer: This is because the IRS would make less money. It is like a poker game. Their number can only be smaller than yours. If you go under their number they penalize you. If you go over their number they keep the difference.

> It is a straightforward answer: It's also patent nonsense.

Could you backup your argument a bit more? You just come off as a jerk.

You disagree that americans pay more than they should? [1]

[1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/2018-tax-report/

Or you disagree that paying less than you should has consequences?

https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/...

People like you ruin this message board.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#345
post #51

I have paid taxes in Sweden and Spain. In both countries, I get a preliminary tax form with all my data. If I don't want to change anything I just need to go online. Click Accept. And pay with my credit card the difference between what my employer pays to the government monthly and the total, around 100$. It is very efficient. I have the feeling that apart from lobbying USA loves to hate taxes. To make paying taxes o…

This is certainly true. In particular, Americans for Tax Reform (the group founded by Grover Norquist) lobbies against any attempt at making paying taxes easier for this reason. Their argument is that people should be constantly aware of how much they are paying in taxes, and making it too easy would hinder this. These groups, combined with tax preparation companies, prevent any meaningful attempt to make paying taxe…

Actually I worked for Americans for Tax Reform and I can assure you that all they care about is preventing corporations from paying additional taxes.

Anything that is from them about individual taxes is just marketing to get you to vote Republican. They quite literally say that they want to "broaden the base of taxpayers", i.e, the individual pays more.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#346

I'm torn on this issue. On the one hand, in Sweden, taxes are extremely simple to file, and I love it for practical reasons. All work income (even from multiple part time jobs which someone said would be an issue) is declared by the employer, almost all saving/stocks/bonds/other stuff resulting in financial gains are reported by the broker/bank. I think many people don't change any of the data, almost 1 million (out…

> I think everyone ought to know roughly how much they pay. Why do you care? More importantly, why do you want to force people if they don't give a flying fuck? > I guess this is the reason why Grover Norquist of the Norquist pledge [1] tries to stop measures like this [2]. Grover Norquist tries to stop measures like this because he absolutely hates the very concept of taxation and has made it his life's work to make…

You're bound to have issues if your parents decided to name you Grover.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you able to reproduce this effect on analogous 55mph/65mph roads? Are you sure you aren't just used to driving 75mph on highways in general (ie you're not from Seattle), and found speed limit signs that actually matched? Driving through rural areas you must have experienced the sudden ~30mph sign, signifying a town coming up. Did this "drive what you feel" approach line up there too? When the town was at the bot…

You've thrown out quite a number of different topics, and some of the questions you're asking might also lead anyone who can contribute to a discussion about speed limits being set at safe speeds to admit to having committed what is currently a crime because of an incorrectly calibrated "limit". With respect to the engineering safety of the sudden 30mph sign (which I assume is in a rural area on an otherwise small hi…

My examples are pointing out possible edges of feeling safe equals safe envelope. And I don't think cops hang out on HN looking for anecdotes of speeding to investigate, nor are you going to get a black mark on your permanent LexisGoogle record from admitting that you have sped.

There are plenty of towns large enough for highway bypasses and traffic lights. The ones I'm talking about have one good road, maybe two if they're lucky enough to be the intersection. I indeed appreciate when there are graduated signs so I don't have to use the brakes, but this obviously costs money they don't all have, and isn't needed by people who already know the road. Talking about traffic engineering is laughable for such places - if your goal is to pass through as quick as possible, you could just take the interstate.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

How do you tell which bills were targeted with their lobbying dollars? In 2016 Intuit's revenue was something like $4.7 billion. And they spent $2 million lobbying against bills that threaten the fundamental nature of their business? That seems absurdly low to me.

Why overspend if you don’t need to?

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think dismissing the parent comment based on a study is fair. Anecdotally, I drive the way the parent describes, and several comments also corroborate with that. Likely that a non negligible portion of the population drive this way.

I don’t think dismissing the parent comment based on a study is fair. Well, there's a surprising turn of events on HN: an appeal to discard the findings of a study in favor of one poster's suppositions, and another's anecdata. :-)

The irony is def not lost on me ;)

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not agreeing with it just stating the fact.

If it's actually a fact, then you don't get to agree or disagree with it.

I believe he/she was using "agree with it" as shorthand for "judge that it is a good thing".
Post reply on HN