361–370 of 717 posts
"The Ways and Means chair, Neal, received $16,000 in contributions from the two companies in the last two election cycles, according to the ProPublica report." It's embarrassing and absurd how cheap it is to buy off congress from making everyone's lives easier. Can't a gofundme raise more than 16k to counter them?
The government shoots themselves in the foot? Can anyone explain given the unbelievably bad record of government, why they would ever want more of it?
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Exactly. W-2 and 1099 income is really straight-forward. If anything the IRS should provide ways for you to submit all your non-W2/non-1099 income to them and roll them up into a new form so that no matter what your situation you can "fetch" your current returns, sign them, and submit them. No need for third-parties at all. Any additional complexity is a symptom of rent-seeking IMO.
You are saying that IRS should write a TurboTax competitor.
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The perrenial misunderstanding about lobbying in the US is that it's about money. It's not. It's about access. The money spent by lobbying firms is almost always in pursuit of that access. AKA buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator. Not only do lobbyists get more accessible they get more credibility. The lobbyists are high paid lawyers at respected firms. They have degrees fr…
I'm sure it's just coincidental that senators and their family/friends frequently get lucrative positions on the boards of various companies, investment sweeteners, and actual positions in these companies for family. For example Joe Biden, a leading Democrat, has been in bed with the credit card industry for most of his career and supported/written legislation in their interest. MBNA was one of his biggest donors and…
I kind of wish it were because that would be much easier to do something about. Those things are just the long term effects of paying for access. The frequent close work between lobbyists, politicians and career servants lead to friendships and strong network effects. I'm not defending the system. I'm pointing out why $6.6 million is more than enough to influence a bill. It's because they're not buying a vote. They're buying time to discuss an issue that will probably never get argued any other way to the representative.
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The perrenial misunderstanding about lobbying in the US is that it's about money. It's not. It's about access. The money spent by lobbying firms is almost always in pursuit of that access. AKA buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator. Not only do lobbyists get more accessible they get more credibility. The lobbyists are high paid lawyers at respected firms. They have degrees fr…
> No one is evil stuff just breaks. Are you implying here that the problem can't be fixed or ameliorated? > buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator What if there were no donor dinners because campaigns were limited to a set amount of public funds?
I sure hope we can find a way to fix it.
>> buying a $10,000 plate at this donor dinner gets you a sit down with the Senator
>What if there were no donor dinners because campaigns were limited to a set amount of public funds?
I think that would be a pretty good start. Enough so that I spent several years working on getting my state to join the call for a constitutional convention to overturn Citizens United and establish more fairly funded elections.
Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…
A better way to do 2 would be to do away with withholding. After a year of that we’d see a radically different tax system.
What happens when you don't have the cash to pay? Do we then see a whole new sector of predatory loans? Imprisonment? Increasing unpayable fines? None of those are good ideas, yet when things like this happen, our system has already fallen into these pitfalls. Witholding is an essential idea.
What would be nice is if we make the easy filing system but explicitly highlight the amount you paid in taxes compared to your income. Most people only judge on refund amount and rarely check the math on the exact taxes owed.
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A better way to do 2 would be to do away with withholding. After a year of that we’d see a radically different tax system.
Forcing everyone to make quarterly estimated payments would lead to riots in the streets.
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If complicated taxes are a Republican anti-tax strategy, why did Reagan and the 1980s republicans pursue a strategy of vastly simplifying the tax code? Doing taxes is a tax -- in hours and fees. Only the wealthiest people who can spend $10K on tax prep to save $100K via loophole deductions, oh.
Simplifying the tax code in the 80s was the public sales pitch. The real strategy was to dramatically cut taxes on the wealthy (e.g. by eliminating the top several marginal tax brackets). But keep in mind, the Democrats controlled congress, so reform had to gain bipartisan support.
Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…
Yes, you're right that people in that camp are unlikely to review their tax filings from their 3rd party. However there is an incentive for that 3rd part tax company to save their customer as much as they possibly can. The bigger the refund, the happier the customer and the more likely they are to come back next year and give you more money. In the Planet Money episode they spoke with the Republican dude and his bigg…
Doubt it. We're talking 1040EZ filings by people in the 22% and lower tax brackets, not complex itemizations typical of 24%+ tax bracket filers.
The 5-digit PIN from the previous year's e-filing that's required if you want to expediently e-file this year is enough. Most people aren't going to remember that detail, but the e-filing service you used last year never forgot and they'll gladly auto-fill that block for you as a repeat customer.
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Yes, you're right that people in that camp are unlikely to review their tax filings from their 3rd party. However there is an incentive for that 3rd part tax company to save their customer as much as they possibly can. The bigger the refund, the happier the customer and the more likely they are to come back next year and give you more money. In the Planet Money episode they spoke with the Republican dude and his bigg…
Except the tax preparation industry must be taking a significant enough cut to make it lucrative to spend money lobbying. Is that cut smaller than the total extra tax that would be paid due to mistakes in the auto filing system? I'm skeptical.