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IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

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Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#121

Post by perpetualpatzer »

davidw wrote: post #86
avanderveen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'm not understanding your comment. Is it that you don't want IRS employees sitting around doing nothing? Because if this resulted in losing $34B in revenue, it doesn't like they were sitting around doing nothing.

At some point, you'd start spending a lot more money to recover less money. You'd probably be wise to back off at that point... "diminishing returns". We're not there, though.

> We're not there, though.

I suspect that's true, but you don't actually know that from this dataset. Some portion of the cost is born by the auditee to respond/defend against the audit and passed on to shareholders/employees/customers.

If the response costs are great with respect to the IRS's audit costs, the government could quite profitably add auditors, but have a negative overall impact on end citizens.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#122

Post by gotoeleven »

rando444 wrote: post #101
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read her plan to tax businesses with $100m in profit is easily sidestepped by spinning off child-subsidiaries of your businesses right around that $100m mark and report back "womp womp, no over $100m profits here".

If businesses started creating child companies (for any reason) it would result in substantial job creation.. so this sounds like a win-win to me.

Maybe we should require that everyone break at least one window on their house once a year. This would create a lot of great window repair jobs.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#123

Post by jorblumesea »

ptero wrote: post #81

IRS budget cuts seem to be thrown around a lot, but to me this is just a symptom of the real problem -- a tax code that is way too complex. Years of congress pandering to special interests, fixing minor issues with pages of new tax rules and no implementation accountability (implementation and enforcement is dumped on IRS) brought US tax code to a state that can overwhelm any staffing levels. Simplifying tax code wil…

The reason the IRS's budget is being slashed is the same as why the tax code is complex. Political elites, corporations and those who truly call the shots want less transparency of their finances, not more. Complicated tax codes and no one to audit them greatly benefit the wealthy. There's clearly a strong vested interest in this country of using the government as tool to enrich oneself as the expense of society.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#124

Post by asciident »

ptero wrote: post #81

IRS budget cuts seem to be thrown around a lot, but to me this is just a symptom of the real problem -- a tax code that is way too complex. Years of congress pandering to special interests, fixing minor issues with pages of new tax rules and no implementation accountability (implementation and enforcement is dumped on IRS) brought US tax code to a state that can overwhelm any staffing levels. Simplifying tax code wil…

Simplifying would be great, but it's not really possible to do because you won't get the exactly same tax distribution with a simplified set of rules. So politicians will frame it as "why do you want to raise taxes on single moms?" and "why are you taking away the deduction for teachers?" and "this bill hurts vulnerable people who have been hit by natural disasters." So any suggestion to simplify the tax code is a no go.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#125

Post by cronix »

inetknght wrote: post #111
rando444 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If businesses started creating child companies (for any reason) it would result in substantial job creation.. so this sounds like a win-win to me.

I don't see any guarantee here that splitting a business will create jobs. 1) Business A has 1B in profits with X number of employees, gets taxed. 2) Business B splits into 10 businesses with 100M in profits and X/10 number of employees per business unit, and doesn't get taxes.

Sounds like Business B is going to need 9 new buildings. Are they built already?

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#126

Post by tathougies »

tlmchncl wrote: post #96
tathougies wrote: post #52

The Obama administration proved that tax agencies can be used as agents of political censorship. The power of government to censor political speech should be opposed at all levels and at all points of the political spectrum. One easy way of doing this is to reduce the size of these governmental agencies. https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for-...

It's worth noting that an FBI investigation found no evidence that the IRS was targeting conservative groups, and that the apology was issued by the Trump Administration, who might have a vested interest in making the IRS look bad. "In January 2014, James Comey, who at the time was the FBI director, told Fox News that its investigation had found no evidence so far warranting the filing of federal criminal charges in…

I'm sorry, what? Your response to my criticism that the IRS has been known to use its authority to censor political speech is to point out that they are using it to censor both conservative and liberal speech? So, my argument that the IRS is being used for censorship was basically understated, and your claim is that the IRS's willingness to censor goes well beyond what I insinuated. Thank you for making my point.

Was your argument supposed to prove me wrong that an overly large taxation bureaucracy has been shown to be an instrument by which the government can threaten political groups' fundamental right to free speech?

I think perhaps you need to try again.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#127

Post by matwood »

BurningFrog wrote: post #74
specialist wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It’s a balance." What would that look like?

One way to maximize revenue would be for every tax payer to be audited every year. Things like that is what I think about when I hear some of the hardline comments here.

> One way to maximize revenue would be for every tax payer to be audited every year.

Oddly enough, the government has the information to do this for many (most?) tax payers every year and send them the forms pre-filled out ready to sign. Unfortunately, the tax prep companies fight letting the government do this.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#128

Post by wuliwong »

tlmchncl wrote: post #96
tathougies wrote: post #52

The Obama administration proved that tax agencies can be used as agents of political censorship. The power of government to censor political speech should be opposed at all levels and at all points of the political spectrum. One easy way of doing this is to reduce the size of these governmental agencies. https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for-...

It's worth noting that an FBI investigation found no evidence that the IRS was targeting conservative groups, and that the apology was issued by the Trump Administration, who might have a vested interest in making the IRS look bad. "In January 2014, James Comey, who at the time was the FBI director, told Fox News that its investigation had found no evidence so far warranting the filing of federal criminal charges in…

The government did wind up settling. https://www.courthousenews.com/justice-department-settles-te... It does seem that this could be argued as just a political move b/c the settlement occurred under Trump and the accusations are against the IRS during the Obama administration. I guess it's left to the reader if they would rather believe the results of the federal government investigating themselves or one party condemning the actions of the other.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#129

Post by [deleted] »

kortilla wrote: post #119
munk-a wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's appreciating society where everyone puts in according to their ability to make something we can all enjoy. I'm fine with people who are unable to contribute putting less in, I'm not fine with people who exploit the system - and before some BS about welfare queens gets injected... I also care about scale, the amount of missed revenue from corporate taxes far outweighs how people below the poverty line are abl…

>puts in according to their ability That’s sales speak for “others should pay even proportionally more than me”.

[deleted]

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#130

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

conanbatt wrote: post #53
corybrown wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a faction of US politicians that are philosophically against (most) government and taxes. It's not about ROI, it's about their goals.

This faction of the US is unique, which is why the US has some of the lowest tax rates in the world and in consequences has one of the most positive balances in net immigration, specially considering it has one of the harshest immigration policies in the world.

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, Those sick of a 35% income tax on earnings over $45,000".
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