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Open Source Tax Software

ctskennerton.github.io

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Re: Open Source Tax Software

#251

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

nybble41 wrote: post #247
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes zero sense to say that some set amount of money is worth objectively more or less ... I think this is nonsense. We can't put a precise worth on it for different people, sure. But I think it's indisputable that there's a curve, we know it's rough shape, and that it's a reflection of marginal utility. The lack of labels or positions on the axes doesn't make that graph useless. > The concept of marginal utili…

> We can't put a precise worth on it for different people, sure. But I think it's indisputable that there's a curve, we know it's rough shape, and that it's a reflection of marginal utility. There is indeed a curve, and we do know its rough shape (it's nonincreasing). But that curve is for one individual. Utility is not an objective measure. Every individual has their own "unit" of utility and there is no conversion…

You're continuing to make out that DMUI is some novel concept that I've just introduced.

This is a standard, widespread concept in economics, even among people who disagree that it should be the basis of the tax code. I am unable to find any mainstream or heterodox economist who disagrees that DMUI is real. The disagreements are about what the implications for taxation (among other things) ought to be.

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#252

Post by triceratops »

jeffdn wrote: post #229
triceratops wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US could stop taxing global income for individuals. US companies don't have to pay taxes on their overseas profits, why do people?

US companies do have to pay taxes on overseas profits, which is why they so often have subsidiaries based overseas. Those entities do not have to pay those taxes.

It's a distinction without a difference.

A regular US person gets a US tax credit for taxes paid to foreign governments. But if that's less than they would've paid to Uncle Sam, they still have to pay the difference here.

That's not true for these overseas subsidiaries. That, as you said, is a major reason these subsidiaries even exist (I'm sure local laws also require them in many cases, but still).

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#253

Post by kmonsen »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #250
ineedasername wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it could have been increased taxes due to the cap on SALT exemptions.

The standard deduction went up to $12k. If your SALT exemptions exceed that, you're holding a rather costly mortgage.

LOL, welcome to the Bay Area. It was not what anyone would call a luxury home, a 3 bedroom townhome.

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#254

Post by beagle3 »

triceratops wrote: post #252
jeffdn wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US companies do have to pay taxes on overseas profits, which is why they so often have subsidiaries based overseas. Those entities do not have to pay those taxes.

It's a distinction without a difference. A regular US person gets a US tax credit for taxes paid to foreign governments. But if that's less than they would've paid to Uncle Sam, they still have to pay the difference here. That's not true for these overseas subsidiaries. That, as you said, is a major reason these subsidiaries even exist (I'm sure local laws also require them in many cases, but still).

The subsidiaries will always exist - most countries require an employer to be a bona fide local legal entity of the right kind; e.g. an American company cannot have an Italian employee; they can have a self-employee Italian contractor, but not an employee - and the laws of “who is an employee” aren’t that simple (even in the US, as you can see in the case of Uber)

And their existence guarantees that tax burden will be optimized globally, rather than locally - the nontrivial price of setting up and running a subsidiary has been paid, so of course it will be used to get benefits as well.

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#255

Post by triceratops »

beagle3 wrote: post #254
triceratops wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a distinction without a difference. A regular US person gets a US tax credit for taxes paid to foreign governments. But if that's less than they would've paid to Uncle Sam, they still have to pay the difference here. That's not true for these overseas subsidiaries. That, as you said, is a major reason these subsidiaries even exist (I'm sure local laws also require them in many cases, but still).

The subsidiaries will always exist - most countries require an employer to be a bona fide local legal entity of the right kind; e.g. an American company cannot have an Italian employee; they can have a self-employee Italian contractor, but not an employee - and the laws of “who is an employee” aren’t that simple (even in the US, as you can see in the case of Uber) And their existence guarantees that tax burden will b…

I think I already acknowledged that local regulations might require a local subsidiary. It's the different tax regime for these subsidiaries (i.e. there's no "pay Uncle Sam the difference between the local corporate tax rate and the US corporate tax rate") vs for individuals, that I'm objecting to.

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#256

Post by cstork12 »

C19is20 wrote: post #131
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just plug in the data (..) Here in the Netherlands I don't have to plug in any data, everything is pre-filled. Income, bank accounts, mortgage, advances on deductions, etc. All you have to do is verify it (you can change things if necessary, but I've never had to do that). Takes about five minutes max.

Italy, same.

My wife is currently fighting with the tax accountant in Italy. Out of curiosity and in order to potentially help her, where do you find these prefilled forms?

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#257

Post by peter303 »

The IRS wanted to automate your tax filing by filling out the basic tax forms from your W2s, 1099s and family size. (Other countries do this) However a strong tax accounting lobby canned it. They substituted with free federal filing for those below median income.

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#258

Post by peter303 »

The IRS option Free File Fillable Forms has online forms that compute internal arithmetic and self-efile. This eliminates many hand math errors.

However this system isnt good at telling you which forms you need to file. You could miss an important one. For example sometimes you need a Schedule D and sometimes you dont. If you income reaches six figures you have to calculate the AMT and NIT forms to see whether they apply or not.

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#259

Post by dd_roger »

laurencerowe wrote: post #147
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The french initiative started in 2013 is still alive (last commit a few days ago), and passes the gov test suite (they keep in touch with our version of the IRS): https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-france The way we got this is interestingly twisted. French citizens requested the software used by the administration, and they managed to get it! But, it was written in Mlang, a proprietary language created by the fr…

This is great. Do most French people need to file tax returns? When I lived in Britain I only needed to file when I was self-employed and when I worked in Norway I got sent a pre-filled tax return. Now living in the US I need to file every year (both state and federally) even as a regular employee with all my income reported already reported to the government. It all seems to be an absurd charade. Attempts to reduce…

I don't understand how "not having to file a tax return" can work. How does it account for all the information a government might not reasonably have about your wealth and economic activities? How do you apply for tax credits? The taxation system is not particularly intricate here in Switzerland but there's absolutely no way a government that is not an orwelian surveillance state would have the required information about each person to pre-file their tax return.

Re: Open Source Tax Software

#260

Post by nybble41 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #251
nybble41 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can't put a precise worth on it for different people, sure. But I think it's indisputable that there's a curve, we know it's rough shape, and that it's a reflection of marginal utility. There is indeed a curve, and we do know its rough shape (it's nonincreasing). But that curve is for one individual. Utility is not an objective measure. Every individual has their own "unit" of utility and there is no conversion…

You're continuing to make out that DMUI is some novel concept that I've just introduced. This is a standard, widespread concept in economics, even among people who disagree that it should be the basis of the tax code. I am unable to find any mainstream or heterodox economist who disagrees that DMUI is real. The disagreements are about what the implications for taxation (among other things) ought to be.

> I am unable to find any mainstream or heterodox economist who disagrees that DMUI is real.

I agree that DMUI is real. As I've said multiple times. But in attempting to use it as a basis to argue that there is a net increase in value or utility from taking some amount of money from a wealthier individual and giving it to another, less wealthy individual, it's being misapplied.

Attempting to aggregate a subjective, ordinal concept like utility across a group of individuals is, unfortunately, not novel either, but it is incoherent. You're not going to find any political (i.e. mainstream) economists admitting to that, of course, because it undermines the logical basis for their entire profession. However, even mainstream economics these days acknowledges that value is subjective, and the fact that it depends on aggregating metrics which cannot be quantified objectively is a common objection to utilitarian philosophy.

The idea that marginal utility is specific to the individual is hardly novel either. As Herbert Davenport put it in The Economics of Enterprise[0] back in 1913:

> As the human being changes, the utility changes — may become greater or may disappear entirely. [p. 87]

> All utility is relative to the individual. — The foregoing discussion should, by implication, have made it clear that utility and marginal utility and relative marginal utility have to do solely with the particular individual as an account of the way in which he arrives at his purely personal and individual decision to become a purchaser at not more than a particular price — to enter his own demand as one among the great total of demands. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as the comparison of the utility to one person with the utility to another. Men differ in desires and in the degree and manner in which things appeal or appear to offer service. [p. 97]

Or as Ludwig von Mises explained in The Theory of Money and Credit (1953) on the subject of "Total Value"[1]:

> Value can rightly be spoken of only with regard to specific acts of appraisal. It exists in such connexions only; there is no value outside the process of valuation. There is no such thing as abstract value. Total value can be spoken of only with reference to a particular instance of an individual or other valuing ‘subject’ having to choose between the total available quantities of certain economic goods.

[0] https://archive.org/details/economicsofenter00dave/

[1] https://mises.org/library/theory-money-and-credit/html/pp/12...

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