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A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

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71–76 of 76 posts

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany had identification record systems before they became totalitarian, when Jews were treated as citizens and decorated veterans of WW1 under the law. A person does not know when their government will become totalitarian and cannot rely on legal solutions to data problems.

What you’re saying is that water is wet. Name a government in existence that functions without a central identification infrastructure of some sort. Having ID isn’t what leads to totalitarianism, it is a ubiquitous fact of having a bureaucracy that delivers services to its citizens. In most instance, having government id is not a harbinger of risk of totalitarianism. There are more important things to focus on.

>Name a government in existence that functions without a central identification infrastructure of some sort.

Within living memory, the United States of America.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re saying is that water is wet. Name a government in existence that functions without a central identification infrastructure of some sort. Having ID isn’t what leads to totalitarianism, it is a ubiquitous fact of having a bureaucracy that delivers services to its citizens. In most instance, having government id is not a harbinger of risk of totalitarianism. There are more important things to focus on.

>Name a government in existence that functions without a central identification infrastructure of some sort. Within living memory, the United States of America.

Social Security Numbers Drivers Licenses

And before "but drivers licenses are not national" they effectively are via cooperation between the various states and between the states and the federal government

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re saying is that water is wet. Name a government in existence that functions without a central identification infrastructure of some sort. Having ID isn’t what leads to totalitarianism, it is a ubiquitous fact of having a bureaucracy that delivers services to its citizens. In most instance, having government id is not a harbinger of risk of totalitarianism. There are more important things to focus on.

>Name a government in existence that functions without a central identification infrastructure of some sort. Within living memory, the United States of America.

You were alive when social security was rolled out?

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#74
post #49
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have a central ID system: the passport. They even come in wallet-friendly card form now. The difference is it's not a forced central ID system, which is the primary difference between a useful tool and the foundation of a police state. "Your papers, please" was a meme before there was even the concept of memes.

> We already have a central ID system: the passport. They even come in wallet-friendly card form now. Passports being optional and expensive, they don't fit the same utility as a universal ID system, but you're right, they could. > The difference is it's not a forced central ID system, which is the primary difference between a useful tool and the foundation of a police state Laughable bullshit. Specific technical thi…

As tempting as it is to ignore an argument beginning with garbage like "Laughable bullshit," you immediately contradict yourself by claiming police states are systemic problems and then arguing for a systemic change moving in that direction. You mention "spying without just cause" without addressing the fact that the ACLU considers forced national identity systems to be profound privacy issues.

If you had a real counterproposal involving an achievable goal, such as legislation strengthening protections of existing national ID systems, making them cheaper or more accessible to encourage adoption, or anything at all other than a national forced ID system, it would be a more credible argument. Several states have already passed laws prohibiting compliance with such systems. It's never going to happen without decades of brutal legal battles in a country that can barely pass a budget from year to year.

In other words, the "laughable bullshit" is in fact the default policy and people with your convictions are going to have to be much more convincing of the utility you claim it will bring, which is arguable at best. You say my efforts are wasted, but I don't recall having made any, and here we are with no national ID, and a strong bipartisan opposition to the idea.

I'm not going to bother with the breathless whataboutism, because it's completely irrelevant. The plain fact is that citizens on average don't need to identify themselves to the federal government that often, and those who do already have avenues through which to do it. That's a lot of inertia, and your arguments have so far been insufficiently compelling to overcome it. I remain confident that these conditions will persist.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#75
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is wrong is being liable for a debt (or whatever) because a creditor failed to properly verify the identity of a borrower You're never liable for a debt you didn't sign for. If someone else used your information, don't pay it. The court will always side with you.

Having to spend time and money to deal with the courts is a liability. Also, credit and credit reporting is utility/infrastructure with how life is lived, including access to a place to live. So much that the federal government obligated credit reporting agencies to provide people an annual report. Having to spend time and money to fix it is also a liability, in my opinion.

No need to deal with courts. Just ignore it.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$187M = $37M per year At average FAANG salaries with overhead (benefits, space, equipment both desk and datacenter/cloud, internal workplace support functions like Recruiting, IT, HR, ER, DEI...) that's 60 people. That's not many when dealing with multiple massive counterparties. You'll see ratios of non-dev to dev easily 10:1 to 30:1. Yes, they could genuinely spend $187M so far on a project accomplishing only 2 dev…

That's actually good perspective,thanks!

Also consider the cost per taxpayer. At $187 million that's roughly $1 per person. For someone making the average income, it costs them maybe $0.15 in taxes for ID.me.

The IRS estimated that the average taxpayer spends $240 and 13 hours of time on their taxes. Multiply by 157 million taxpayers and that's $37 billion and 2 billion hours of labor. Although likely skewed by a small % who hire professionals, plenty of people spend $100+ on services like TurboTax.

The IRS spending a couple billion to make the tax process a little bit easier is really not a big deal. $187 million is nothing, and if that's all it costs to streamline their ID verification process, then it means the government is much more efficient with our tax dollars than people give it credit for.

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