Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GSA Eliminates 18F

nextgov.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 495 posts

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#191

Post by pstuart »

doawoo wrote: post #136
stouset wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right wants everything related to taxes to be as difficult and painful as possible, in the hopes it will encourage the government to lower them.

They want everything to be privatized so they can rake in that sweet, sweet lobbyist money. There's zero reason why taxes, for the majority of citizens, isn't just a postcard you get in the mail and confirm against your own earnings records. It should not cost me hours of my own life and/or dollars of my own money to file my taxes. I don't mind paying them (if they're used for something actually constructive like pub…

Both parts are true. The goal as a whole:

  * Eliminate all taxes
  * Eliminate all regulations
  * Use the government for financial gain (by the "right people")
  * Use the government to oppress all "others" (those who are not white christian men)
  * Crown a king and ensure that crown stays within their select group

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#192

Post by jedberg »

WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #190
jedberg wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying the only way that citizens are informed of the current tax rates is through price tags?

Why on earth would I say that?

That's what your comment implies. That taxes are being hidden because they aren't on the price tag.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#193

Post by gigatexal »

jcgrillo wrote: post #156
gigatexal wrote: post #141

[flagged]

> I wonder if Trump is a KGB asset. It's easy to read into his parroting of putin's talking points as deliberate, but I think it might just be "wannabe mobster" talk. If anything it's probably a little more nuanced than uncle vlad pulling the puppet strings, but they sure do seem awful friendly.. I think it's risky to ascribe any real agency or planning to trump. He's a very simple creature, and he wears his cravings…

There’s more and more speculation among the political punditry that Trump and company might be seeing Vlad as an ally to counter China at the expense of Europe.

But given what little we know about Putin and his cunning as an ex KGB officer and likely one of the richest men on the planet — I’m Willing to go into conspiracy land and speculate that he has the ability to puppet master folks and I wouldn’t be surprised that he got his hooks into Trump.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#194

Post by adastra22 »

astrange wrote: post #187
Animats wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heavy lobbying by Intuit/TurboTax for years.[1] [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=TurboTax&type=site#gsc....

It's not TurboTax, it's Grover Norquist. Republicans are already ideologically against easy tax filing because they're against taxes, they don't need corporate backing for that. Using OpenSecrets in particular is misleading because it shows you donations fron "employees of corporations" to political campaigns and then people pretend it's donations from "corporations", which is obviously not the same thing. (and not a…

I mean, it's both. Intuit gives money to representatives that ideologically dislike taxes, and therefore WANT it to be a horrible experience so that you'll go along with getting rid of it (which Intuit knows will never actually happen).

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#195

Post by froindt »

abeyer wrote: post #178
lesuorac wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Taxes are in hindsight so you've already made whatever donations you did by the time you paid taxes. Donations either lower your tax bill or have no effect on it. So, by not filling taxes (_and getting caught_) you're just increasing your tax bill.

Unless of course you're owed a refund, in which case they'll hold your money and pay you interest on it (at least for a few years.) ...but then tax you on the interest they paid you if you claim it.

My understanding was they don't pay interest on tax refunds, but you pay interest on unpaid tax liabilities.

Do you have a source handy? My Google-fu is failing and only bringing up interest on unpaid taxes.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#196

Post by peter422 »

jedberg wrote: post #130
Reason077 wrote: post #41

Amazing how the idea of being able to file tax returns online, without paying for a commercial service to do it, is considered far-left extremism in the US. You’d think that simplifying tax returns and reducing costs in the taxation system would be something the right could get behind?

They claim that if the government could calculate taxes for you, then it would be too easy for the left to add new taxes that you wouldn't notice. The real kicker of course is that if you don't file your taxes, they actually do calculate your taxes for you, and send you a bill. It just includes the non-payment penalty and doesn't include donations.

I don’t remember the exact amount but after I filed my taxes last year I got a refund from the IRS for under 1 dollar because I had mistakenly put a small typo while entering a 1099 and they automatically corrected my return and sent me a few cents of a refund.

The fact that they are capable of doing that implies how much time we all have to waste doing our taxes.

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#197

Post by mindslight »

gigatexal wrote: post #141

[flagged]

Decades of so-called conservatives' eagerness to rage against whatever other groups of Americans their mainstream media directs them at is the cancer. Krasnov and Muskow are just the metastasization that will finish killing our society.

I don't know where their actual motives fall on the spectrum from being useful idiots stage-managed by social media bots and foreign agent handlers, to deliberately working for personal rewards in a new Chinese world order. But does it really matter?

Re: GSA Eliminates 18F

#199

Post by retzkek »

jcgrillo wrote: post #156
gigatexal wrote: post #141

[flagged]

> I wonder if Trump is a KGB asset. It's easy to read into his parroting of putin's talking points as deliberate, but I think it might just be "wannabe mobster" talk. If anything it's probably a little more nuanced than uncle vlad pulling the puppet strings, but they sure do seem awful friendly.. I think it's risky to ascribe any real agency or planning to trump. He's a very simple creature, and he wears his cravings…

There are many conspiracy theories related to his trip to Moscow in 1987, which I don’t ascribe much to, but the connections are there, if only for some “assistance” to be rendered quid pro quo.

I’m a firm believer in Hanlon’s Razor, and like you ascribe most of his and his followers’ actions to stupidity, but there’s clearly also some maliciousness.

Post reply on HN