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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

#251
post #21
post #4

Just one of the many sectors where budget cuts are going turn into huge losses down the line. The consequences of cutting healthcare and education are (going) to be much worse.

When have healthcare or education ever been cut? Edit: A lot of downvotes, but no examples. Such cuts are always talked about as if though they have factually happened. To my knowledge, I’ve never actually seen such a cut in the United States at the federal, state, or local level. Sometimes, there have been attempts to limit the rate of spending growth, but those seem to always fail too.

https://the1a.org/shows/2019-05-06/draft-4-day-school-week

Oklahoma and a number of other states moved to a 4 day school week to cut costs. Do you include cutting teacher pensions as an education cut? I can provide significant examples of education cuts.

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

#252
From reading the comments, I really wonder how many HN Users are tax evaders. I see the top two comments are “the tax code is too complicated, we shouldn’t be going after tax evaders” and “this isn’t actually a big problem.” If the government is getting more money collecting unreported taxes than it costs to fund the collecting of said taxes, what’s the problem?

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

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet, we've been in a state for decades where a $1 increase in IRS budget results in more than $1 in income, yet their budget has continued to be cut. That's because the point where $1 in IRS spending brings in $1 in government revenue is well past the optimal level. First, it's not just government spending that matters. If you have the IRS spend $.60 and the taxpayer spend $.60 to recover $1, you're spending a…

The 'costs' to the taxpayer are in taxes they already owe and should have paid though. Perhaps the increased enforcement will encourage fewer people and corporations to under-pay their taxes, resulting in greater efficiency than that shown by the direct collections of unpaid taxes. More generally, it seems strange to me to consider having to pay taxes owed as a cost that should be avoided. IE if the police had to spe…

> The 'costs' to the taxpayer are in taxes they already owe and should have paid though.

No, they're what the taxpayer has to spend on accountants and lawyers when they get audited even though they haven't done anything wrong. Or have done something wrong, but by mistake, and then the government consumes $1 in total resources to correct a $.90 mistake.

> Perhaps the increased enforcement will encourage fewer people and corporations to under-pay their taxes, resulting in greater efficiency than that shown by the direct collections of unpaid taxes.

Except that major tax fraud is a rare occurrence so there is no low hanging fruit there, and most of the actual violations are mistakes as a result of tax complexity that can't be deterred because the people don't know they're doing anything wrong. You could also end up doing the opposite -- causing even more fruitless compliance costs as taxpayers preemptively spend more on accountants and lawyers but result in no additional government revenues. Or less government revenues, if the accountants and lawyers find deductions the taxpayer had been overlooking previously (e.g. because the deduction is less than the additional accounting cost required to find it, but now you're pushed to spend that money anyway).

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet, we've been in a state for decades where a $1 increase in IRS budget results in more than $1 in income, yet their budget has continued to be cut. That's because the point where $1 in IRS spending brings in $1 in government revenue is well past the optimal level. First, it's not just government spending that matters. If you have the IRS spend $.60 and the taxpayer spend $.60 to recover $1, you're spending a…

Instead of contrived, low-ball numbers, you could use the real ones: > Congress appropriated $11.4 billion for the IRS in FY 2018 and IRS enforcement programs collected $59.4 billion, for a return on investment (ROI) of about $5.2 for every $1 invested in the IRS. https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/266/02.-IRS-FY-2020-C...

What contrived numbers? The argument was that the government should increase IRS resources until they're spending $1 for every $1 they recover. I provided several reasons why that would be inefficient, independent of what the current numbers are.

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They weren't censoring, they were ensuring that orgs claiming to be non-profit really adhered to regulations. They did it to both parties/sides so it was just a broad "make sure political non-profits play by rules" push, which is a good thing.

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

#256
post #45

And yet some people manage to whip themselves in to a righteous frenzy over someone collecting welfare or immigrants getting a microscopic bit of state aid. Such people really need to get a sense of proportion. The destitute, despised, downtrodden guy who slaves away to support their family by mowing your lawn, picking apples for you, driving you somewhere, or serving you your burger is not your enemy.

Last week I saw a person on Facebook sharing an anecdote patterned after the "welfare queen" trope and arguing against food stamps. I noticed from her Facebook page that she owned a ranching operation, so I searched her name in the EWG Farm Subsidy Database and saw that she and her husband had received $18k in subsidies in 2018, and nearly $250k since 1995.

Is your logic that a dollar is a dollar and it doesn't matter why the government gave it to them?

If so, I don't agree.

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

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm against people living off of food stamps also, and if there is a subsidy out there for the taking, then i'm going to take it. I agree that government should not be involved in either of those things, but promoting certain kinds of businesses might be worth the subsidy for some people.

Would you be against other people getting the subsidy? I'm just trying to figure out if it's hypocrisy or selfishness.

Why not both?

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, to get to the point: why should I pay higher tax to protect the business interests of Grumman, and GE, and farmers, and Apple, etc? You'll end up paying those taxes regardless. When companies are taxed directly then those taxes are baked into the prices of everything they sell, just like every other business expense. This functions like an inefficient and regressive sales tax except that, unlike normal sales ta…

Thank you for replying instead of simply downvoting. That isn't true. If the assertion is that if Apple has to pay $10B/year more in taxes, than they will raise the price of their products $10B/year and keep a fixed profit, that assumes there is complete price elasticity. In reality, they might raise the price of their products some, but that is fine -- the people who use the products and benefit from the government'…

> If the assertion is that if Apple has to pay $10B/year more in taxes, than they will raise the price of their products $10B/year and keep a fixed profit, that assumes there is complete price elasticity.

No, I'm not assuming that. The quantity sold will decrease, of course, if the price increases. That is a hidden cost paid by prospective buyers who must now do without the good, complementing the more visible cost paid by those who continue to purchase the good at the higher price. A company's profitability (ROI), on the other hand, is relatively fixed—in the end all investments tend toward zero economic profit, or equivalently a level of accounting profit equal to the opportunity cost of the investment, assuming even a moderately competitive market. Higher-than-average profitability invites competition, while on the opposite side if profitability is low then investors put their money elsewhere and the business closes. There is some variation due to factors like brand recognition, other natural or artificial monopolies, and risk, but generally speaking a corporate tax won't be paid from the company's bottom line as most people imagine. There just isn't much flexibility in that area to begin with.

> Exxon not paying much/anything in taxes, and $B spent every year globally to keep the supply of oil flowing.

This is not a subsidy to Exxon, it's a subsidy to the people consuming oil-based products. If you want to stop subsidizing oil, fine; but that is a completely separate policy decision from where to levy the tax. Anyway it's not like you're proposing to tax Exxon specifically for the cost of keeping the oil flowing, which would defeat the point of the subsidy. A corporate income tax would spread that cost across all products, even ones that have nothing to do with oil, and be paid primarily by people who spend most of their earnings on corporate-produced goods (i.e. not the rich, who tend to spend a larger share on investments).

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

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It feels like voters are voting for pouring lighter fuel on the wood and throwing lit matches at the wood but vote strongly against having a bonfire. They want politicians to fix problems that they wanted the politicians to create and then don't want the actual fixes to the problems they want fixed.

Everyone is selfish

Everyone wants to lower their own taxes by raising everyone else's taxes.

100 people in a room will have 100 different way to change the tax system, and every proposal will have 99 votes against it.

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

#260
post #191
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the example. However, it appears that the governor reversed course just yesterday: https://news.yahoo.com/alaska-governor-reverses-course-contr... I've noticed this is a frequent occurance--one faction will try to score political points by appearing to take an action, only to capitulate at the end when fewer people are looking.

Partially revered course. Now it's just ~8%, but its still significant.

That's the Art of the Deal. Set the initial position much higher than desired and retrench to actual one on push back.
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