261–270 of 338 posts
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The great increase in illegal entry into the country through the southern border is a good recent example. Though, I suppose this is predicated upon it being "good policy" that illegal immigration be slowed.
What policy/legislation was undone to lead to that?
I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics. Looks like it helps the economy by creating jobs but the job is redundant and does not create anything of value. Where are crimes more likely to occur, a city with 10,000 or 1 million? Where are financial crimes more likely to occur, people that make $10,000 a year or people t…
I think this has been studied and low-to-medium income filers are more likely to actually commit tax fraud so you get better returns as the IRS by focusing on these filers
By mapping audit costs and returns across the income spectrum, he continued, “We saw very clear evidence that the return from audits at the top of the income distribution really exceeded by quite a bit the returns at the bottom of the income distribution.” With the top 10 percent of earners, they found, audits have the potential to return more than $12 for each $1 spent.
https://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/07/turns-out...
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>> This fails to realize Congress works entirely the way it was designed. >The 1929 Permanent Apportionment Act subverted the intentions of the founders Stop playing dumb. The contradiction with your initial assertion was clearly articulated. Try addressing it instead of baiting other posters.
The "And?" was a prompt for the poster to elaborate on their uninformed view. You apparently saw fit to double-down on expressing your lack of understanding as well...
Perhaps you would like to take a swing at explaining how Congress passing a law somehow "subverts" Congress?
I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics. Looks like it helps the economy by creating jobs but the job is redundant and does not create anything of value. Where are crimes more likely to occur, a city with 10,000 or 1 million? Where are financial crimes more likely to occur, people that make $10,000 a year or people t…
Conventional wisdom is that if one can fund the IRS with one extra dollar, and they use that dollar to collect two dollars more taxes (from evaders), than that was a good way to spend taxpayers money. Many economists don't agree though. If you care about economic success of the country, the goal isn't 'collect as many taxes as possible'. The goal is to make the citizens wealthier in real terms. Effort your citizens p…
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> There are 50 states, and every single one of them has their own idea That's not my problem. The states are part of the country. This is as bad as restaurants charging tips instead of stating one number. Government dudes should meet and work it out between state/federal and give me one damn number. All I want is one number.
Incorrect. You must not be a US citizen (or else went to a poor quality K12 school that failed to teach the basic civics) States are NOT an administrative subdivision of the larger country. This is a common misconception. They are not at all like Japanese prefectures, not like Canadian provinces, nor like the counties or parishes that US states are subdivided into. States are fully sovereign entities that retain to t…
America has or has traditionally had a strong culture of self determination and citizen involvement in and ownership of politics and government policy.
Another word for this is democracy. Real, genuine, messy democracy. America is not a service provider to you. It is a union or coop you are a part of.
You are not a customer of your country. You are a member. A shareholder.
This attitude is I know very foreign to many people who come from elsewhere and only know authoritarian states or democracies in name only. Or very young people who have caught on that civic culture is dying in most of America.
But it's fundamentally diametrically opposed to what this country has always been intended to be at its best. it is very very much your problem
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I recently renewed my global entry, and it was a piece of cake. I occasionally interact with the FCC because of my amateur radio license, and the FRS is super easy to use. I recently got passports for my kids, and that was super easy to do as well and the passports came much faster than expected.
> I recently got passports for my kids, and that was super easy to do as well and the passports came much faster than expected. Interesting. I am currently renewing my and my spouse’s passports while also trying to get first time passports for my children and I couldn’t find the process more outdated and borderline kafkaesque. If you told me the website was built in 2003 and hasn’t been updated since then I would bel…
It was taken down after the pilot for them to adjust and fix the process but there are improvements in the works.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/have-pa...
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I think this has been studied and low-to-medium income filers are more likely to actually commit tax fraud so you get better returns as the IRS by focusing on these filers
Heard mostly it's the opposite: By mapping audit costs and returns across the income spectrum, he continued, “We saw very clear evidence that the return from audits at the top of the income distribution really exceeded by quite a bit the returns at the bottom of the income distribution.” With the top 10 percent of earners, they found, audits have the potential to return more than $12 for each $1 spent. https://www.ne…
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I meat this is Y Combinator Hacker News, so I would expect "software engineers in California" to be a significant fraction of the user base here.
The problem is you're exposing yourself as someone extremely self-centered, and someone that assumes their lived experience is equivalent of everyone else's, and adjudicating the utility of this particular thing as if you are reflective of the larger population. Saying the majority of engineers in California make at least $200k makes you even more out of touch. According to Glassdoor, over $200k for a SE in CA is 90t…
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If the income is taxable for me, but I get no form in the mail and can't even request one (because it's not my account), then how was I supposed to file a correct tax return in the first place?
Isn't that an issue with who provides the UTMA account?
Zooming out though, I think Direct File or something like it is actually the right way to go. This would never have happened if the IRS just told me what it expected of me instead of playing this weird entrapment game where I was expected to tell them what they already know.
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I keep hearing that its mostly the wealthy who evade tax, but I don't understand it. Service workers love being tipped in cash because its easy to not report. OTOH the wealthy have more to lose if they're caught, and can afford to pay their taxes and accountants.
Even if that's true, the number of dollars being evaded is substantially lower. Not reporting $2000 a year in tips isn't exactly going to have the same effect of a billionaire not reporting $100,000,000 of their income. There are plenty of legal ways to evade (or at least not pay) taxes as well, though. An easy way, for example, is to store wealth in the form of stock; generally you don't pay taxes until you sell, so…
This is so wrong it hurts my brain. The IRS requires using a qualified appraiser, and none of them will suddenly appraise an artwork for 40x its last sold value. The IRS aren't fools-- they'll quickly clamp down on such an anomaly.
Even if this amateur scheme were true, the individual wouldn't write off $39 million. They'll deduct the tax rate (%) of $39 million.