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My Stripe Tax Story

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Re: My Stripe Tax Story

#291

Post by deltarholamda »

jjeaff wrote: post #276
deltarholamda wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One of their approaches to gain sympathy to their cause is to keep making taxes hard I'm not sure where you get this from. People on the right have been yelling about simplifying the tax code for a long time. Flat tax, "postcard-sized tax form," national sales tax, all kinds of ideas have been floated. Even eliminating the income tax altogether and going back to funding the government through tariffs, those the peop…

The only right wing proposals to "simplify" the tax code have been ridiculous proposals like the flat tax. You know, the one where a single mom with children to feed pays the same percentage of her income as the single billionaire that wants to buy a 3rd yacht. Look up Grover Nordquist. He has devoted his life to making sure paying taxes doesn't become too easy. And he ain't no lefty.

>You know, the one where a single mom with children to feed pays the same percentage of her income as the single billionaire that wants to buy a 3rd yacht.

I guess you have never read anything about the various flat-tax proposals. There have been several, and they have all accounted for those with lower income levels.

One of the fundamental tenets of the flat tax is 14th Amendment "equal protection." Is it constitutionally acceptable to treat a rich person differently from a poor person? The flat-tax people say no. Progressives say yes. I do agree that a progressive tax system has merits with which I agree, but I also think it's perfectly reasonable to assert that falls afoul of equal protection, and therefore should either be rejected or an Amendment should be presented and passed to account for it.

Progressives tend to turn this distinction into a moral argument about fairness, which is not how a government that is bound by law is supposed to work. If you want the government to work on a moral basis, don't be too surprised if a later government with different moral frameworks do things you don't care for.

>Look up Grover Nordquist

Somebody else brought him up in a comment. Taking your assertion at face value, you have one data point suggesting the right doesn't want to simplify the tax code. Good job, but I've got a competing data point of Paul Ryan, who was an actual Congressional leader in the Ways and Means Committee talking about the flat tax, and not an activist gadfly. I think my singular data point carries more weight than your data point.

Re: My Stripe Tax Story

#292

Post by deltarholamda »

alistairSH wrote: post #289
deltarholamda wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to recognize that "tax prep" and "tax code" are completely different things, so I don't understand how or why you are making this your argument. Simplifying the tax code is much more a right-wing thing, maybe even an entirely right-wing thing. Very odd argument.

Because I was responding to a question specifically about government-provided tax prep solutions... why do governments not make a habit of funding/creating really high quality tax software Nordquist can be both against improved tax prep software/procedures and for simplified tax laws. We know he's against the former; he's explicitly stated he doesn't want the US government producing tax prep software or doing any sor…

Your comment was showing up as a reply to mine, so I assumed you were responding to me.

I read Norquist's article as more along the lines of "don't let the IRS determine what is and is not taxable," not so much about having them produce tax prep software. I suppose you can squint and read that, fair enough, but that does not address the issue of whether Norquist supports or doesn't support simplifying the tax code.

Re: My Stripe Tax Story

#293

Post by telesilla »

andy_ppp wrote: post #210
telesilla wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vueling, Booking.com, Dropbox for example.

Interesting that Dropbox don't use Stripe? Seems a bit surprising as I thought YC companies generally use each others wares... I think the club aspect of YC is one of the most powerful to be honest.

In my most recent invoice view, this is in their JS code:

"adyen-checkout": "prod_assets_web_modules/adyen-checkout"

Re: My Stripe Tax Story

#294

Post by yencabulator »

samatman wrote: post #238
JackFr wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not fully true. There is also a contingent of people who like to use the the tax code as a mechanism of policy apart from efficient collection of revenue. Tax credits for education, clean energy, penalties, small businesses, mortage interest, each one of those one-off changes adds complexity, and in total ultimately can make the process dramatically more difficult.

While all of this is true, other countries have a system where the government tells you what tax they believe you owe, and provide the details of how they reached this number. The citizen can either pay that number, or offer amendments to the details which imply a lower rate (or higher if you're a masochist, I suppose). That's independent of the complexity of how that number is derived, and in balance I would rather…

One thing to add: You're typically still obligated to file a return if the prepared taxes are not correct. You're not "off the hook" in any way by accepting what the prepared statement says. This mostly bites e.g. entrepreneurs with more complicated taxes, especially if you filed for an extension on the business side.

Re: My Stripe Tax Story

#296

Post by ckdarby »

ovao wrote: post #53
chrissnell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more thing to add to this: scrutinizing transactions isn’t just for catching bad stuff. It’s also a way to spot the good. For my dad, it’s a way to spot up-and-coming salespeople who are punching above their weight, for noticing high-dollar sales to repeat customers and making sure that those folks are well cared-for. It also tells him what bikes are selling well and helps him make strategic decisions for buying.…

To be fair, in this case, the author was tracking his KPIs, and those suggested that all was hunky dory, but what he wasn’t tracking were the actual payments being received against invoices that never converted to an open state. In this case, the invoices were left in a draft state on Stripe’s side. And who could’ve expected that they’d need to occasionally check for draft invoices? It seems like it wasn’t made clear…

What is weird is how their accounting software didn't raise 5 different alerts when they have AR outside of their due dates. I have a small business and mine raises alerts all over the place when something slips the due date for AR.

Is it just me thinking this is actually crazy that they didn't notice even through a quarter closing? One could argue they're a small business but then how does the business not notice multiple months of AR being delayed.

Re: My Stripe Tax Story

#297

Post by neycoda »

This is a massive screw-up by Stripe, and the fact that you had such a difficult time communicating with them makes it ever more difficult to fix. We need intelligent humans overseeing this software, not a bunch of triggered bots and human script readers. I don't know how to get Stripe to fix this other than media embarrassment, which is an incredibly inefficient way to run customer support and QA.

Re: My Stripe Tax Story

#298

Post by neycoda »

chrissnell wrote: post #41

My dad owns a successful chain of bicycle stores in Texas. He’s been in business for almost 51 years and he’s one of the largest bike dealers by volume in the country. He has nearly a hundred employees and a bookkeeper. Despite having a proverbial dozen balls in the air at any time and despite having people on the payroll to do bookkeeping, he sits down at his computer every night at home, logs into the ERP system, a…

I agree that a business owner should be tallying things at minimum every month to make sure numbers add up, but Stripe handled the screw-up poorly, and needs some serious retribution.

Re: My Stripe Tax Story

#299

Post by jjeaff »

deltarholamda wrote: post #291
jjeaff wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only right wing proposals to "simplify" the tax code have been ridiculous proposals like the flat tax. You know, the one where a single mom with children to feed pays the same percentage of her income as the single billionaire that wants to buy a 3rd yacht. Look up Grover Nordquist. He has devoted his life to making sure paying taxes doesn't become too easy. And he ain't no lefty.

>You know, the one where a single mom with children to feed pays the same percentage of her income as the single billionaire that wants to buy a 3rd yacht. I guess you have never read anything about the various flat-tax proposals. There have been several, and they have all accounted for those with lower income levels. One of the fundamental tenets of the flat tax is 14th Amendment "equal protection." Is it constituti…

A progressive tax treats everyone equally. It taxes Jeff Bezos the same rate for the first $25k as it does me. Just like it would charge me the same rate for the last billion I earned. Everyone lives by the same set of rules. Anyway, progressive vs flat tax is orthogonal to simplifying the tax code because a graduated tax rate is not complex and is the very least of our current worries when it comes to tax code complexity.

As for Paul Ryan, he proves my point. His proposal included a huge break in corporate rates in exchange for a modest break in middle income taxes.

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