Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#391

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 4:06 AM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #291

kalleboo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

How do you tell which bills were targeted with their lobbying dollars? In 2016 Intuit's revenue was something like $4.7 billion. And they spent $2 million lobbying against bills that threaten the fundamental nature of their business? That seems absurdly low to me.

> How do you tell which bills were targeted with their lobbying dollars?

It looks like this information is published by the senate under the "Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995"

https://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&...

opensecrets.org has a more easily-browsed index linking to the senate reports: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/lobby.php?id=D000022016

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#392

Post by mrep » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 5:22 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #119

Coding_Cat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Set extremely low speeds that don't make sense on highways. Allow most people to go 10-15 above. I doubt people really speed because the limits have been set too low and the people know better what is an ideal speed limit. I think people_think_ they know better what the speed limit is, and/or reason "well if 60mph is okay, 75 mph can't be that bad, I'm barely speeding and I'm in a rush". At least, that's the attitud…

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how people drive. People don't look at a speed limit and then drive 15 over; they drive the speed they feel comfortable with, regardless of the speed limit. Studies have shown this: Q. Wouldn’t everyone drive faster if the speed limit was raised? A. No, the majority of drivers will not go faster than what they feel is comfortable and safe regardless of the speed l…

I agree that people will tend to not drive faster than what they feel comfortable at. I have even heard stories about places around my old town where they drew the lanes closer together (width and lane length) to make it feel like you are going faster to get you to slow down and it has had positive effects on how fast people drive.

However, people have vastly different "feelings" for what is comfortable. I've been in multiple different driving experiences in an awd subaru where I was going 30 under the speed limit because the weather was terrible and people were flying past me in their 2wd cars.

Shit, I even had an experience where I and literally 75% of other cars full on stopped on the side of a highway with our hazard lights on because we couldn't see more than 200 feet in front of us and people were still driving 30 mph past us. I shit you not that was one of the scariest moments of my life because as the visibility got worse and worse, everyone starting putting on their hazard lights and going like 30, most cars turned off but we thought it was OK until the rain and fog got so bad the cars in front and behind us completely disappeared in the grey rain/fog. We drove for about a minute going like 25 MPH (I was slowing down to get more comfortable because I was freaking out) and I risked turning off onto the shoulder preying I didn't randomly ram one of the cars pulled off and we got lucky and were able to sit their until it got better.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#393

Post by Karishma1234 » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 5:56 AM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #264

Karishma1234 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not make any value judgement here about other people. I do not want money taken away from people without they explicitly agreeing to it (even though disagreement might mean jail).

You agreed to follow the laws of the country in which you reside by continuing to reside there.

Who is disagreeing with that ? Does not mean you have to like the law or not work to repeal it. You could have used the same argument on blacks and claimed the law of the land allows slavery and hence they should willingly follow it.

Let me rephrase my original sentence ". I do not want money taken away from people without they explicitly agreeing to it "

Just because you have to pay taxes anyways does not mean there should not be a formal consent in the form of a check.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#394

Post by philwelch » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 6:44 AM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #315

chimeracoder wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The parent's comment still applies. If the progressive brackets were just swapped for a flat tax, the tax man still needs to know how much each employee had as deductibles, e.g. number of dependents, donations to charity, mortgage interest, etc. No, because the idea behind a flat tax is to eliminate most or all of those deductions, the same way they've already been eliminated for people who pay AMT instead of norma…

"No, because the idea behind a flat tax is to eliminate most or all of those deductions," Removing deductions has nothing to do with the tax curve. You could do that with the current curve and tweak it accordingly.

In fact, removing itemized deductions alone would do this, because the standard deduction is mathematically equivalent to a 0% bracket.

Alternately, you could even have a progressive, flat tax with a standard deduction of $150,000 and like a 40% rate. I’m surprised the Democrats haven’t proposed that just as a publicity stunt.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#395

Post by zaarn » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

gst wrote: post #261

stephengillie wrote: post #3

I'm annoyed that there is no simple system for the IRS to tell me what I owe, and let me pay or dispute. Instead, we play this game where the IRS provides a bunch of complicated documents, I guess which ones to fill out and submit, then wait 3 years to see if I was randomly chosen to see if I was correct. So it's very easy to make a mistake for dozens of years, then suddenly be penalized at random. It's the worst kin…

I'm citizen of Austria and resident of the United States. Austrian tax returns are much simpler because in the majority of cases they don't exist: Your employer and your banks automatically withhold the correct amount of taxes (capital gains are taxed at a flat rate and don't influence regular income taxes). Marriage status doesn't matter for income tax as the same tax brackets apply to everyone. Deductions are much…

Germany is almost there too. Most of your taxes are paid automatically.

The only thing you have to worry about is the end of year form. What you submit is usually a good first suggestion and the german IRS equivalent will send back a proposal. If you don't do anything, that's what they collect.

Of course, the tax forms in germany are rather... complicated, there is a lot of pitfalls, though generally unless nobody at the IRS spots it either, you'll get a correction back.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#396

Post by King-Aaron » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 7:25 AM UTC

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #218

volkk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the worst kind of selective enforcement - random enforcement. Very similar to the way police behave w/ regards to speeding tickets. Set extremely low speeds that don't make sense on highways. Allow most people to go 10-15 above. But then also sometimes choose random people to screw over when it's the end of the month and they need to hit their quotas.

Except it isn't random. Some cops just look for the fastest cars while others will look for out of state license plates. And some will even go as far as basing it off of the demographics of the driver. We would never tolerate a speed limit that allows difference races to go different max speeds, but allowing selective enforcement by cops enables any cop to do this.

> some will even go as far as basing it off of the demographics of the driver

My experience as a young lad with a high powered Nissan Skyline certainly reflected this many years ago. I had almost-daily "random vehicle and license checks"...

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#397

Post by doktrin » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 7:42 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #184

cortesoft wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is certainly true. In particular, Americans for Tax Reform (the group founded by Grover Norquist) lobbies against any attempt at making paying taxes easier for this reason. Their argument is that people should be constantly aware of how much they are paying in taxes, and making it too easy would hinder this. These groups, combined with tax preparation companies, prevent any meaningful attempt to make paying taxe…

> Their argument is that people should be constantly aware of how much they are paying in taxes, and making it too easy would hinder this. Which is so stupid because so many people have no idea at all what they pay in taxes because of employer withholding. I knew more than one coworker who thought they didnt pay taxes because they get a check back at the end of the year. They had no idea how withholding worked until…

> Which is so stupid because so many people have no idea at all what they pay in taxes because of employer withholding.

Which makes me think that it's not so much about people being informed as people being annoyed. I don't dread tax season because of what I owe, I dread it because of all the nonsense hoop jumping I know I have to go through on pain of massive fines and audit nightmares.

I'd be willing to be that a good many folks would shrug at their tax bill if it was laid out in simple terms with a sane user interface. Nobody can possibly shrug at the status quo form dance that they're subjected to year after year. It's practically guaranteed to cause discomfort and engender disdain.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#398

Post by doktrin » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 7:45 AM UTC

Yes, and I'd prefer it. TurboTax, H&R and their ilk are unnecessary parasites feeding off of a diseased whale. The fact that people feel the need to utilize 3rd party solutions just to file completely run of the mill returns is a sign of a fundamental problem in the system.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#399

Post by mrunkel » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 7:47 AM UTC

jriot wrote: post #362

Symmetry wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also 1.2 million tax preparers in the US. I'm not going to vote for somebody who has the wrong opinion on, e.g., abortion just because they're going to make my taxes easier but if the change to taxes was going to eliminate my job I'd feel differently. Also, the complex nature of the US tax code means that the people who've put effort into gaming the system and the dishonest also stand to lose if move to a m…

You can't have a right or wrong opinion, its just an opinion.

Of course you can. It's a matter of perspective. From your viewpoint, someone else that has an opposing opinion has the "wrong" opinion. That's what GP was saying.

Maybe it would have been clearer if they said "position" instead?

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#400

Post by dang » Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #344

masklinn wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a straightforward answer: It's also patent nonsense.

Could you backup your argument a bit more? You just come off as a jerk. You disagree that americans pay more than they should? [1] [1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/2018-tax-report/ Or you disagree that paying less than you should has consequences? https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/... People like you ruin this message board.

Please don't break the site guidelines yourself, regardless of whether someone else has done so.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html