51–60 of 288 posts
Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.
Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.
And, to be fair to both sides, politicians who have received money from taxpayers should not be allowed to speak.
It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.
There is no reason every legitimate employer can't send tax information to the IRS and the self employed can't simply self-report our taxable incomes. No more deductions, for anything, just simple graduated tax brackets. Easy for the IRS to calculate quickly and either send a bill or a refund by April. They would need a fraction of the staff they currently employ and we could apply the savings to the national debt.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it was originally done this way because in the past people actually had some semblance of privacy and the government didn't actually know a great deal about people's income. Eventually, privacy was eroded away year after year to the point where the government now knows an extreme amount about each citizen. I guess I'd refrain the question - instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government know…
>we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? I've lived in Sweden where taxes are not just automatically filed but every citizen can trivially look up anyone's tax returns and nobody ever saw it as the government being intimately entangled with anyone's life. Privacy violation would be to look into how and on what you spend your money, not that everyone pays their share of taxes. That tel…
Are income levels not deserving of privacy?
wait until turbo tax comes in hot with their lobbying efforts - didn't they manage to prevent or diminish a free tax filing service already a few years ago?
I like TurboTax. It just works, year after year. The fee is worth the peace of mind that I wouldn’t have by letting a government program lose my submission accidentally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it was originally done this way because in the past people actually had some semblance of privacy and the government didn't actually know a great deal about people's income. Eventually, privacy was eroded away year after year to the point where the government now knows an extreme amount about each citizen. I guess I'd refrain the question - instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government know…
> I guess it was originally done this way because in the past people actually had some semblance of privacy and the government didn't actually know a great deal about people's income. You still had to file taxes, though, so they would know about your income, if only a year behind. I read somewhere that tax withholding only started during WWII (and it was supposed to be temporary). It's really the withholding that wou…
Most Americans don’t do their own taxes. They go to H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt, and if your family makes under $60k you are almost certainly paying no income taxes and are receiving a refund via the EITC, getting a check back. So people think tax preparers are voodoo priests that do their incantations to get free money because the average person can’t understand the jargon, can’t handle forms, and the whole endeavor…
How is this possible? Where I live, you can expect to pay around 30% of your income as tax almost regardless of how much money you actually make (as long as it's above something like $600 a year).
It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.
Listening to Congress “debate” this made me unreasonably upset. If you as a sitting politician have received monetary benefits from a tax filing service you should not be allowed to speak.
And, to be fair to both sides, politicians who have received money from taxpayers should not be allowed to speak.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it was originally done this way because in the past people actually had some semblance of privacy and the government didn't actually know a great deal about people's income. Eventually, privacy was eroded away year after year to the point where the government now knows an extreme amount about each citizen. I guess I'd refrain the question - instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government know…
>we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? I've lived in Sweden where taxes are not just automatically filed but every citizen can trivially look up anyone's tax returns and nobody ever saw it as the government being intimately entangled with anyone's life. Privacy violation would be to look into how and on what you spend your money, not that everyone pays their share of taxes. That tel…