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The politicians likely remember the scandal from the 1980s of Regular Joes being torn apart by aggressive IRS agents. Saying "hiring more IRS agents brings in m

The politicians likely remember the scandal from the 1980s of Regular Joes being torn apart by aggressive IRS agents. Saying "hiring more IRS agents brings in more money than they cost" is incredibly gauche to anyone who remembers it.

ergothus 10y ago
But bankrupting your govt because some people aren't paying their share is self-defeating. I'm all for oversight to limit the corruption of power, but trying NOT to give power to anyone will just accept that power falls to those that are ruthless and abusive to take it regardless. In this case, those same Regular Joes are getting the short end of the stick because the govt cuts programs to benefit them because wealthy individuals and corporations have found ways to pay dramatically less in overall tax rate that those Joes are. (and those ways don't even have to be legal if the govt doesn't have the agents to enforce the rules) And targeting "regular joes" is a terrible way to make money. The vast majority of govt income comes from the wealthy, in particular because wealth distribution is so unbalanced.
- grasshopperpurp 10y ago
  ". . . but trying NOT to give power to anyone will just accept that power falls to those that are ruthless and abusive to take it regardless." This is the crux, and I've never seen a good Libertarian defense against this. Someone will always fill the power void.
  - Consultant32452 10y ago
    I'm a libertarian that supports unions. If you can get enough of the labor force together to demand higher wages or better benefits, more power to you. I don't think the government should be involved in that. I'm even happy to support socialist style businesses where the workers share ownership. If someone can make that work and be successful/competitive? Awesome. Again, I just don't think the government has any business meddling in it.
    - grasshopperpurp 10y ago
      Appreciate the response and POV. Based on the info you shared here, I think you're someone who could definitely work with more left-leaning people to find common ground, which is sadly missing from the people actually making decisions. My question would be: without government intervention, what incentive do mega corporations have to allow unions to continue? What prevents them from making their own rules, which prevent unions? Since these same companies are behind the efforts to dismantle unions, it seems that removing government would just remove the middle man, making it easier for companies to abuse workers, dismantle unions, etc.
      - Consultant32452 10y ago
        Without government intervention it would be harder for mega corporations to exist in the first place. The broadest example is how insane our patent and copyright laws are right now. I do support monopoly laws and think we don't drop that hammer nearly enough.
        ergothus 10y ago
        I'm not quite sure I follow...You're saying the govt should break up monopolies more (I agree), but without the govt we'd have fewer monopolies? So far as I know, pure free-market capitalism always tends towards monopolies or oligarchies absent some level of intervention. It is simply too hard to be a well-informed consumer, and we consumers prioritize our short term convenience over societies (or even just our own) long term benefit.
        Consultant32452 10y ago
        Just as a thought experiment, try to imagine a world with no patent or copyright laws. I'm not suggesting we make that a reality, but just consider it. How would Lockheed Martin, GE, Disney, etc. look? Without local government granted monopolies, how would Comcast look? It would be a completely different world. Look into the concept of regulatory capture. The Dodd-Frank regulations that went into place are a great example of this. They were sold to us plebes as a way to protect us from future banking failures. Except the regulations were basically written by the big banks and forced the small banks out of business. They have actually increased the risk of future crisis by consolidating the industry. Here's an article about it. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/14/has-dodd-frank-eliminated-the-dangers-in-the-banking-system/dodd-frank-is-hurting-community-banks http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/14/has-dodd-fra...
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    This is why libertarians stop being libertarians. At some point, they realize that it's futile and impractical. Someone is going to be in charge, and that person is going to make the rules. Authority is an inevitability. Libertarianism and Marxism are two sides of the same coin: theoretical utopias, if we can just get everyone to agree to play nice! Well, in the real world where humans compete for resources to survive, people don't play nice. That's a hard biological fact, and no amount of indoctrination or force is going to be able to remove those hard-coded instincts for self-preservation, so it's best to adopt a system that is at least somewhat compatible with it. That can take a while to fully internalize, which explains why so many young idealists adopt Libertarian and/or Marxist positions for a few years before they end up moving on.
- mulmen 10y ago
  I'm not sure how much illegal tax evasion happens at the top. The way I look at it you only need tax evasion at lower income levels because of the huge risk associated. Once you have the money you can just buy the tax codes you want.
- phil21 10y ago
  > And targeting "regular joes" is a terrible way to make money. The vast majority of govt income comes from the wealthy, in particular because wealth distribution is so unbalanced. And therein lies the problem. You can hire 10,000 "regular Joe" agents to go after "regular Joe" offenders and make far less than if you could somehow successfully hire 100 genius agents to go after the top 100 suspected cases. The issue lies in the fact that most people simply are not capable of going toe to toe with some of the best legal tax frameworks money can buy, and so like with all law enforcement the "hard" targets tend to get largely ignored while the soft targets are exploited mercilessly. That's all I see an IRS hiring program doing - bringing the hammer down on people for rather trivial things, while continuing to ignore the elephant in the room simply due human nature being what it is. They want to show wins, not 6 years on the same 3 billion dollar case.
- CountSessine 10y ago
  And targeting "regular joes" is a terrible way to make money. The vast majority of govt income comes from the wealthy, in particular because wealth distribution is so unbalanced. That depends a lot on your definition of "wealthy" and "regular joes". https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2015-update/ https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-... According to that, the top 1% contributes about 37% of income taxes. On the other hand, the bottom 50% contributes only 2.78%. I guess a lot of people would consider the 1% to be wealthy, but most of the 1% are actually just doctors. I'm guessing that the real wealthy, those whose income is derived from capital rather than their labour, don't contribute much to federal tax income because of the low capital gains tax rate in the US.
Joeri 10y ago
If enforcing a law properly causes abuse, then the law must be rewritten. Not enforcing laws because they're bad is compounding the problem.
lostlogin 10y ago
A while back New Zealand ran a successful advertising campaign which invited people to dob in tax dodgers, and told people how. http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64437383/ird-collects-40-million-after-kiwis-dob-in-tax-evaders http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64437383/ird-collects-40...

ergothus 10y ago

But bankrupting your govt because some people aren't paying their share is self-defeating. I'm all for oversight to limit the corruption of power, but trying NOT to give power to anyone will just accept that power falls to those that are ruthless and abusive to take it regardless. In this case, those same Regular Joes are getting the short end of the stick because the govt cuts programs to benefit them because wealthy individuals and corporations have found ways to pay dramatically less in overall tax rate that those Joes are. (and those ways don't even have to be legal if the govt doesn't have the agents to enforce the rules) And targeting "regular joes" is a terrible way to make money. The vast majority of govt income comes from the wealthy, in particular because wealth distribution is so unbalanced.

grasshopperpurp 10y ago
". . . but trying NOT to give power to anyone will just accept that power falls to those that are ruthless and abusive to take it regardless." This is the crux, and I've never seen a good Libertarian defense against this. Someone will always fill the power void.
- Consultant32452 10y ago
  I'm a libertarian that supports unions. If you can get enough of the labor force together to demand higher wages or better benefits, more power to you. I don't think the government should be involved in that. I'm even happy to support socialist style businesses where the workers share ownership. If someone can make that work and be successful/competitive? Awesome. Again, I just don't think the government has any business meddling in it.
  - grasshopperpurp 10y ago
    Appreciate the response and POV. Based on the info you shared here, I think you're someone who could definitely work with more left-leaning people to find common ground, which is sadly missing from the people actually making decisions. My question would be: without government intervention, what incentive do mega corporations have to allow unions to continue? What prevents them from making their own rules, which prevent unions? Since these same companies are behind the efforts to dismantle unions, it seems that removing government would just remove the middle man, making it easier for companies to abuse workers, dismantle unions, etc.
    - Consultant32452 10y ago
      Without government intervention it would be harder for mega corporations to exist in the first place. The broadest example is how insane our patent and copyright laws are right now. I do support monopoly laws and think we don't drop that hammer nearly enough.
      - ergothus 10y ago
        I'm not quite sure I follow...You're saying the govt should break up monopolies more (I agree), but without the govt we'd have fewer monopolies? So far as I know, pure free-market capitalism always tends towards monopolies or oligarchies absent some level of intervention. It is simply too hard to be a well-informed consumer, and we consumers prioritize our short term convenience over societies (or even just our own) long term benefit.
        Consultant32452 10y ago
        Just as a thought experiment, try to imagine a world with no patent or copyright laws. I'm not suggesting we make that a reality, but just consider it. How would Lockheed Martin, GE, Disney, etc. look? Without local government granted monopolies, how would Comcast look? It would be a completely different world. Look into the concept of regulatory capture. The Dodd-Frank regulations that went into place are a great example of this. They were sold to us plebes as a way to protect us from future banking failures. Except the regulations were basically written by the big banks and forced the small banks out of business. They have actually increased the risk of future crisis by consolidating the industry. Here's an article about it. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/14/has-dodd-frank-eliminated-the-dangers-in-the-banking-system/dodd-frank-is-hurting-community-banks http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/14/has-dodd-fra...
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  This is why libertarians stop being libertarians. At some point, they realize that it's futile and impractical. Someone is going to be in charge, and that person is going to make the rules. Authority is an inevitability. Libertarianism and Marxism are two sides of the same coin: theoretical utopias, if we can just get everyone to agree to play nice! Well, in the real world where humans compete for resources to survive, people don't play nice. That's a hard biological fact, and no amount of indoctrination or force is going to be able to remove those hard-coded instincts for self-preservation, so it's best to adopt a system that is at least somewhat compatible with it. That can take a while to fully internalize, which explains why so many young idealists adopt Libertarian and/or Marxist positions for a few years before they end up moving on.
mulmen 10y ago
I'm not sure how much illegal tax evasion happens at the top. The way I look at it you only need tax evasion at lower income levels because of the huge risk associated. Once you have the money you can just buy the tax codes you want.
phil21 10y ago
> And targeting "regular joes" is a terrible way to make money. The vast majority of govt income comes from the wealthy, in particular because wealth distribution is so unbalanced. And therein lies the problem. You can hire 10,000 "regular Joe" agents to go after "regular Joe" offenders and make far less than if you could somehow successfully hire 100 genius agents to go after the top 100 suspected cases. The issue lies in the fact that most people simply are not capable of going toe to toe with some of the best legal tax frameworks money can buy, and so like with all law enforcement the "hard" targets tend to get largely ignored while the soft targets are exploited mercilessly. That's all I see an IRS hiring program doing - bringing the hammer down on people for rather trivial things, while continuing to ignore the elephant in the room simply due human nature being what it is. They want to show wins, not 6 years on the same 3 billion dollar case.
CountSessine 10y ago
And targeting "regular joes" is a terrible way to make money. The vast majority of govt income comes from the wealthy, in particular because wealth distribution is so unbalanced. That depends a lot on your definition of "wealthy" and "regular joes". https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2015-update/ https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-... According to that, the top 1% contributes about 37% of income taxes. On the other hand, the bottom 50% contributes only 2.78%. I guess a lot of people would consider the 1% to be wealthy, but most of the 1% are actually just doctors. I'm guessing that the real wealthy, those whose income is derived from capital rather than their labour, don't contribute much to federal tax income because of the low capital gains tax rate in the US.

Joeri 10y ago

If enforcing a law properly causes abuse, then the law must be rewritten. Not enforcing laws because they're bad is compounding the problem.

lostlogin 10y ago

A while back New Zealand ran a successful advertising campaign which invited people to dob in tax dodgers, and told people how. http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64437383/ird-collects-40-million-after-kiwis-dob-in-tax-evaders http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64437383/ird-collects-40...