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> The radical anti-tax groups are so anti-tax that they see making it easier to pay taxes as support for taxes. So they want it to be difficult to pay taxes to

by baddox 8y ago

> The radical anti-tax groups are so anti-tax that they see making it easier to pay taxes as support for taxes. So they want it to be difficult to pay taxes to make it easier for them to argue against taxes entirely. I don't know if getting rid of taxes entirely is really a goal for many of these people, but what you describe doesn't sound that unreasonable. Making paying taxes easier does sound like support for taxes, right? For example, if we didn't have payroll deduction, surely there would be more popular support for tax cuts.

ljm 8y ago
What does it mean in that instance to provide a service that makes taxes easy to file for you? Intuit's entire business model is making paying taxes easier. Except you have to pay for it. How does that fit into their logic? What happens if all the taxes are abolished and there is no need for that business? Will they start lobbying for more tax or lobbying against the final cut? Or lobbying for an income report system with the tax component stripped out, basically building what would have helped in the first place?
sokoloff 8y ago
I’d love to see the end of payroll deductions and to make annual taxes due the Monday before Election Day. Doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have taxes, but we’d have a tight temporal and psychological link between what we pay and the selections we make at the ballot box.
- addicted 8y ago
  Actually, the correct temporal link would not be with elections but with choices you make to use publicly funded roads, breathe clean air due to public funded regulations, etc. That's the temporal connection that needs to be made. The idea that there is a whole host of politicians who want to increase taxes is ludicrous. No one campaigns on the basis of increasing taxes. Further, in most of the West, taxes have dropped dramatically over the past few decades. Most politicians campaign on (1) reducing taxes or (2) providing some benefits. The dishonest politicians campaigning on #2 are teh ones who claim you can increase benefits without increasing taxes (which is occasionally true but rarely). It's only the honest politicians campaigning on #2 who add that the benefit will indeed have to be paid for by higher taxes. The politicians increasing taxes are the good guys because they're the only ones at least thinking about paying for benefits.
  - baddox 8y ago
    Very little of the federal budget goes to those things you listed. State budgets may vary.
- phil21 8y ago
  Right. I'd love to see the end of Payroll deductions in addition to making it stupid-simple to file and pay. Let me visit a website and toss my bank account info in. Practically it would never happen so it's difficult to argue for other than on ideological grounds. I think we as a society would find out that a huge amount of the population would simply be incapable of budgeting even quarterly tax payments. The enforcement costs would be immense.
nimish 8y ago
Grover Norquist is on record saying that his anti-tax stance is to get rid of most if not all of government. Starving the beast is a major policy aim.

by baddox 8y ago

ljm 8y ago

What does it mean in that instance to provide a service that makes taxes easy to file for you? Intuit's entire business model is making paying taxes easier. Except you have to pay for it. How does that fit into their logic? What happens if all the taxes are abolished and there is no need for that business? Will they start lobbying for more tax or lobbying against the final cut? Or lobbying for an income report system with the tax component stripped out, basically building what would have helped in the first place?

sokoloff 8y ago

I’d love to see the end of payroll deductions and to make annual taxes due the Monday before Election Day. Doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have taxes, but we’d have a tight temporal and psychological link between what we pay and the selections we make at the ballot box.

addicted 8y ago
Actually, the correct temporal link would not be with elections but with choices you make to use publicly funded roads, breathe clean air due to public funded regulations, etc. That's the temporal connection that needs to be made. The idea that there is a whole host of politicians who want to increase taxes is ludicrous. No one campaigns on the basis of increasing taxes. Further, in most of the West, taxes have dropped dramatically over the past few decades. Most politicians campaign on (1) reducing taxes or (2) providing some benefits. The dishonest politicians campaigning on #2 are teh ones who claim you can increase benefits without increasing taxes (which is occasionally true but rarely). It's only the honest politicians campaigning on #2 who add that the benefit will indeed have to be paid for by higher taxes. The politicians increasing taxes are the good guys because they're the only ones at least thinking about paying for benefits.
- baddox 8y ago
  Very little of the federal budget goes to those things you listed. State budgets may vary.
phil21 8y ago
Right. I'd love to see the end of Payroll deductions in addition to making it stupid-simple to file and pay. Let me visit a website and toss my bank account info in. Practically it would never happen so it's difficult to argue for other than on ideological grounds. I think we as a society would find out that a huge amount of the population would simply be incapable of budgeting even quarterly tax payments. The enforcement costs would be immense.

nimish 8y ago

Grover Norquist is on record saying that his anti-tax stance is to get rid of most if not all of government. Starving the beast is a major policy aim.