5 ms·

The article lists 3 reasons individual income taxes are bad and one of them is “They are a burden for each citizen to fill out” I may be crazy but that’s an a

The article lists 3 reasons individual income taxes are bad and one of them is “They are a burden for each citizen to fill out” I may be crazy but that’s an argument for making taxes simple (it shouldn’t just be simple it should be literally simpler than paying an electricity bill). My main issue with abandoning income taxes is that it would be so hard to replace them. Wealth taxes, corporate income and sales taxes are tricky to implement.

_huayra_ 6y ago
The only reason they are a burden to fill out (or more so than most other countries) is because direct incentives have some "stink" on them to most Americans, who have bought into this "bootstrapping faux-frontiersman" myth for ages. It's much more palatable to call it a "tax rebate for installing solar panels" than "a government subsidy for installing solar panels". However, just getting rid of that and making it rather automatic (e.g. like in some Scandinavian countries, where your employer and banks send some forms to the government, which in turn computes your taxes, leaving you to just sign off on the prefilled stuff) would be such a relief!
- gruez 6y ago
  >However, just getting rid of that and making it rather automatic (e.g. like in some Scandinavian countries, where your employer and banks send some forms to the government, which in turn computes your taxes, leaving you to just sign off on the prefilled stuff) would be such a relief! They already do that. Employers are required to withhold income taxes on your behalf. The only thing missing is for the IRS to consolidate all the reports for you and give you a pre-filled form rather than having you do it yourself.
- henrikschroder 6y ago
  > where your employer and banks send some forms to the government This already happens in the US, your employer sends a W-2 to the government reporting exactly how much taxes they've paid on your behalf. Your bank does something similar. AND THEN everyone is required to fill out a form reporting how much they've earned, as if the government didn't already know, just so Intuit can make more money. Yaaaay, capitalism!
  - klipt 6y ago
    > Yaaaay, capitalism! Capitalism also provides free options like freetaxusa or credit karma taxes.
    - Kye 6y ago
      It might be a meaningless philosophical point, but I don't see how a company that only exists to serve people on behalf of a government with policies bought by industry lobbyists can be considered capitalist. It isn't even socialism because it seems to be permanent, not transitory.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    "Capitalism" doesn't mean corporations make the laws. Tons of capitalist countries have very easy tax processes. Not sure what the word for a system where corporations gain political influence through lobbying, but I don't think that's what "capitalism" is.
TrackerFF 6y ago
In a lot of countries, paying taxes is truly trivial. Where I live (Norway), it goes like this - at the most basic level: (1) Annually, the gov. issues me a tax "card", which basically just contains some tax-information about me - like what rate I should be paying. This is based on my previous year of income, or I set one myself, based on what income I believe I will have this year. (2) My employer requests that card/information from the gov., and will deduct the taxes I owe on my salary. My employer then pays in those taxes, to our tax agency. (3) Once a year, I will receive a document that shows my income, how much I've paid, and what my balance is. If it looks good, I don't need to do anything. If I want to add certain deductions, external/unreported salaries, or what not, I'll have to fill them inn on that document. That's it. If my balance ends up negative, I have to pay back taxes. If it's close to zero, I nor get or pay anything back. If it's positive, I get back the difference. Sure - it can become complicated if you have a ton of investments, companies, deductions, and what not - but for regular people? It's a breeze. For most, actually, the only active thing you have to do, is to check that your tax rate looks OK, and that takes you under 5 minutes. Once a year.
- aaron-santos 6y ago
  Rather than getting a tax card, those in the US get Free File. Free file is deal Intuit and others made with the US government in 2001 to "improve ... Government to Citizen electronic capabilities". Filing companies offer a free filing option an in exchange the IRS does not develop their own. 70% of filers are supposed to be able to free file, however in practice ~2% actually do so. Since then Intuit and others have been a powerful lobbying force against filing simplification for obvious reasons. In fact they are incentivized to make free filing as impractical as possible. The path to free filing is best described as an anti-funnel. Online tax filing systems are a field guide to dark patterns aimed against finding their way toward free filing. And why not? Tricking millions into paying for something that is ostensibly free is a great business tactic. What we actually get is a resulting tax system which is purposely confusing to get people to pay for something they should be able to get for free already and which funds lobbyists to fight against changing it. Good for us. Edit: found this funny. Turbo Tax's Encroachment strat https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-TurboTax-2014-15-Encroachment-Strategy.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-Turbo...
randomdata 6y ago
Wealth taxes are straightforward to implement. As wealth generates income, and its value dependent on how much income it can generate, you can simply tax income to the same net result.
- standardUser 6y ago
  In the US we do tax income from wealth, just at a vastly lower rate than income from work. You could say that working to obtain wealth is penalized, whereas having wealth gets preferential treatment.

_huayra_ 6y ago

The only reason they are a burden to fill out (or more so than most other countries) is because direct incentives have some "stink" on them to most Americans, who have bought into this "bootstrapping faux-frontiersman" myth for ages. It's much more palatable to call it a "tax rebate for installing solar panels" than "a government subsidy for installing solar panels". However, just getting rid of that and making it rather automatic (e.g. like in some Scandinavian countries, where your employer and banks send some forms to the government, which in turn computes your taxes, leaving you to just sign off on the prefilled stuff) would be such a relief!

gruez 6y ago
>However, just getting rid of that and making it rather automatic (e.g. like in some Scandinavian countries, where your employer and banks send some forms to the government, which in turn computes your taxes, leaving you to just sign off on the prefilled stuff) would be such a relief! They already do that. Employers are required to withhold income taxes on your behalf. The only thing missing is for the IRS to consolidate all the reports for you and give you a pre-filled form rather than having you do it yourself.
henrikschroder 6y ago
> where your employer and banks send some forms to the government This already happens in the US, your employer sends a W-2 to the government reporting exactly how much taxes they've paid on your behalf. Your bank does something similar. AND THEN everyone is required to fill out a form reporting how much they've earned, as if the government didn't already know, just so Intuit can make more money. Yaaaay, capitalism!
- klipt 6y ago
  > Yaaaay, capitalism! Capitalism also provides free options like freetaxusa or credit karma taxes.
  - Kye 6y ago
    It might be a meaningless philosophical point, but I don't see how a company that only exists to serve people on behalf of a government with policies bought by industry lobbyists can be considered capitalist. It isn't even socialism because it seems to be permanent, not transitory.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  "Capitalism" doesn't mean corporations make the laws. Tons of capitalist countries have very easy tax processes. Not sure what the word for a system where corporations gain political influence through lobbying, but I don't think that's what "capitalism" is.

TrackerFF 6y ago

In a lot of countries, paying taxes is truly trivial. Where I live (Norway), it goes like this - at the most basic level: (1) Annually, the gov. issues me a tax "card", which basically just contains some tax-information about me - like what rate I should be paying. This is based on my previous year of income, or I set one myself, based on what income I believe I will have this year. (2) My employer requests that card/information from the gov., and will deduct the taxes I owe on my salary. My employer then pays in those taxes, to our tax agency. (3) Once a year, I will receive a document that shows my income, how much I've paid, and what my balance is. If it looks good, I don't need to do anything. If I want to add certain deductions, external/unreported salaries, or what not, I'll have to fill them inn on that document. That's it. If my balance ends up negative, I have to pay back taxes. If it's close to zero, I nor get or pay anything back. If it's positive, I get back the difference. Sure - it can become complicated if you have a ton of investments, companies, deductions, and what not - but for regular people? It's a breeze. For most, actually, the only active thing you have to do, is to check that your tax rate looks OK, and that takes you under 5 minutes. Once a year.

aaron-santos 6y ago
Rather than getting a tax card, those in the US get Free File. Free file is deal Intuit and others made with the US government in 2001 to "improve ... Government to Citizen electronic capabilities". Filing companies offer a free filing option an in exchange the IRS does not develop their own. 70% of filers are supposed to be able to free file, however in practice ~2% actually do so. Since then Intuit and others have been a powerful lobbying force against filing simplification for obvious reasons. In fact they are incentivized to make free filing as impractical as possible. The path to free filing is best described as an anti-funnel. Online tax filing systems are a field guide to dark patterns aimed against finding their way toward free filing. And why not? Tricking millions into paying for something that is ostensibly free is a great business tactic. What we actually get is a resulting tax system which is purposely confusing to get people to pay for something they should be able to get for free already and which funds lobbyists to fight against changing it. Good for us. Edit: found this funny. Turbo Tax's Encroachment strat https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-TurboTax-2014-15-Encroachment-Strategy.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-Turbo...

randomdata 6y ago

Wealth taxes are straightforward to implement. As wealth generates income, and its value dependent on how much income it can generate, you can simply tax income to the same net result.

standardUser 6y ago
In the US we do tax income from wealth, just at a vastly lower rate than income from work. You could say that working to obtain wealth is penalized, whereas having wealth gets preferential treatment.