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I for one am fine with taxes being a pain in the ass. That forces people to see what they're paying. If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simple

by pwned1 5y ago

I for one am fine with taxes being a pain in the ass. That forces people to see what they're paying. If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simpler taxes.

jcranmer 5y ago
Except that I suspect the average taxpayer doesn't see what they're paying but instead sees the size of the refund check they get at the end of the process, which has relatively little correlation to the amount they paid.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simpler taxes. Intuit would lobby against that too.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  Not if simplifying taxes was as easy as paying Intuit the $89/yr toll to not deal with taxes. Intuit just wants money, they really don't care about taxes or complexity of the tax system. The only reason they care about complex tax code is that they can make money from it. These large businesses of today don't have visions or value creation goals, they have markets, competitors, and revenue streams. Everything else they do is tangential. If Intuit could continue to make their money or make more money by advocating for simpler taxes they would. We should pass the Intuit Tax Toll bill where everyone is required by law to just throw money at Intuit every year until they go away, except they'll only come back for more... because this is what Intuit and a mountain of existing businesses would foam at the mouth for, a world where they were just handed money.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    > Not if simplifying taxes was as easy as paying Intuit the $89/yr toll to not deal with taxes. That's not what "simplifying taxes" means. That's paying Intuit to deal with the complexity for you, which is the status quo. They need the complexity or there's nothing for you to pay them to do. Compare this with, say, replacing federal income tax with VAT+UBI. You get a progressive tax system (because of the UBI) with zero individuals having to file income tax returns. Actual simplification. You also solve the problem of people not realizing how much tax they're paying because they see the VAT on the receipt every time they buy something.

by pwned1 5y ago

I for one am fine with taxes being a pain in the ass. That forces people to see what they're paying. If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simpler taxes.

jcranmer 5y ago

Except that I suspect the average taxpayer doesn't see what they're paying but instead sees the size of the refund check they get at the end of the process, which has relatively little correlation to the amount they paid.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> If you think they're a pain in the ass, advocate for simpler taxes. Intuit would lobby against that too.

Frost1x 5y ago
Not if simplifying taxes was as easy as paying Intuit the $89/yr toll to not deal with taxes. Intuit just wants money, they really don't care about taxes or complexity of the tax system. The only reason they care about complex tax code is that they can make money from it. These large businesses of today don't have visions or value creation goals, they have markets, competitors, and revenue streams. Everything else they do is tangential. If Intuit could continue to make their money or make more money by advocating for simpler taxes they would. We should pass the Intuit Tax Toll bill where everyone is required by law to just throw money at Intuit every year until they go away, except they'll only come back for more... because this is what Intuit and a mountain of existing businesses would foam at the mouth for, a world where they were just handed money.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > Not if simplifying taxes was as easy as paying Intuit the $89/yr toll to not deal with taxes. That's not what "simplifying taxes" means. That's paying Intuit to deal with the complexity for you, which is the status quo. They need the complexity or there's nothing for you to pay them to do. Compare this with, say, replacing federal income tax with VAT+UBI. You get a progressive tax system (because of the UBI) with zero individuals having to file income tax returns. Actual simplification. You also solve the problem of people not realizing how much tax they're paying because they see the VAT on the receipt every time they buy something.