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Great, let's nickle and dime the single mother selling arts and crafts on Etsy while the mega corps get away with billions. This was buried in the same legisla
by Lurkynerd 5y ago
Great, let's nickle and dime the single mother selling arts and crafts on Etsy while the mega corps get away with billions.
This was buried in the same legislation supposedly drafted to help the poor. But of course, the fattest handouts were all to big banks and the rest of too big to fail corporate America.
- TameAntelope 5y agoI know it's popular to decry every single dollar lost as a critical dollar (the difference between eating and starving), but if you're selling $600+ arts and crafts on Etsy, you should a) probably pay the US government for creating the infrastructure enabling you to do that in the first place, and b) the taxes are not going to mean very much to you in any event, especially considering how we structure our tax system to enable folks making less to pay less overall in income taxes at the end of the year. Edit: There's a clear anti-government push in this comment section, which I don't think is representative of HN at large. I'm curious where it's coming from, if not organically, though I admit my lizard brain is more likely just pattern matching despite there not being any actual pattern at all.
- _dark_matter_ 5y agoThis is the amount accumulated. So e.g. 30x $20 transactions, not $600+ arts and crafts.
- TameAntelope 5y agoYeah, it doesn't matter from a tax perspective. You don't pay more on additional transactions.
- javert 5y agoShould we be paying the US government to send our young men to die in trumped-up wars that we have no reasonable hope of winning? a) Vietnam b) Afghanistan c) Iraq That's what your tax money goes to, folks. Is that what Etsy moms should be paying for? I pay my US federal taxes, because it's illegal not to. But, at a fundamental level, it's immoral to do so. I don't think all taxes are immoral. Just US Federal taxes. Remember that the Federal government now exists almost purely to serve lobbyists and interest groups - not the people and not the states.
- TameAntelope 5y agoIf that's what the officials we elected decide to do, and we don't un-elect them, what else can you expect? There is no "them" in this false "us vs them" narrative you're constructing. It's just us. We do this to ourselves.
- javert 5y agoThat's incorrect. The will of the people cannot necessarily be expressed when it has to be channeled through exactly two parties. The fact of there being two parties is dictated by the first past the post system. More detailed explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo (this is the famous CCP Grey video with the animals, for those who have already seen it). Also, even if it WERE the will of the people, it's still wrong, and immoral. Democracy is only as good as the demos is moral. I judge the American demos to be insufficiently honest and thus insufficiently moral. Basically, each half of the country thinks that about the other half; I simply agree with both sides.
- TameAntelope 5y agoYes, there are trade offs with the US government's system of electing representatives within its government, trade offs the country seems to be willing to accept, given its lack of mobility on electing people who would make changes to that system. And while it's true that, on the margins, the will of the people can be nudged one way or another, you still have to find a whole lot of people to vote for you in order to get elected, and those are your fellow countrymen who do believe those wars you mentioned made sense at the time (for example). You may call those people as many names (e.g. "immoral") as you like, they're still entitled to their votes, exactly as you are. There is no "them", it's just "us". The divisive rhetoric you're employing is, in my opinion, more problematic than the voters themselves.
- javert 5y agoI don't agree with that, but let's not litigate it. I only still reside in the US because I don't want to pay the exit tax to expatriate. I'm being kept against my will. But I'll make it out eventually, when I can make it make sense tax-wise. Good riddance. By the way, I live in a US territory, so I have no federal representation, even in theory, personally, even though I pay federal tax. Which is OK, since when I lived in the states proper, my "countrymen" never elected people I believed to be reasonable.
- bumby 5y agoI get your point, but how do you reconcile it with the fact that taxes and most social safety nets are on a progressive scale, with lower strata effectively paying less than what they use while upper strata pay more for said infrastructure?
- tinalumfoil 5y agoReminds me this Parks and Recs quote: > Whatever happened to “Hey, I have some apples, would you like to buy them?” “Yes, thank you!” That’s as complicated as it should be to open a business in this country. With sympathies to Ron Swanson though, I don't think it can really be that simple.
- tata71 5y agoMove outside the 100 mile from the border zone, and find out just how sustainable it is.
- rmah 5y agoIn America today, for many types of businesses, it's still that simple. You can open a sole proprietorship business with zero paperwork and no permission from anyone. You're not required to incorporate. You're not required to have a separate bank account. Now, if you're selling apples (and other foods), you may have to deal with health code regulations. If you open a dentist office, you'll probably fall under other regulations. You can argue if those regulations are too heavy or not. But many products/services in do not have many (if any) regulations governing them in most states/municipalities in the US. Just say you're in business and voila, you are.
- ultrarunner 5y agoI think this greatly oversimplifies the situation. If you find that people love your apples and are buying them too quickly, you might want to tell a friend you'll that if they'll help you sell your apples you'll give them some of the money. You've now incurred numerous tax obligations, requiring an EIN, PRWORA reporting, worker's compensation, citizenship requirements, required benefits, time tracking for overtime compliance (depending on FLSA designation), insurance obligations, and probably several other steps I'm missing (occupational licensing is a big one; let's hope your apples aren't really hair cuts). Do all these requirements protect people from their employers? Well… maybe kind of. But no, in most circumstances you can't simply start interacting with other people without a lot of red tape.
- bdcravens 5y agoThose taxes already existed.
- bumby 5y agoThe existed, but some had different thresholds for reporting that may not be trivial for small businesses. 1099-K threshold in 2021: $20,000+ AND 200+ transactions 1099-K threshold in 2022: $600
- lotsofpulp 5y agoWhat is not trivial for small businesses? They do not have to do the reporting. They are liable for the same amount of taxes they were prior to the reporting requirement update.
- bumby 5y agoI meant the overhead in accounting, paperwork etc. I would argue the "tax burden" goes beyond just the financial to also include the paperwork etc. For a person on the cusp, making a $600 a year may help. Now, erode that with the additional costs of filing (both financial and time) can make it no longer worthwhile.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoDo you have an alternative proposal to implementing income taxes then? Other than having the government have a record of every single transaction for everyone and automatically sending everyone with less than $x of incoming transactions a letter stating they do not owe income tax, I do not see a fair way of making sure people pay their taxes without having reporting and filing requirements. The alternative is that the person that goes and gets a W-2 job for $600 has a mechanism which forces them to pay taxes, but the person that does odd jobs and gets paid here and there via an app has no mechanism to force them to pay taxes. How is that fair?
- gamblor956 5y agoYou do understand, that this doesn't increase the accounting and paperwork required for the Etsy seller? The requirement is for Etsy to provide the 1099 to report income that the Etsy seller already should have been reporting on their income tax return (hopefully along with corresponding expenses to offset that income). In fact, the whole point of this requirement is to make it easier for small sellers to properly report their income to the I.R.S., because now they don't have to dig through a year's worth of receipts to figure out how much they made from what source.
- throwaway6734 5y agoYes. Everyone should pay the taxes they owe. If you want exclusions for these people codify it into law.
- kybernetyk 5y ago> Great, let's nickle and dime the single mother selling arts and crafts on Etsy while the mega corps get away with billions. Laws apply to everyone.
- imwillofficial 5y agoApparently not
- ForgotMyPwOops 5y agoOnly when enforced equally, which is not typically the case in America
- thehappypm 5y agoHow is it different in this case? Any Etsy shop can also configure into an LLC and do the necessary accounting to reduce their tax burden. If you don’t want to do that an Etsy shop is just a weird job, and you pay income tax on jobs.
- bumby 5y agoI think a comment below addresses this, but the usual counterpoint is that a) the "necessary accounting" can become an undue burden itself and b) creating additional audit risks small may not be able to mitigate The idea is that it is a structure that effectively prefers larger scale businesses who have the means to mitigate both of those
- thehappypm 5y agoI’m not sure I follow. If you don’t want to set up an LLC you can just treat your Etsy dollars as plain-old personal income like you would as an Uber driver or any other side hustle. It’s just income. Why is a person paying income tax on their income controversial?
- bumby 5y ago
- vmception 5y agoAs someone that has to file my own 1099s to people I pay, I feel this routine nickle and dimes me more than this new thing, since its so punitive to do and wastes my time. This new thing is just the payment processors filing their own that just gives the IRS insight into which tax filings to match up. A single mother selling arts and crafts already had to report earnings. Reporting doesn't mean there is a tax due. The single mother likely has many tax deductions possible just like the mega corps do.
- JaakkoP 5y agoYou might want to look into tools like Wingspan to save up some time with the 1099s. Even Gusto's contractor plan might work depending on your use-case.
- vmception 5y agoThat looks pretty cool, I like the "invite your CPA" option on wingspan. I have a couple entities though, for now I think I can manage it. Its just 3-10 1099's a year. Gusto Contractor plan does look good. Just the right price.
- thehappypm 5y agoI mean.. you’re advocating for people to not pay their taxes. A million small Etsy shops is a ton of money. Shouldn’t state and federal taxes apply?
- ahallock 5y agoThe taxes aren't just. The state blows trillions on wars, foreign aid, etc so I think there's a spending problem. Maybe if they could reign their spending, we could let people keep more of their money. Instead people take out loans and go into debt to keep up. And then we tell them to be austere (no smart phone for you, skip the coffee, etc) while the state spends with wild abandon.
- WheatM 5y ago
- thehappypm 5y agoThis is a huge tangent and has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
- genewitch 5y agoI think it's completely relevant, and it should always be pointed out that humans are suffering because of our tax dollars.
- beamatronic 5y agoCorrection: VOTERS are suffering because of their own voting choices.
- cwkoss 5y agoCorrection: VOTERS are suffering because their choices are no longer meaningful. (Two party system is broken and neither does a good job of serving the interests of their voters. "Vote harder" isn't practically effective and displaces blame to the victims. Ineffective, selfish and corrupt leaders have captured the majority of political positions, and until we get rid of them change is impossible.)
- iMerNibor 5y ago> while the mega corps get away with billions. The difference here is that megacorps use legal loopholes (and pay accountants and lawyers plenty of money to find those loopholes and make sure they are allowed) to avoid paying tax while the single mother probably thinks she can get away with not doing it while she may be obligated to You can't go after companies for follwing the law, you'd have to change the law first.. which I don't see happening personally Edit: Don't get me wrong - I'm all for making things easier for small businesses to enable them to grow
- CalRobert 5y agoOften they're not just finding the loopholes, they're making them.
- max_ 5y agoYes. Features, not bugs.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- _fat_santa 5y agoYou are correct. The anger over this isn't about any details. We know that these large corps are following the rules, just using loopholes and such to lower their tax burden. The anger is over the fact that it's clear the government needs money because of the spending, so rather than going after the big multi-billion dollar companies that should be paying way more in tax, they are instead going after the low hanging fruit.
- Domenic_S 5y ago"Loophole" implies that these strategies are meant to circumvent the explicit purpose of the law, but these tax breaks are intended. There is no such thing as "closing a loophole", only purposefully and meaningfully deciding that raising tax on corporations is a thing to do.
- 5y ago
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago>This was buried in the same legislation supposedly drafted to help the poor. This is what many of us politically homeless have been saying about the Dems for years. They're not here for us. The young and idealistic see that they're not Trump and wha the bills are titled and slogans repeated on MSNBC. But they're actively attacking working people's income. Are they giving a higher min wage? M4a? Tuition debt relief? No. They get up at campaign time and try to put-progressive AOC but when push comes to shove, they're 90s Republicans
- lotsofpulp 5y agoStates led by Democrats do have higher minimum wages, paid leave, better health insurance subsidies, etc. Under the current federal electoral system, Democrats have no power to go further. They barely got a compromised ACA passed in 2010, and the votes at the federal level have moved in Republicans' favor since then. As we just witnessed, they do not have the numbers to get paid parental leave passed. The young and idealistic should be able to understand that AOC is not going to be able to accomplish anything on the federal level.
- throwaway6734 5y agoThese are taxes that are already owed. Why are you in favor of people cheating on their taxes?
- LinuxBender 5y agoI probably should not compare a country to a company, but when a company starts getting more aggressive with debt collection that is sometimes a sign that the company is in trouble financially. Could that be the case here or is that just wild speculation on my part? Or is another possibility that these institutions are positioning themselves to become actual banks with their own ATMs so that one could entirely bypass the reporting that banks do for the IRS? Can people extract money from these institutions without interfacing with a bank throughout the transaction?
- ahallock 5y agoIncome tax was supposed to be temporary. It shouldn't even apply to people making under a certain amount because they have very little disposable income. The first say 50k, probably more, is eaten up pretty quickly by expenses. That's why so many people take out massive loans and go into credit card debt. I honestly think taxes like this are meant to subjugate what's left of the middle class and keep them from gaining financial traction.
- whimsicalism 5y ago61% of Americans paid no federal income tax in 2020.
- gruez 5y ago>Nearly 61% of U.S households paid no federal income taxes during pandemic-stricken year of 2020, because of declines in income and boosts to government subsidies that wiped away tax liabilities, according to data from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-18/u-s-households-paying-no-income-tax-hit-61-of-total-last-year https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-18/u-s-house... In other words, it's a one-off. Failing to mention that is highly misleading.
- legobmw99 5y ago43.6% in 2019 for anyone curious like me Source with both numbers: https://taxfoundation.org/us-households-paying-no-income-tax/ https://taxfoundation.org/us-households-paying-no-income-tax...
- stjohnswarts 5y agothanks you saved me from having to go look that up. Notice the person who posted that didn't also post how much of the wealth and revenue went to the upper 39% lol.
- cma 5y agoIt looks like they are including Puerto Rico (no federal income taxes)?
- telxosser 5y agoIs the single mother selling arts and crafts outside of society then? If anything this is the problem. No one thinks they should pay any taxes. Everyone basically wants to free roll the structures built from taxes without paying anything. I am hardly rich but I gladly pay taxes. I would prefer to pay less but that is the reason I vote. If you want to blow it all up then I think the counter to that is Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents. I even might gain personally in that world but overall it is a miserable world to live at the systems level. It is better to just pay taxes.
- genewitch 5y agoIs apple part of society? How much have they paid in US taxes?
- mdoms 5y agoWell I mean you (Americans) keep voting the same type of people into the white house and local offices, what do you expect? It's not like you haven't had options with better candidates.
- pessimizer 5y agoAll of our information about those candidates, and the world, comes from media outlets who support the same type of people in the white house and local offices. Those same companies own your media, too, but they probably care far less about who you vote for.
- whodunnit 5y agoPublic institutions have succumbed to regulatory capture everywhere. It’s the final stage of Capitalism.
- emptybottle 5y agoI'm more concerned with being double-taxed for splitting bills, then seeing small businesses receive 1099s for payments received through one of these systems. What bothers me is cases where people are taxed when being paid back for things like dinner out, or splitting a vacation rental. That income was already taxed. Using e.g. venmo to split the bill should not result in that money being double taxed as it changes hands.
- gruez 5y agosee: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29981813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29981813 Unless you're splitting your bill using commercial transactions, you're fine.
- emptybottle 5y agoThe title in both article and HN should reflect that.
- LorenPechtel 5y agoBut how does the IRS know what's what? What happens when you have both business and personal transactions with someone?
- rhino369 5y agoIt gets taxed the same as a single mom who works at Kroger during the pandemic. If you want to lower the taxes on single moms, increase child credits and raise the 0% tax rate bracket to cover higher incomes. Simple. If there are tax reporting issues that make it hard for side-hustle self proprietors to claim real expenses, which could be the case, let us fix it. But not reporting this income just because it was on a payment processor is just helping people cheating their taxes regardless of income level. That's not okay just because some of them are single moms.
- darrery 5y agoThis is why I don't use this kind of payment gateways.
- max_ 5y agoI call this "the structure of impunity". The rich simply cannot accept to get poorer.