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What’s crazy is that unreasonable taxes is one of the main reasons _why_ the British settlers rebelled against the Crown and went on to found America. The fact
by randmeerkat 5y ago
What’s crazy is that unreasonable taxes is one of the main reasons _why_ the British settlers rebelled against the Crown and went on to found America. The fact that nearly 250 years later we have an absurd, convoluted tax system, that literally requires specialists and companies with absurd market caps, for example Intuit has a $137B market cap, shows just how broken the system has become.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoThe central problem is the refusal of US governments (state & federal) to pay people money to do things they want to encourage rather than give them tax credits and whatnot.
- quantified 5y agoWell, Intuit lobbying/bribery has a lot to do with it in the last couple decades.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoI was referring to the complexity of the tax code, not the filing system itself.
- azemetre 5y agoComplexity of the tax code is just part of the system Intuit wants. If taxes were simple you wouldn't have to pay for unique software right?
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoWhile I absolute believe that Intuit and others are responsible for the lack of (1) free, highly functional e-filing and (2) response filing, the complexity in the US tax code is beyond their purview and precedes their existence.
- briandear 5y agoTaxes shouldn’t be used to get people to do things or not do things. Taxes should be used only to fund the essential services of the government: common defense, a legal system to enforce contracts, and that’s about it. When taxes are used as a means of control, that’s totalitarian. Tax policy should always be neutral.
- broptimist 5y agoSo you wouldn't be in favor of a carbon tax? What about a tax on tobacco sales in a universal healthcare system? (to offset tobacco users' additional healthcare costs)
- sgjohnson 5y agoI wouldn’t. And “sin taxes”, i.e. tobbaco taxes and carbon taxes are a logical fallacy. Tobacco tax won’t offset the additional healthcare costs for smokers on average, so it ends up just being a penalty for having a bad habit, and carbon tax will simply put a price tag on high carbon emissions.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 5y agoKind of tangential - the tobacco tax is a fallacy in another way: without taking into account quality of life adjustments, smokers are actually a net benefit for society in healthcare costs [1]. The simple reason is because they die earlier and most healthcare costs are incurred near the tail end of life, so by shortening those final years it becomes much cheaper for society to pay out. 1: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/6/e001678 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/6/e001678
- tmp_anon_22 5y agoHow many people die per year of second hand smoke? Smokers impact non-smokers significantly.
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
- sgjohnson 5y ago“Me and my homies woulda be stacking bodies by now” - George Washington, probably