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The unnecessary labor and expense is the point in this model. The argument is that taxes are bad and people should be a strong check on the government that is a

The unnecessary labor and expense is the point in this model. The argument is that taxes are bad and people should be a strong check on the government that is attempting to tax them. The more explicit and painful the process is (the theory goes) the more people will support limitations on taxes, rather than allowing them to expand unchecked. The theory makes sense, and the ends are laudable, but it doesn't work. Other ways of doing taxes do not even attempt to provide the benefit of this sort of built-in check on government excess, If you're willing to forgo that (or acknowledge that making people feel pain is not an effective policy tool in this case) then auto-filing solutions like the one in the article make a lot more sense.

BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
> The theory makes sense Regardless of how one feels about arguments against taxation, that theory for how to achieve it does not make sense. It is belligerent sleight of hand from people who want to preserve the status quo of a sheltered income funnel for the tax preparation economy at the extremely inefficient labor expense of everyone else. Here's the problem... You're literally creating something entirely unrelated (paperwork) for people to get mad about instead of getting mad about the thing that your argument claims they should be mad about (taxes). This is what we call in layman's terms a smoke screen. The only reason for not just sending an itemized receipt is to hide from people where their tax dollars go and to bury them in arduous paperwork so that they have less energy to focus on the actual issue of spending allocation. If your argument is earnestly and honestly that taxes are bad and people should attempt to limit government imposing new taxes, it does not matter one whit how painful the paperwork process is, because the paperwork process is not what you claim you seek to limit. If your argument is earnestly and honestly that taxes are bad and people should attempt to limit government imposing new taxes, JUST SEND AN ITEMIZED RECEIPT so that people can see the waste. If you earnestly and honestly think that taxes burden people more than they help, by not just sending an itemized receipt all you've done is hide that burden behind an obfuscated wall of secrecy and toil, which goes completely against what your argument claims it wants.
- interroboink 3y ago
  It seems your line of reasoning is predicated on the idea that people are rational about these things. I think that can be quite mixed, in reality. A counterpoint might be: if you earnestly and honestly want to change people's behavior via whatever means necessary, then non-logical correlation/causation associations, appeals to emotion, and other smokescreens as you mention are effective tools and may get you there faster than logical sequences would. That's just been my experience; YMMV.
  - BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
    The old "trick people into doing what you want, not what they want, by repeatedly lying to their faces" model of governance.
    - interroboink 3y ago
      There's certainly that, but in truth, I didn't mean it that way. More like: "trick people into doing what's in their own best interests, because their hearts may not swayed by logic, even if their minds are."

BugsJustFindMe 3y ago

> The theory makes sense Regardless of how one feels about arguments against taxation, that theory for how to achieve it does not make sense. It is belligerent sleight of hand from people who want to preserve the status quo of a sheltered income funnel for the tax preparation economy at the extremely inefficient labor expense of everyone else. Here's the problem... You're literally creating something entirely unrelated (paperwork) for people to get mad about instead of getting mad about the thing that your argument claims they should be mad about (taxes). This is what we call in layman's terms a smoke screen. The only reason for not just sending an itemized receipt is to hide from people where their tax dollars go and to bury them in arduous paperwork so that they have less energy to focus on the actual issue of spending allocation. If your argument is earnestly and honestly that taxes are bad and people should attempt to limit government imposing new taxes, it does not matter one whit how painful the paperwork process is, because the paperwork process is not what you claim you seek to limit. If your argument is earnestly and honestly that taxes are bad and people should attempt to limit government imposing new taxes, JUST SEND AN ITEMIZED RECEIPT so that people can see the waste. If you earnestly and honestly think that taxes burden people more than they help, by not just sending an itemized receipt all you've done is hide that burden behind an obfuscated wall of secrecy and toil, which goes completely against what your argument claims it wants.

interroboink 3y ago
It seems your line of reasoning is predicated on the idea that people are rational about these things. I think that can be quite mixed, in reality. A counterpoint might be: if you earnestly and honestly want to change people's behavior via whatever means necessary, then non-logical correlation/causation associations, appeals to emotion, and other smokescreens as you mention are effective tools and may get you there faster than logical sequences would. That's just been my experience; YMMV.
- BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
  The old "trick people into doing what you want, not what they want, by repeatedly lying to their faces" model of governance.
  - interroboink 3y ago
    There's certainly that, but in truth, I didn't mean it that way. More like: "trick people into doing what's in their own best interests, because their hearts may not swayed by logic, even if their minds are."