5 ms·

The income bracket stuff is so crazy. It's just another way to redistribute wealth, but that's not palatable to the US public so it takes weird forms like this.

The income bracket stuff is so crazy. It's just another way to redistribute wealth, but that's not palatable to the US public so it takes weird forms like this. It would be much more practical to abandon these piecemeal, market-distorting interventions and instead just do some smallish UBI. The money saved on overhead alone would probably be enormous.

prottog 3y ago
> just do some smallish UBI Smallish UBI is an oxymoron; I'm assuming by "smallish" you mean something that's insufficient to cover basic living expenses (the B in UBI). I agree that we should do away with market-distorting interventions in places that aren't strategically critical to the nation as a whole (like food production), but politicians are woefully inadequate to the task of resisting the urge to meddle.
- LegionMammal978 3y ago
  > Smallish UBI is an oxymoron; I'm assuming by "smallish" you mean something that's insufficient to cover basic living expenses (the B in UBI). Like it or not, the term UBI has been overloaded in common usage to refer to both forms. (Wikipedia notes that sometimes a "full basic income" vs. a "partial basic income" is used to disambiguate the two forms.) "Basic" in this sense just means that there is a set "basis" from which income can only increase; it does not necessarily have anything to do with "basic" living expenses, although many proposals do tie that particular connection.
  - prottog 3y ago
    Thank you; I was unaware of this common parlance. I understood that UBI implicitly meant something that one could live off of. In that case, I prefer something like a Friedmanesque negative income tax, versus the absurd scenario of, say, a pauper and a millionaire both receiving the same basic income; or indeed over the existing absurdities of the means-tested welfare system, with all of its perverse incentives.
a_humean 3y ago
Take a moment to look outside of your borders. In the UK we have a mostly progressive income tax system with various tax brackets, tax free allowances up to 12k GBP, claw backs of said allowance over incomes of a certain amount, national insurance taxation, student loan repayments, etc... The majority of UK citizens file no paperwork with HMRC (equivalent to the IRS) and never have a reason to contact HMRC. The majority of UK citizens only interaction with HMRC is when they get a summary letter in the post at most once a year telling them that everything is fine or they over/underpaid through the automated systems. In the latter casen they either are given the money owed or told that they will have to repay what is due through what is effectively an interest free loan over the course of the next 1-2 years (can be negotiated). The reason why this is possible is because employers report salaries to HMRC and its a deduction in their monthly payslips. You might say its not possible to do that in the US, but ask yourself how does the IRS actually know that you have misreported/underpaid? Its because they already know exactly how much you owe because the same information has already been reported to them by the banks and your employers. There is literately no point in tax filing for the majority of US citizen that work as an employee employer except to enable the parasitic tax filing industry to exist.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  It feels like you are arguing against a point I didn't make. I was responding to this section from the parent "it'll be much harder to restrict benefits only to specific income brackets, but it would be much simpler and cheaper for taxpayers." Also to "Take a moment to look outside of your borders.", I'm a German citizen where my dad is a retired tax officer and Iia business degree which involved accounting and taxation. I'm familiar with some taxation outside the US. If I weren't, there'd already have been dozens of other posts here describing the better tax filing solution in every country.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - a_humean 3y ago
    I apologise, I think I actually meant to reply the the parent above you. I was intending to criticise the implied premise that the problem with filing is that tax code is too complex, when its very possible in other complex tax justidictions to automate all of this away for most citizens (esp when the standard deductible is sufficient for almost everyone). There is evidence that its already possible to automate most of this away in the US because the data collection and calculation is already happening for most simple cases. I know this because I'm a dual citizen and I am constantly shocked at how terrible the IRS is and how relatively pleasant HMRC is. I just took it as non-sequitur to promote some other policy bug bear.

prottog 3y ago

> just do some smallish UBI Smallish UBI is an oxymoron; I'm assuming by "smallish" you mean something that's insufficient to cover basic living expenses (the B in UBI). I agree that we should do away with market-distorting interventions in places that aren't strategically critical to the nation as a whole (like food production), but politicians are woefully inadequate to the task of resisting the urge to meddle.

LegionMammal978 3y ago
> Smallish UBI is an oxymoron; I'm assuming by "smallish" you mean something that's insufficient to cover basic living expenses (the B in UBI). Like it or not, the term UBI has been overloaded in common usage to refer to both forms. (Wikipedia notes that sometimes a "full basic income" vs. a "partial basic income" is used to disambiguate the two forms.) "Basic" in this sense just means that there is a set "basis" from which income can only increase; it does not necessarily have anything to do with "basic" living expenses, although many proposals do tie that particular connection.
- prottog 3y ago
  Thank you; I was unaware of this common parlance. I understood that UBI implicitly meant something that one could live off of. In that case, I prefer something like a Friedmanesque negative income tax, versus the absurd scenario of, say, a pauper and a millionaire both receiving the same basic income; or indeed over the existing absurdities of the means-tested welfare system, with all of its perverse incentives.

a_humean 3y ago

Take a moment to look outside of your borders. In the UK we have a mostly progressive income tax system with various tax brackets, tax free allowances up to 12k GBP, claw backs of said allowance over incomes of a certain amount, national insurance taxation, student loan repayments, etc... The majority of UK citizens file no paperwork with HMRC (equivalent to the IRS) and never have a reason to contact HMRC. The majority of UK citizens only interaction with HMRC is when they get a summary letter in the post at most once a year telling them that everything is fine or they over/underpaid through the automated systems. In the latter casen they either are given the money owed or told that they will have to repay what is due through what is effectively an interest free loan over the course of the next 1-2 years (can be negotiated). The reason why this is possible is because employers report salaries to HMRC and its a deduction in their monthly payslips. You might say its not possible to do that in the US, but ask yourself how does the IRS actually know that you have misreported/underpaid? Its because they already know exactly how much you owe because the same information has already been reported to them by the banks and your employers. There is literately no point in tax filing for the majority of US citizen that work as an employee employer except to enable the parasitic tax filing industry to exist.

ajmurmann 3y ago
It feels like you are arguing against a point I didn't make. I was responding to this section from the parent "it'll be much harder to restrict benefits only to specific income brackets, but it would be much simpler and cheaper for taxpayers." Also to "Take a moment to look outside of your borders.", I'm a German citizen where my dad is a retired tax officer and Iia business degree which involved accounting and taxation. I'm familiar with some taxation outside the US. If I weren't, there'd already have been dozens of other posts here describing the better tax filing solution in every country.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- a_humean 3y ago
  I apologise, I think I actually meant to reply the the parent above you. I was intending to criticise the implied premise that the problem with filing is that tax code is too complex, when its very possible in other complex tax justidictions to automate all of this away for most citizens (esp when the standard deductible is sufficient for almost everyone). There is evidence that its already possible to automate most of this away in the US because the data collection and calculation is already happening for most simple cases. I know this because I'm a dual citizen and I am constantly shocked at how terrible the IRS is and how relatively pleasant HMRC is. I just took it as non-sequitur to promote some other policy bug bear.