4 ms·

I think GP is suggesting that some interests want the process of filing your taxes to be annoying/frustrating/degrading/disruptive to increase anti-tax sentimen

I think GP is suggesting that some interests want the process of filing your taxes to be annoying/frustrating/degrading/disruptive to increase anti-tax sentiment. (I.e., most people have already been deprived of the funds for some fraction of the year; what interest is served by making them waste time finding records and jumping through hoops and potentially paying a third party to help them provide the IRS with information that it mostly already has?)

sokoloff 3y ago
I think there's another group of people who want to more closely tie the notion that "government is funded by taxes" to "government spending programs are largely choices in the short-term and entirely choices in the long-term". To that end, I would like taxes to be due about 4 Tuesdays before the Election Day Tuesday. If you want to vote for politicians who are campaigning on spending a lot of taxpayer money for good programs, so be it, but do it with recent memory of having paid your taxes (assuming you are in the slight majority* who pay federal taxes on net). If you want to campaign on spending a given amount of taxpayer money, whether more, the same, or less than today, your campaign should be interpreted close to taxpaying time. I don't want it to be more onerous or annoying to pay taxes. I do want people to recognize that taxes and spending are linked (and frankly, ought to be more closely linked than they are today, IMO). * - which until very recently was a slight minority of households who paid federal taxes on net.
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  Some interesting points here: >I would like taxes to be due about 4 Tuesdays before the Election Day Tuesday. Most people pay taxes in small increments every 2 weeks then get a refund around tax day, so your plan may not do what you think. >I do want people to recognize that taxes and spending are linked To your own point, they really aren't. [0] >But do it with recent memory of having paid your taxes (assuming you are in the slight majority* who pay federal taxes on net) To add some color on this [1]: But, for the most part, people don’t pay income tax because they have little income. About 60 percent of non-payers make less than $30,000 and another 28 percent make between $30,000 and about $60,000. Of the 72 million households that will pay no federal income tax this year, about 24 million, or roughly one-third, are age 65 or older. [0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=17dyP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=17dyP [1]https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tpc-number-those-who-dont-pay-federal-income-tax-drops-pre-pandemic-levels https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tpc-number-those-who-...
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Oh, right. I did skip stating an important step in the plan [so, upvoted]. I would do away with the withholding scheme (perhaps creating a parallel savings mechanism) and force income earners to write a check/do an ACH for their taxes. Under that system, I'm totally fine if people get a $1K refund after writing a check for $15K in taxes withheld. That would still demonstrate the linkage sufficiently to inform their voting choices.
    - RC_ITR 3y ago
      Sure, but again to your own point, the share of voting Americans who don't earn income (and therefore pay no taxes) because they are over 65 is already 1/3 and only going to increase.[0] [0]https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/number-of-individuals-who-voted-in-thousands-and-individuals-who-voted-as-a-share-of-the-voter-population-by-age/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/number-of-individu...
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        There will always be zero tax payers with the right to vote. That's OK, especially since most of those who are now over 65 and retired worked and voted on reps/platforms/policies from 18-65 and earned income/paid taxes for probably ~40 of those years.
- bandyaboot 3y ago
  Is the status quo not fairly neutral in terms of which aspect of government spending is more fresh in peoples’ minds—the benefits vs the cost? Otherwise this just seems like it’s about biasing people in a particular direction.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Would you feel the same if you paid each restaurant bill six months after the meal, one week after the meal, or as you leave the restaurant?
    - bandyaboot 3y ago
      I think you need to ask a more precise question, because I honestly don’t know how to answer that.
- WWLink 3y ago
  I think what you really want is a receipt of how your tax money was spent for say, anything above $1. The problem is that would only apply to federal taxes. Not state or local income taxes, nor real estate taxes, or retail tax, or tax on gas or other things you might buy or use.

sokoloff 3y ago

I think there's another group of people who want to more closely tie the notion that "government is funded by taxes" to "government spending programs are largely choices in the short-term and entirely choices in the long-term". To that end, I would like taxes to be due about 4 Tuesdays before the Election Day Tuesday. If you want to vote for politicians who are campaigning on spending a lot of taxpayer money for good programs, so be it, but do it with recent memory of having paid your taxes (assuming you are in the slight majority* who pay federal taxes on net). If you want to campaign on spending a given amount of taxpayer money, whether more, the same, or less than today, your campaign should be interpreted close to taxpaying time. I don't want it to be more onerous or annoying to pay taxes. I do want people to recognize that taxes and spending are linked (and frankly, ought to be more closely linked than they are today, IMO). * - which until very recently was a slight minority of households who paid federal taxes on net.

RC_ITR 3y ago
Some interesting points here: >I would like taxes to be due about 4 Tuesdays before the Election Day Tuesday. Most people pay taxes in small increments every 2 weeks then get a refund around tax day, so your plan may not do what you think. >I do want people to recognize that taxes and spending are linked To your own point, they really aren't. [0] >But do it with recent memory of having paid your taxes (assuming you are in the slight majority* who pay federal taxes on net) To add some color on this [1]: But, for the most part, people don’t pay income tax because they have little income. About 60 percent of non-payers make less than $30,000 and another 28 percent make between $30,000 and about $60,000. Of the 72 million households that will pay no federal income tax this year, about 24 million, or roughly one-third, are age 65 or older. [0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=17dyP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=17dyP [1]https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tpc-number-those-who-dont-pay-federal-income-tax-drops-pre-pandemic-levels https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tpc-number-those-who-...
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Oh, right. I did skip stating an important step in the plan [so, upvoted]. I would do away with the withholding scheme (perhaps creating a parallel savings mechanism) and force income earners to write a check/do an ACH for their taxes. Under that system, I'm totally fine if people get a $1K refund after writing a check for $15K in taxes withheld. That would still demonstrate the linkage sufficiently to inform their voting choices.
  - RC_ITR 3y ago
    Sure, but again to your own point, the share of voting Americans who don't earn income (and therefore pay no taxes) because they are over 65 is already 1/3 and only going to increase.[0] [0]https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/number-of-individuals-who-voted-in-thousands-and-individuals-who-voted-as-a-share-of-the-voter-population-by-age/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/number-of-individu...
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      There will always be zero tax payers with the right to vote. That's OK, especially since most of those who are now over 65 and retired worked and voted on reps/platforms/policies from 18-65 and earned income/paid taxes for probably ~40 of those years.
bandyaboot 3y ago
Is the status quo not fairly neutral in terms of which aspect of government spending is more fresh in peoples’ minds—the benefits vs the cost? Otherwise this just seems like it’s about biasing people in a particular direction.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Would you feel the same if you paid each restaurant bill six months after the meal, one week after the meal, or as you leave the restaurant?
  - bandyaboot 3y ago
    I think you need to ask a more precise question, because I honestly don’t know how to answer that.
WWLink 3y ago
I think what you really want is a receipt of how your tax money was spent for say, anything above $1. The problem is that would only apply to federal taxes. Not state or local income taxes, nor real estate taxes, or retail tax, or tax on gas or other things you might buy or use.