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"And tax politics make strange bedfellows. Fighting alongside H&R Block and Intuit are anti-tax activist groups like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.

"And tax politics make strange bedfellows. Fighting alongside H&R Block and Intuit are anti-tax activist groups like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. H&R Block and Intuit love taxes—that’s how they make their money. Grover Norquist wants to cut taxes wherever possible. But on this issue, their interests are aligned. H&R Block and Intuit want to make it difficult for you to file on your own. The anti-tax activists think that if taxpaying is too easy, voters will be less likely to resist the federal government’s growth. Both want to make it as painful as possible for you to do your taxes yourself." https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/07/18/tax-filing-congress-irs-000683/ https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/07/18/tax-filing-...

broken-kebab 3y ago
US taxes were pretty cumbersome before Intuit et al. Intuit wouldn't appear if not that. So your quote may partially explain resistance to change, but not causes.
- Retric 3y ago
  Taxes weren’t particularly difficult if like most people you were overpaying before this software showed up. The complexity was originally a way to effectively have different rules for people with accountants than regular citizens thus allowing politicians to shift the tax burden without making the carveouts obvious. Now days we just blatantly tax people living off investments less, etc. Thus defeating the original purpose of that complexity.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    And the reality today is that, if like a lot of people, you just have a W2 and maybe a 1099 or two, while the 1040 form is probably a bit intimidating, it's pretty straightforward if you're just taking the standard deduction as most people do since Trump era tax changes. Basically, if you're eligible for any of these direct-file arrangements, your taxes are pretty easy to file anyway. I'm all for simplifying tax filing but if you're just filing basic taxes and are willing to forgo any deductions you may be eligible for such as energy efficiency, it's pretty straightforward.
    - amerkhalid 3y ago
      I think they should get rid of all deductions at the individual levels. They just cause confusion and hide true cost of things. For example, I went to buy Jeep. 4xe version was $8000 more. But its battery lasts only 2-3 miles and it would have taken forever to breakeven. But dealership kept insisting that I will get $6000 in tax rebate/deductions so the actual cost is only $2000 more. They had marked up the car by how much government was going to give rebate on and there was no savings for a taxpayer. I tried to have them issue give me discount now and claim my car on their taxes but, of course, that was not going to work. I ended up buying a cheaper model. EDIT: Just checked the range, it is actually 21 miles on battery, which would have been enough for my usage. At that time, salesperson informed me that it was 3 miles or so. At 21 miles per charge, I may have bought 4xe. Math still doesn't workout, since I work from home I probably fill the gas tank once every 2-3 months. About $200-300 per year for gas. So it would have taken 7-10 years to breakeven after rebates.
      - thfuran 3y ago
        >They just cause confusion and hide true cost of things. Hiding the true cost is the point. Or rather, altering the true cost to incentivize something or other.
      - hedora 3y ago
        There are two limits on that deduction that are relevant. They can’t be applied to foreign built cars, and there is an income cap. The Koreans (Kia, Hyundai) found a loophole: The restrictions do not apply to commercial fleets, including vehicles leased to consumers. So, they offer lease incentives that are structured to give you $7500 off MSRP if you buy the vehicle out of a lease after the first month. No IRS paperwork required, and no chances of finding some other gotcha when you file your taxes. If the law hasn’t changed by the time I buy a new EV, I’m going to insist on this, regardless of whether it is domestic made.
      - Retric 3y ago
        The dealer wasn’t really lying just unclear. The car is not designed to stay fully electric until the battery hits zero because the ICE engine is only 150hp. Instead it’s optimized to be a hybrid that’s reserving battery power for acceleration, which lets the engine stay in more efficient and lower RPM ranges for much longer. You can press a button every time you get in to drain the battery but that’s really not the intended use. Anyway, the subsidy is really designed to setup the used car pipeline. In 20 years someone with significantly less money is probably going to be driving your car and they aren’t going to be thrilled with having ~14mph.
- runnr_az 3y ago
  In the 90s, I filed by phone once.
shiroiuma 3y ago
>The anti-tax activists think that if taxpaying is too easy, voters will be less likely to resist the federal government’s growth. Both want to make it as painful as possible for you to do your taxes yourself. This sounds a lot like the logic the US government uses with regards to normalizing relations with Cuba. They think that by keeping up an embargo, that the Cuban people will rise up and overthrow their communist government. It hasn't worked for over 60 years, but surely any day now it will...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mnky9800n 3y ago
  Are you trying to tell me sanctions don't work? That's absurd. Clearly the war in Ukraine is due to sanctions working.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    Sanctions haven't changed the regime in Cuba for over 60 years. The big problem with sanctions is that they aren't applied completely. The US refuses trade with Cuba, but many other countries don't, so they aren't effective. The same is true with Russia: lots of countries (like China) still trade with them, and many more still buy their oil/gas.
rocmcd 3y ago
Otherwise known as the "bootlegger and baptist" problem.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  TIL: > This theory was first put forward by economist Bruce Yandle in a 1983 article published in the American Enterprise Institute's magazine Regulation titled "Bootleggers and Baptists: The Education of a Regulatory Economist."[1] Yandle, at the time serving as executive director of the Federal Trade Commission, used the example of early 20th century Sunday closing laws restricting the sale of alcohol to illustrate his belief that "durable social regulation evolves when it is demanded by both of two distinctly different groups" - Baptists, who support a regulation for moral reasons, and bootleggers, who stand to gain economically from a regulation.[2] * https://ballotpedia.org/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://ballotpedia.org/Bootleggers_and_Baptists * https://www.aei.org/articles/viewpoint-bootleggers-and-baptists-the-education-of-a-regulatory-economist/ https://www.aei.org/articles/viewpoint-bootleggers-and-bapti... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20544240-bootleggers-and-baptists https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20544240-bootleggers-and... * https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/bootleggers-and-baptistshow-crony-capitalism-has-captured-regulatory-policy https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/bootleggers-and-baptistshow-c...
- wussboy 3y ago
  "Never invite just one baptist to go fishing with you or he'll drink all your beer." Related?
  - permo-w 3y ago
    that's a question actually: during prohibition were Americans allowed wine for mass?
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Yes, sacramental wine was legal. Not only that, but the production of sacramental wine is what kept some wineries from going out of business during prohibition.
justin66 3y ago
> Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform For those who don't know, Grover Norquist is a highly influential, batshit crazy right-wing ideologue who believes the estate tax is morally equivalent to the holocaust. Almost every Republican lawmaker on the national level signs a pledge he has written, swearing they will not raise taxes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24037730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24037730
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Grover is the figurehead, but he's got backing from plenty of other billionaires and other large tax-is-bad action group. also directly sprung from Bush Sr. saying "read my lips: no new taxes" and then immediately going the other way. that ruffled a few feathers and took the "tax bad" lobby into the Tea Party / Norquist insanity we've seen.
  - justin66 3y ago
    It's funny. I would not ever want to paint Norquist as an ultra-powerful shot-caller. I just assume those are the guys who donate the money and the guys decide who gets the donations. When you think about it in those terms, he's perhaps more of a cultural artifact. But wow, what an artifact! There has not been, to my knowledge, an instance of a newly elected US Senator publicly saying "signing this absurd thing is beneath the dignity of my office and of course I'm going to try to keep taxes low, the voters of xxx elected me because they know I'm a dedicated conservative, but it is impossible to guarantee that it will not be necessary to levy a new tax of some kind, so I am not going to promise that." Or something along those lines. He doesn't get to decide who gets the donations, but he does get to administer the Kool-Aid, and it's powerful stuff. (edit: it occurred to me that given the rules involving political donations, and PACs, and so on, he might be administering all kinds of money and the public wouldn't necessarily know about it, so... yeah...)

broken-kebab 3y ago

US taxes were pretty cumbersome before Intuit et al. Intuit wouldn't appear if not that. So your quote may partially explain resistance to change, but not causes.

Retric 3y ago
Taxes weren’t particularly difficult if like most people you were overpaying before this software showed up. The complexity was originally a way to effectively have different rules for people with accountants than regular citizens thus allowing politicians to shift the tax burden without making the carveouts obvious. Now days we just blatantly tax people living off investments less, etc. Thus defeating the original purpose of that complexity.
- ghaff 3y ago
  And the reality today is that, if like a lot of people, you just have a W2 and maybe a 1099 or two, while the 1040 form is probably a bit intimidating, it's pretty straightforward if you're just taking the standard deduction as most people do since Trump era tax changes. Basically, if you're eligible for any of these direct-file arrangements, your taxes are pretty easy to file anyway. I'm all for simplifying tax filing but if you're just filing basic taxes and are willing to forgo any deductions you may be eligible for such as energy efficiency, it's pretty straightforward.
  - amerkhalid 3y ago
    I think they should get rid of all deductions at the individual levels. They just cause confusion and hide true cost of things. For example, I went to buy Jeep. 4xe version was $8000 more. But its battery lasts only 2-3 miles and it would have taken forever to breakeven. But dealership kept insisting that I will get $6000 in tax rebate/deductions so the actual cost is only $2000 more. They had marked up the car by how much government was going to give rebate on and there was no savings for a taxpayer. I tried to have them issue give me discount now and claim my car on their taxes but, of course, that was not going to work. I ended up buying a cheaper model. EDIT: Just checked the range, it is actually 21 miles on battery, which would have been enough for my usage. At that time, salesperson informed me that it was 3 miles or so. At 21 miles per charge, I may have bought 4xe. Math still doesn't workout, since I work from home I probably fill the gas tank once every 2-3 months. About $200-300 per year for gas. So it would have taken 7-10 years to breakeven after rebates.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      >They just cause confusion and hide true cost of things. Hiding the true cost is the point. Or rather, altering the true cost to incentivize something or other.
    - hedora 3y ago
      There are two limits on that deduction that are relevant. They can’t be applied to foreign built cars, and there is an income cap. The Koreans (Kia, Hyundai) found a loophole: The restrictions do not apply to commercial fleets, including vehicles leased to consumers. So, they offer lease incentives that are structured to give you $7500 off MSRP if you buy the vehicle out of a lease after the first month. No IRS paperwork required, and no chances of finding some other gotcha when you file your taxes. If the law hasn’t changed by the time I buy a new EV, I’m going to insist on this, regardless of whether it is domestic made.
    - Retric 3y ago
      The dealer wasn’t really lying just unclear. The car is not designed to stay fully electric until the battery hits zero because the ICE engine is only 150hp. Instead it’s optimized to be a hybrid that’s reserving battery power for acceleration, which lets the engine stay in more efficient and lower RPM ranges for much longer. You can press a button every time you get in to drain the battery but that’s really not the intended use. Anyway, the subsidy is really designed to setup the used car pipeline. In 20 years someone with significantly less money is probably going to be driving your car and they aren’t going to be thrilled with having ~14mph.
runnr_az 3y ago
In the 90s, I filed by phone once.

shiroiuma 3y ago

>The anti-tax activists think that if taxpaying is too easy, voters will be less likely to resist the federal government’s growth. Both want to make it as painful as possible for you to do your taxes yourself. This sounds a lot like the logic the US government uses with regards to normalizing relations with Cuba. They think that by keeping up an embargo, that the Cuban people will rise up and overthrow their communist government. It hasn't worked for over 60 years, but surely any day now it will...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mnky9800n 3y ago
Are you trying to tell me sanctions don't work? That's absurd. Clearly the war in Ukraine is due to sanctions working.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  Sanctions haven't changed the regime in Cuba for over 60 years. The big problem with sanctions is that they aren't applied completely. The US refuses trade with Cuba, but many other countries don't, so they aren't effective. The same is true with Russia: lots of countries (like China) still trade with them, and many more still buy their oil/gas.

rocmcd 3y ago

Otherwise known as the "bootlegger and baptist" problem.

throw0101b 3y ago
TIL: > This theory was first put forward by economist Bruce Yandle in a 1983 article published in the American Enterprise Institute's magazine Regulation titled "Bootleggers and Baptists: The Education of a Regulatory Economist."[1] Yandle, at the time serving as executive director of the Federal Trade Commission, used the example of early 20th century Sunday closing laws restricting the sale of alcohol to illustrate his belief that "durable social regulation evolves when it is demanded by both of two distinctly different groups" - Baptists, who support a regulation for moral reasons, and bootleggers, who stand to gain economically from a regulation.[2] * https://ballotpedia.org/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://ballotpedia.org/Bootleggers_and_Baptists * https://www.aei.org/articles/viewpoint-bootleggers-and-baptists-the-education-of-a-regulatory-economist/ https://www.aei.org/articles/viewpoint-bootleggers-and-bapti... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20544240-bootleggers-and-baptists https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20544240-bootleggers-and... * https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/bootleggers-and-baptistshow-crony-capitalism-has-captured-regulatory-policy https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/bootleggers-and-baptistshow-c...
wussboy 3y ago
"Never invite just one baptist to go fishing with you or he'll drink all your beer." Related?
- permo-w 3y ago
  that's a question actually: during prohibition were Americans allowed wine for mass?
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Yes, sacramental wine was legal. Not only that, but the production of sacramental wine is what kept some wineries from going out of business during prohibition.

justin66 3y ago

> Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform For those who don't know, Grover Norquist is a highly influential, batshit crazy right-wing ideologue who believes the estate tax is morally equivalent to the holocaust. Almost every Republican lawmaker on the national level signs a pledge he has written, swearing they will not raise taxes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24037730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24037730

red-iron-pine 3y ago
Grover is the figurehead, but he's got backing from plenty of other billionaires and other large tax-is-bad action group. also directly sprung from Bush Sr. saying "read my lips: no new taxes" and then immediately going the other way. that ruffled a few feathers and took the "tax bad" lobby into the Tea Party / Norquist insanity we've seen.
- justin66 3y ago
  It's funny. I would not ever want to paint Norquist as an ultra-powerful shot-caller. I just assume those are the guys who donate the money and the guys decide who gets the donations. When you think about it in those terms, he's perhaps more of a cultural artifact. But wow, what an artifact! There has not been, to my knowledge, an instance of a newly elected US Senator publicly saying "signing this absurd thing is beneath the dignity of my office and of course I'm going to try to keep taxes low, the voters of xxx elected me because they know I'm a dedicated conservative, but it is impossible to guarantee that it will not be necessary to levy a new tax of some kind, so I am not going to promise that." Or something along those lines. He doesn't get to decide who gets the donations, but he does get to administer the Kool-Aid, and it's powerful stuff. (edit: it occurred to me that given the rules involving political donations, and PACs, and so on, he might be administering all kinds of money and the public wouldn't necessarily know about it, so... yeah...)