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They are. They want to make tax filing as painful as possible so that the people associate "taxes => pain" and vote to lower/abolish them. Easy or automatic fi

They are. They want to make tax filing as painful as possible so that the people associate "taxes => pain" and vote to lower/abolish them. Easy or automatic filing makes people forget about taxes and not care as much about them. This is also why sales taxes aren't included in item prices, this forces people to be reminded every single day how much they're paying in taxes, motivating them to reduce them.

soup10 3y ago
Yes let's make taxes as automatic and as hidden as possible so that we can keep the enormous government slush funds running as seamlessly as possible without people complaining and questioning things.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago
  Automatic != hidden. Painless != hidden. The fact that you want to cause extra pain to those who can't pay big money lawyers to simply make a point says more about your political leanings than anything else in this comment.
  - soup10 3y ago
    The original comment was complaining that sales taxes aren't hidden. I'm a centrist but the OP was so delusionally pro-taxes I had to say something.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
anon373839 3y ago
Not a Republican, but I think it’s a great idea for taxes to have enough friction that voters consider what they’re getting in return for what they pay. With income taxes being withheld from employees’ paychecks, taxes are already pretty invisible to a lot of people. When you become self-employed and have to hold back xx% of your earnings yourself, it’s an eye-opener!
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Sounds like nonsense to me. With sufficient friction, many people pay an accountant or some tax software to maybe do it right or wrong. If you want to make tax rates visible, just send a simple statement showing taxes owed divided by the tax basis. Also, spending hours doing a tax return tells taxpayers nothing about what they get in return.
  - anon373839 3y ago
    My argument isn’t that preparing a tax return is informative per se. Rather, it creates a time to reflect on the cost of taxes and their value proposition. For similar reasons, companies prefer subscription pricing with auto-renewal. If customers had to look at a bill and manually pay it each month, more of them would realize they don’t need a particular service.
    - piva00 3y ago
      Inflicting pain to create reflection? I don't think that's the best way to achieve what you propose. It just creates a lot of wasted effort across the whole population, people can't decide to stop paying taxes like a subscription if they so want to, the only power they have is to vote some people in that might (or might not) change the taxation based on their platforms, that's basically powerless and you support creating friction and inflicting pain in those individuals every single year with a loft notion that people will stop and reflect about what they are paying. They won't, they will just hate filing taxes, while being on the hook if they send the IRS the wrong figure (which they already know about), it's simply insane that the USA does not provide pre-filled tax forms like so many other developed economies.
    - zardo 3y ago
      > Rather, it creates a time to reflect on the cost of taxes and their value proposition. Create time? It uses up my time, leaving less time for reflecting on public policy, or anything else.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
neltnerb 3y ago
Personally I'd attribute it to lobbyists hitting both parties pretty aggressively, but I'm sure some have this idea. If taxes are complicated then it means it's easy to fit in loopholes (or fair tradeoffs depending on your point of view usually) The last one though really just seems obvious from a competitive standpoint, you look cheaper if you can say that 5% of the price is not your fault. Didn't this just come up with airline ticket prices recently? Everyone wants to tack on fees and taxes at the end to make their product show up higher in search results.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  > Personally I'd attribute it to lobbyists hitting both parties pretty aggressively, but I'm sure some have this idea FWIW, it's the official position of the anti-tax advocacy group "Americans for Tax Reform", whose pledge all but 13 sitting Republicans have signed.
tzs 3y ago
I doubt that part about sales taxes. Sales taxes are state, not federal. There are states that are solidly under Republican control and there are states that are solidly under Democrat control yet they all handle sales tax the same way. If there was anything political about why sales taxes aren’t included in item prices we’d expect to see differences between states. The real reason is most likely the large variability of sales tax within most states. If sales tax were included in item prices you could not print the prices on packaging until you knew what place a particular item would be sold. And what price would you put in advertising when the ad will be seen by people in areas with different sales tax rates?
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > The real reason is most likely the large variability of sales tax within most states. There is a much simpler explanation: It would make the prices look higher, which would reduce sales, which isn't to the advantage of the business or the tax collector. Notice that they also do the equivalent for income tax from the other end -- the advertised salary for the job is the pre-tax number.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  > we’d expect to see differences between states. possibly misunderstanding, but the border between Oregon and Washington has an immediate sales tax change, and income tax change in teh opposite direction.

soup10 3y ago

Yes let's make taxes as automatic and as hidden as possible so that we can keep the enormous government slush funds running as seamlessly as possible without people complaining and questioning things.

polygamous_bat 3y ago
Automatic != hidden. Painless != hidden. The fact that you want to cause extra pain to those who can't pay big money lawyers to simply make a point says more about your political leanings than anything else in this comment.
- soup10 3y ago
  The original comment was complaining that sales taxes aren't hidden. I'm a centrist but the OP was so delusionally pro-taxes I had to say something.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

anon373839 3y ago

Not a Republican, but I think it’s a great idea for taxes to have enough friction that voters consider what they’re getting in return for what they pay. With income taxes being withheld from employees’ paychecks, taxes are already pretty invisible to a lot of people. When you become self-employed and have to hold back xx% of your earnings yourself, it’s an eye-opener!

lotsofpulp 3y ago
Sounds like nonsense to me. With sufficient friction, many people pay an accountant or some tax software to maybe do it right or wrong. If you want to make tax rates visible, just send a simple statement showing taxes owed divided by the tax basis. Also, spending hours doing a tax return tells taxpayers nothing about what they get in return.
- anon373839 3y ago
  My argument isn’t that preparing a tax return is informative per se. Rather, it creates a time to reflect on the cost of taxes and their value proposition. For similar reasons, companies prefer subscription pricing with auto-renewal. If customers had to look at a bill and manually pay it each month, more of them would realize they don’t need a particular service.
  - piva00 3y ago
    Inflicting pain to create reflection? I don't think that's the best way to achieve what you propose. It just creates a lot of wasted effort across the whole population, people can't decide to stop paying taxes like a subscription if they so want to, the only power they have is to vote some people in that might (or might not) change the taxation based on their platforms, that's basically powerless and you support creating friction and inflicting pain in those individuals every single year with a loft notion that people will stop and reflect about what they are paying. They won't, they will just hate filing taxes, while being on the hook if they send the IRS the wrong figure (which they already know about), it's simply insane that the USA does not provide pre-filled tax forms like so many other developed economies.
  - zardo 3y ago
    > Rather, it creates a time to reflect on the cost of taxes and their value proposition. Create time? It uses up my time, leaving less time for reflecting on public policy, or anything else.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago

neltnerb 3y ago

Personally I'd attribute it to lobbyists hitting both parties pretty aggressively, but I'm sure some have this idea. If taxes are complicated then it means it's easy to fit in loopholes (or fair tradeoffs depending on your point of view usually) The last one though really just seems obvious from a competitive standpoint, you look cheaper if you can say that 5% of the price is not your fault. Didn't this just come up with airline ticket prices recently? Everyone wants to tack on fees and taxes at the end to make their product show up higher in search results.

kalleboo 3y ago
> Personally I'd attribute it to lobbyists hitting both parties pretty aggressively, but I'm sure some have this idea FWIW, it's the official position of the anti-tax advocacy group "Americans for Tax Reform", whose pledge all but 13 sitting Republicans have signed.

tzs 3y ago

I doubt that part about sales taxes. Sales taxes are state, not federal. There are states that are solidly under Republican control and there are states that are solidly under Democrat control yet they all handle sales tax the same way. If there was anything political about why sales taxes aren’t included in item prices we’d expect to see differences between states. The real reason is most likely the large variability of sales tax within most states. If sales tax were included in item prices you could not print the prices on packaging until you knew what place a particular item would be sold. And what price would you put in advertising when the ad will be seen by people in areas with different sales tax rates?

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> The real reason is most likely the large variability of sales tax within most states. There is a much simpler explanation: It would make the prices look higher, which would reduce sales, which isn't to the advantage of the business or the tax collector. Notice that they also do the equivalent for income tax from the other end -- the advertised salary for the job is the pre-tax number.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
> we’d expect to see differences between states. possibly misunderstanding, but the border between Oregon and Washington has an immediate sales tax change, and income tax change in teh opposite direction.