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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 i

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
  > Sounds like nonsense to me. With sufficient friction, many people pay an accountant or some tax software to maybe do it right or wrong. Not only that, I can give you a better way to make people conspicuously aware of the amount they're paying in taxes: 1) Stop requiring income tax withholding at all. Instead, require an equivalent amount to be contributed to an IRA and not withdrawn in the same year. 2) No withdrawal penalty for using money in a 401(k) to pay your taxes. The problem withholding solves is to prevent people from spending the money they would owe in tax by the end of the year, which this also does. But now there is no more "tax refund check" whatsoever, and no confusion that the government is paying you instead of the other way around. Instead you have to write a check against your retirement fund to the IRS, in the full amount of your tax. No need to make the filing process a bureaucratic mess. Also encourages people to have an IRA, if they don't.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
intended 3y ago
It opens people’s eyes, but to what? Correct me if I am wrong, but the point of the American obsession on taxes links back to not tolerating bad leaders and the encroachment on freedoms. In that sense, it seems here the goal is to make people aware of the ‘intrusion’ in their life and naturally will seek to reduce it. Looking at the political rhetoric for the USA, there are many assumptions and conversations baked into that position. For example, the assumption being that leaders are very likely corrupt, and the fewer resources they have to squander the better. Extending from this, it would be prudent to not work via government, and do so by private enterprise. So on and so forth. Why would people, logical people, continue to frame their RoI from government actions and public resources as a zero sum game? Yes, There is great space for emotion, team loyalty in our lives, however economics and resource allocation for the betterment of all can be assessed objectively. I assume that this is the intent of reminding people of how taxes are used. Having it framed that way - “painful”, “eye-opening”, “taking from paychecks”, puts you actively in opposition to the government. Isn’t the point to encourage attentive, engaged citizenry, not biased citizenry? This defeats the purpose does it not?
- 6510 3y ago
  A) If it does great stuff it should get more money. B) If it doesn't it should get less.
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    The problem is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy either way. The government can’t do anything without money but it can with money. One of the biggest problems in the US is that federal taxes are so high, that there is barely any room for state and local taxes (where you’d get the most bang for your buck) to do anything useful.
Terr_ 3y ago
The problem is it doesn't work in a way which is effective to honest ends. The best theoretical outcome relies on a strange world where people are normal right until a magically-frustrating trigger event remakes them into homo-economicus which read government budgets for fun and spreadsheets out their personalized cost/benefit analyzes. I don't think that happens. Instead of checking where the money is going--or having a similar epiphany about all the "free" results they take for granted--people just go: "tax too high somebody fix it somehow", opening the door for demagogues. One could imagine another model, where filing is easy, but the government is required to show you where it all goes... But that's not usually in the interests of the "anti-tax" politicians, since it would highlight deficit-spending or programs they could not cut without putting themselves in an uncomfortable reelection position.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
So the IRS mails every person a letter that clearly shows the taxes they have paid. Now they get letter that says “you paid $10,000 in federal taxes this year” and they are informed. Why make everyone miserable just to make that point?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

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
> Sounds like nonsense to me. With sufficient friction, many people pay an accountant or some tax software to maybe do it right or wrong. Not only that, I can give you a better way to make people conspicuously aware of the amount they're paying in taxes: 1) Stop requiring income tax withholding at all. Instead, require an equivalent amount to be contributed to an IRA and not withdrawn in the same year. 2) No withdrawal penalty for using money in a 401(k) to pay your taxes. The problem withholding solves is to prevent people from spending the money they would owe in tax by the end of the year, which this also does. But now there is no more "tax refund check" whatsoever, and no confusion that the government is paying you instead of the other way around. Instead you have to write a check against your retirement fund to the IRS, in the full amount of your tax. No need to make the filing process a bureaucratic mess. Also encourages people to have an IRA, if they don't.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

intended 3y ago

It opens people’s eyes, but to what? Correct me if I am wrong, but the point of the American obsession on taxes links back to not tolerating bad leaders and the encroachment on freedoms. In that sense, it seems here the goal is to make people aware of the ‘intrusion’ in their life and naturally will seek to reduce it. Looking at the political rhetoric for the USA, there are many assumptions and conversations baked into that position. For example, the assumption being that leaders are very likely corrupt, and the fewer resources they have to squander the better. Extending from this, it would be prudent to not work via government, and do so by private enterprise. So on and so forth. Why would people, logical people, continue to frame their RoI from government actions and public resources as a zero sum game? Yes, There is great space for emotion, team loyalty in our lives, however economics and resource allocation for the betterment of all can be assessed objectively. I assume that this is the intent of reminding people of how taxes are used. Having it framed that way - “painful”, “eye-opening”, “taking from paychecks”, puts you actively in opposition to the government. Isn’t the point to encourage attentive, engaged citizenry, not biased citizenry? This defeats the purpose does it not?

6510 3y ago
A) If it does great stuff it should get more money. B) If it doesn't it should get less.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  The problem is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy either way. The government can’t do anything without money but it can with money. One of the biggest problems in the US is that federal taxes are so high, that there is barely any room for state and local taxes (where you’d get the most bang for your buck) to do anything useful.

Terr_ 3y ago

The problem is it doesn't work in a way which is effective to honest ends. The best theoretical outcome relies on a strange world where people are normal right until a magically-frustrating trigger event remakes them into homo-economicus which read government budgets for fun and spreadsheets out their personalized cost/benefit analyzes. I don't think that happens. Instead of checking where the money is going--or having a similar epiphany about all the "free" results they take for granted--people just go: "tax too high somebody fix it somehow", opening the door for demagogues. One could imagine another model, where filing is easy, but the government is required to show you where it all goes... But that's not usually in the interests of the "anti-tax" politicians, since it would highlight deficit-spending or programs they could not cut without putting themselves in an uncomfortable reelection position.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

So the IRS mails every person a letter that clearly shows the taxes they have paid. Now they get letter that says “you paid $10,000 in federal taxes this year” and they are informed. Why make everyone miserable just to make that point?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]