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1) It has. 2) Tax enforcement is a cat and mouse game, efficiency from automatic data collection could be offset by any number of things like changes to the ta
by enragedcacti 2y ago
1) It has.
2) Tax enforcement is a cat and mouse game, efficiency from automatic data collection could be offset by any number of things like changes to the tax code or more advanced methods for tax evasion.
3) Efficiency relative to the 1980s is way less important than the efficiency of each marginal dollar. Refusing to fund the IRS over its efficiency is like skipping work because you need to find a faster route to the office first. Finding a faster route isn't a bad idea but it shouldn't take priority over the point of the whole endeavor.
- pembrook 2y agoI know big company/government types often (incorrectly) conflate "size of budget" with "amount of work being done." But this disincentivizes productivity and is a sign of a broken system of endlessly expanding do-nothing bureaucracy. The budget for [insert government agency] should never being growing steadily with population growth + inflation, assuming similar scope of work. This would mean government is wholly incapable of productivity, which would be a terrible outcome for the citizens who fund it. What evidence do you have that the amount of tax evasion on a per capita basis is more prevalent today than it was in the past? All numbers I've seen for Americans is that tax evasion has been reduced dramatically. Americans can't even hold money abroad anymore without it being automatically reported by every single bank in the world due to FATCA.
- ghaff 2y agoNot saying that opportunities for large-scale tax evasion don't exist--and you may disagree with policies at both the individual and corporate level that enable tax-avoidance--but the opportunities for people who are properly classified as the the 1%s or at least the top few percenters mostly don't exist without really going outside the law.