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I could say the same thing about the need to select proper platforms and technologies for scaling a website or SaaS (i.e,. AWS, database choice, even language c

by rprasad 14y ago

I could say the same thing about the need to select proper platforms and technologies for scaling a website or SaaS (i.e,. AWS, database choice, even language choice)..."A system in which people need to worry about planning and optimizing their technology platform for future expectations rather than just building something that works from the ge-go is flawed." But that's not the way tech works. And that's not the way tax works either. If you are a small fry, the tax burden (or savings) will not be large enough to matter (because as a corporation, you get taxed on net income, i.e., profits). Affording a tax lawyer to "game" the tax system won't be necessary until you are at the scale where you are already pulling in serious profits. Ultimately, people tend to vastly overestimate (or underestimate) the difficulty of activities outside of their profession.

tolmasky 14y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but your analogy is severely flawed. Nothing forces taxes to be complicated, its not some sort of inherent property of taxes -- and in fact regardless of where people stand on whether taxes should be higher or lower, I rarely find someone who disagrees that taxes are too complicated in the US. The people who seem happiest with the status quo are precisely the ones whose employment relies on it (no offense). I'm really surprised you'd then compare this situation to choosing between different available techs: it has nothing in common except "being hard". This is a legitimate expense from a natural consequence of invention: there are going to be several options with different trade-offs. You act as if Amazon is doing you a disservice by providing you with another option. Unlike the tax world, if there was a way to simplify this choice, everyone in the industry would immediately jump on board. You don't have to take my word for it, its the pattern we've been seeing from the beginning of technology. Making and scaling website today is vastly simpler than 10, 15, and 20 years ago. Can you say the same for taxes? Or have taxes become increasingly harder to deal with as time progresses? Many aspects of running a website that required experts yesterday are completely automated today. In other words, the cost of "choosing a platform" is justified because there is no workaround and it is not an artificial position that you have been placed in. On the other hand, you have not proven that there is no alternative to a convoluted tax system that requires tax experts -- and furthermore it is not even clear what the benefits of a convoluted tax system even are. BTW, I am not taking a position on this, I am simply pointing out that that is the correct attack vector: explaining why this system that requires tax experts is necessary vs saying "Sure it is hard, but many other things are also hard." EDIT: Added last sentence.
- enjo 14y ago
  Nothing forces taxes to be complicated, its not some sort of inherent property of taxes -- I think it very well might be. At least with how everyone actually utilize taxes. After all, government routinely utilize taxes (or rebates) as incentives to create desired outcomes. You want more businesses moving into your area? Change the taxes. You want more home-owners? Change the taxes. You want more money for education? Change the taxes. That's how you arrive at complex tax codes. It goes well beyond income taxes as well. You want a simple income tax? Fine, but I'm going to use sales taxes, road tolls, and a whole host of other mechanisms to get the desired behavior. So it may not be an inherent property of taxes, but I'm not sure those things can ever really be separated.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    Since we're drawing weird analogies with technology platforms anyways, Refactor refactor refactor. Sure, tech companies have the grand luxury of having fewer stakeholders to be accountable to, but surely it's possible to refactor, refine, and reduce the tax code every so often?
    - einhverfr 14y ago
      The problem is getting the politicians to give up their favorite features in the process of removing these bugs. ;-)
      - saraid216 14y ago
        Indeed. To drag the analogy further, the politicians are being engineers of the tax code when they should really be its product owners. Should politicians really be responsible for the minutiae of how many numbers to put where, or should they simply give higher-level directives, such as "incentivize alternative energy"?
- einhverfr 14y ago
  I think something does force taxes to be complicated though and that is the fact that taxes are a useful tool of public policy and it is often one of the easiest ones to use. For example the federal government in the US can enact income and excise taxes to accomplish things that are otherwise outside the general powers of our federal government, such as heavily restricting machine gun ownership. I think as soon as taxes become a political tool, or a tool of public policy the question isn't whether they will become complicated but rather how complicated they will become. The floor here seems to me to be based on the willingness of the average voter to put up with the complexity vs the desire to see their public policy goals enacted. I think that these play out in two ways: 1) Local taxes tend towards less complexity than taxes which are national. 2) Taxes which everyone reports tend towards less complexity than taxes which few people report. Consider the current trends in state sales tax reporting vs trends in state income tax reporting...... There's no question that sales tax reporting on average is more complex now than income tax on a state level, and that its becoming more complex faster.

by rprasad 14y ago

tolmasky 14y ago

I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but your analogy is severely flawed. Nothing forces taxes to be complicated, its not some sort of inherent property of taxes -- and in fact regardless of where people stand on whether taxes should be higher or lower, I rarely find someone who disagrees that taxes are too complicated in the US. The people who seem happiest with the status quo are precisely the ones whose employment relies on it (no offense). I'm really surprised you'd then compare this situation to choosing between different available techs: it has nothing in common except "being hard". This is a legitimate expense from a natural consequence of invention: there are going to be several options with different trade-offs. You act as if Amazon is doing you a disservice by providing you with another option. Unlike the tax world, if there was a way to simplify this choice, everyone in the industry would immediately jump on board. You don't have to take my word for it, its the pattern we've been seeing from the beginning of technology. Making and scaling website today is vastly simpler than 10, 15, and 20 years ago. Can you say the same for taxes? Or have taxes become increasingly harder to deal with as time progresses? Many aspects of running a website that required experts yesterday are completely automated today. In other words, the cost of "choosing a platform" is justified because there is no workaround and it is not an artificial position that you have been placed in. On the other hand, you have not proven that there is no alternative to a convoluted tax system that requires tax experts -- and furthermore it is not even clear what the benefits of a convoluted tax system even are. BTW, I am not taking a position on this, I am simply pointing out that that is the correct attack vector: explaining why this system that requires tax experts is necessary vs saying "Sure it is hard, but many other things are also hard." EDIT: Added last sentence.

enjo 14y ago
Nothing forces taxes to be complicated, its not some sort of inherent property of taxes -- I think it very well might be. At least with how everyone actually utilize taxes. After all, government routinely utilize taxes (or rebates) as incentives to create desired outcomes. You want more businesses moving into your area? Change the taxes. You want more home-owners? Change the taxes. You want more money for education? Change the taxes. That's how you arrive at complex tax codes. It goes well beyond income taxes as well. You want a simple income tax? Fine, but I'm going to use sales taxes, road tolls, and a whole host of other mechanisms to get the desired behavior. So it may not be an inherent property of taxes, but I'm not sure those things can ever really be separated.
- saraid216 14y ago
  Since we're drawing weird analogies with technology platforms anyways, Refactor refactor refactor. Sure, tech companies have the grand luxury of having fewer stakeholders to be accountable to, but surely it's possible to refactor, refine, and reduce the tax code every so often?
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    The problem is getting the politicians to give up their favorite features in the process of removing these bugs. ;-)
    - saraid216 14y ago
      Indeed. To drag the analogy further, the politicians are being engineers of the tax code when they should really be its product owners. Should politicians really be responsible for the minutiae of how many numbers to put where, or should they simply give higher-level directives, such as "incentivize alternative energy"?
einhverfr 14y ago
I think something does force taxes to be complicated though and that is the fact that taxes are a useful tool of public policy and it is often one of the easiest ones to use. For example the federal government in the US can enact income and excise taxes to accomplish things that are otherwise outside the general powers of our federal government, such as heavily restricting machine gun ownership. I think as soon as taxes become a political tool, or a tool of public policy the question isn't whether they will become complicated but rather how complicated they will become. The floor here seems to me to be based on the willingness of the average voter to put up with the complexity vs the desire to see their public policy goals enacted. I think that these play out in two ways: 1) Local taxes tend towards less complexity than taxes which are national. 2) Taxes which everyone reports tend towards less complexity than taxes which few people report. Consider the current trends in state sales tax reporting vs trends in state income tax reporting...... There's no question that sales tax reporting on average is more complex now than income tax on a state level, and that its becoming more complex faster.