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Writing the tax code to have the correct effect on the economy, and writing it to be easily navigable by normal people, are two separate problems. It's better
by Dove 17y ago
Writing the tax code to have the correct effect on the economy, and writing it to be easily navigable by normal people, are two separate problems. It's better to use software to decouple them (if you have to) so you can focus on the first.
Not that I wouldn't like it to be simpler. I would. But even with a completely optimal and just tax system, there still might be a place for such software.
- JimmyL 17y agoYeah, this is what pisses me off about people who suggest radical simplifications of the tax code - reminds me of Steve Yegge's Shit's Easy Syndrome. Taxation is difficult. There are a lot of weird things you can do with your money, and a whole industry out of making more of them - dealing with all that requires complexity. Even more so, as you mention, tax policy is a manifestation of social and economic policy - it's the way you implement those two, and if you're going to do it right, it's going to be complex. For a small small view of this, consider that as of now, you get a tax deduction for charitable donations. If you simply paid X% of your income, as many suggest, this would remove that deduction - and what do you think that would do to charitable giving in this county, and to the people that depend on the programs of those charities to survive?
- Dove 17y agoIt would remove an economic distortion, and I'm all for that; charitable giving, too, needs to be worth what you pay for it. Nonetheless, your example illustrates the point quite well. Simplifying the tax code, and making it do what you want it to do, are not the same problem.