> By that time, the Republican narrative had taken hold: The IRS had to be “held accountable” for wasting millions on lavish conferences and persecuting conservative nonprofits for their political beliefs.
That is very dismissive of some very salient complaints about how groups were targeted. Read the Wikipedia article. This isn't moonbat pizzagate nonsense. Among keywords targeted were "open source software", "medical marijuana", and "Israel".
A Democratic senator said:
> U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said, "We should not only fire the head of the IRS, which has occurred, but we've got to go down the line and find every single person who had anything to do with this and make sure that they are removed from the IRS and the word goes out that this is unacceptable."
Definitely not great behavior. The idea this was purely an anti-conservative thing when OSS advocacy is on this list is where my eyes glaze over though. Just on its face there is a lot of evidence in the other direction
>Ryun has stated he believes that Greenhouse Solutions benefited from its name (although the quick approval might also be due to the fact that Greenhouse Solutions was already operating as a nonprofit and was already on-file with the IRS.)
Like “conservative claims bias (but here is the real explanation).” Might as well place “claims to be innocent “ in the profile of every person in Shawshank
The insistence of people bringing up this thing as a conservative thing only when there were liberal groups also being targeted (There could have been a proper bipartisan effort against this!) is mind-boggling.
The reality is that 100% of the groups "targeted" by the IRS, mostly Republican and a few Democratic, were and are obviously, blatantly violating tax law in order to launder political activity through a fake tax-free group, to dodge taxes and hinder accountability. Every one of them was and is guilty. For every election cycle nowadays, thousands of these paper front groups are created for laundering political funds, and most of them are discarded at the end of the cycle. It's the most blatant tax fraud imaginable.
Every US government agency charged with looking into this said as much - no political bias, IRS completely right to do what it did, which is "enforce tax law".
However, political pressure from Republicans and a few Democrats convinced the IRS to back down, which was a sad outcome for people who dislike corruption in their government.
And recently, the Trump government used a lawsuit settlement to funnel a great deal of taxpayer cash to Republican operatives based on a very flimsy claim. That's an excellent method of backdoor embezzlement itself - just have Republican groups sue the government for anything and have the executive branch "settle" their claims for infinite dollars.
More like “Democratic”. She played the “see, I can be a Conservative too!” game to try to get the “small government” voters, and it didn’t even work anyway. Might as well quote Rand Paul because the whole “IRS is mean to Republicans” was definitely not a bipartisan belief except for red state Democrats.
Should audit selection be completly random? If your goal is to catch fraud, isn't it good to try and prioritize audits based on probability of fraud hapenning?
I'm also not sure what is discriminatory. Is being audited costly to the organisation? Otherwise, it shouldn't really be a big deal to be audited no? Unless you're actually committing fraud. Or to I misunderstand the scandal, and they claim that people were fined even though they didn't commit tax fraud?
> "No business would fail to fund a unit that, on average, brought in $7 for every dollar spent. Shareholders would rebel and bring lawsuits, or at least oust the management or board of directors," Olson wrote in her preface to the report. "Yet this is precisely what we are doing with the IRS budget."[0]
Sounds like the IRS should be the most funded government agency.
Yeah, especially because tax avoidance is an insanely difficult problem to fight once it gets big enough. I mean it's impossible to prosecute at once even 10% of the country for not paying taxes.
Imagine the US going through a Greece episode, which was caused in big part by tax avoidance. To this day it's perfectly fine in Greece to ask for a ~20% "cash discount" in almost any shop, which of course means simply not paying the VAT tax (similar to the US sales tax).
It has diminishing returns, but right now the budget is still on the steep part of the graph so funding it makes a lot of sense unless you're a tax cheat.
I take pride in paying my taxes. It reminds me that our society has a cost, and we all contribute towards it.
I’d be interested to know how others feel. And how we could inspire more people to feel pride in contributing rather than make such efforts to avoid contributing.
> I take pride in paying my taxes. It reminds me that our society has a cost, and we all contribute towards it.
Society's cost needs to be constrained by taxpayers. We need to put pressure on our governments to spend our tax dollars efficiently.
I live in California, so I pay state income tax as well as Federal income tax. I don't think I get as much per dollar of my tax as someone in Europe does. Europeans pay a little bit more than me (yes, only a little bit, I did the math) and get a lot more from their government, including comprehensive public transit that makes transit in the USA look like a joke, a much better social safety net, comprehensive health care not tied to their employers, schools that are actually good, low-cost higher education, etc. People in the UK get more from their government under Tory austerity policies than Americans ever got.
I don't want to pay more taxes until I get more for each dollar. If the Europeans can do it, so can we, but the political will does not exist here.
I don't take pride at all. It is burdensome, worrying, and hostile for the following reasons.
1) My taxes are overly complicated. I have to hire lawyers and accountants to help. They have made mistakes but I am still liable.
2) My tax bracket pays a very high rate. With state taxes included I am near 50% on income. I don't think that's reasonable and the justification, in my opinion, is more based on a suspicion or dislike of people in my bracket than because I can afford to pay. The government spends far more than it's revenue anyways. If my bracket were moved to 100%, there would still be revenue deficits.
3) The IRS treats me as if I am hiding money. The higher your bracket it seems the more likely you are to be audited. My father has been audited multiple times. I have been audited once. It is not a pleasant experience and every letter the IRS sends causes more anxiety. Honest or trivial mistakes are treated as if done with criminal intent.
4) Nearly half the population does not pay taxes but can elect people who can choose what my rates are. I will never have a majority representation or much power to lower them. This doesn't seem fair to me.
5) The IRS can very well be incompetent or corrupt in the sense of being political but no one will admit that. The assumption is generally that tax cheats are a problem but not a biased IRS.
For me to be proud, I think lowering my rate, simplifying taxes, requiring more Americans to pay, even if it is just a few dollars, and putting something in place to report overzealous IRS agents or corruption there would go a long way.
My feelings are similar to yours when it comes to paying my LOCAL taxes (e.g. property and sales). Because:
(1) I care about the services that my local government provides (e.g. schools, parks, libraries, roads and infrastructure), and
(2) My local county happens to do a good job at providing those services.
On the contrary, I view the FEDERAL government as a complete and utter mess. Spending all of my contributions (as well as those borrowed from my grandkids) on grotesquely inefficient entitlement programs, an imperial military, and basically just bribing corrupt government officials so that anything can get passed at all. I feel no moral qualms whatever with avoiding those taxes to the extent legally possible.
I'm with you. But many people do not agree with us, and the last I heard, the ROI on each dollar spent at the IRS is higher than almost anywhere else in government. Hollowing out the IRS, and by extension the federal budget, has been a goal of one of our political parties for a very long time. It's sad to see them succeeding in a way that will cost our country dearly in the long term.
I take pride in efficient services provided by taxation, and have extreme contempt for arbitrary taxation to support those that are inefficient, sometimes arrogantly so.
In Toronto, the folks that collect change at the TTC (i.e Metro) stations, earn over $100K a year if they work over time.
On my last visit - I had to stand in line for 20 minutes merely to buy a token with change. There were no change machines and no means for me to use even a debit/credit card.
The 'pass' that they offer (i.e. you load it up, more for commuters) cannot even be bought by the people selling tokens. It's absurd and outrageous. Granted there is some overlap of systems going on as they move to the new pass system - it's still stupendously insulting.
I pay my taxes because I'd be in jail if I didn't. So much of what I pay goes to killing people all over the world, spreading the US hegemony, and jailing people for victimless "crimes" which I personally consider to be non-issues, that I'm disgusted each year when I tabulate my taxes.
So, you feel pride, I feel disgust. Society does have a cost, but building shared infrastructure and whatnot doesn't have to be funded via just one mechanism, one which can do whatever it feels like all over the world.
All the things I think are worth taxing for constantly seem to be underfunded. We seem to have plenty of money for the things I think are wrong.
If you're the government, you can always spend the money on stuff you want but your constituents don't want, and then tell them you have to raise taxes to pay for the things they want.
I'm a foreigner in the US and am thankful for the public infrastructure (even the old ones) and more than happy to pay taxes. I find a lot of Americans complain about taxes (even those who are on welfare, forgetting that taxes paid by others is what helping them in the first place). I went to my local library to become a member. The old lady there asked me if I live in the area and launched a lecture (even after I showed address proof) about how she is paying her taxes and she wants to make sure her "tax dollars" are used only by those in the area etc. The whole thing was bizarre.
What is interesting is that taxes in US are actually lower than many European countries. Sure, the federal gov isn't the most efficient one, but hating taxes THIS much just feels weird and wrong to me. Without taxes, civilization as we know will collapse
I had terrible experiences with the public school system growing up, and I doubt it's been fixed since then. I do not trust the government to do the right thing as a result. The government is yet another organization made up of people (or really, smaller organizations made up of people) who aren't necessarily doing their job correctly (or incorrectly, to be fair).
Also, our "society" and the government are not the same thing. Paying taxes to the government is not the same thing as paying your dues to society. As an example, if I have to pick between which person "contributes" to "society" more, a person who pays $0 in taxes because they work but earn very little versus a person who pays $0 in taxes because all their income is made illegally through theft, I can easily point to the former as being a better contributor to society. Similarly, one could make a case against the contributions of someone who pays a lot in taxes because they own a business that harms the environment or has other negative externalities. The point is that taxes are a rather poor measure of contribution to society. It's simply a reward of resources to government which, at least in the US, transforms those resources into a lot of shit including death in other countries.
I will admit that I think this is all necessary in order for the whole system to work, but I'm not going to pretend that the government is good or even, simply, not as bad as corporations. The attitude that taxes are something to be prideful about just seems like cheerleading. Not making a personal dig at you, that's just how I feel about the attitude.
And personally, I'll probably never feel prideful in contributing to taxes. Or maybe when I start receiving social security in several decades. Basically, it would take a lot to convince me that my previous most significant experience with the government (through my education) is unimportant and these other reasons (A, B, C, etc.) over here -- that I've had no personal experience with -- show that government is actually really very good and I should be proud to pay taxes.
I fail to find any pride in being forced to pay the price I have no influence over for goods I have no say in either production or distribution. Yes, I know that that's what I signed for when moving into the US to live as a non-citizen alien (not that becoming a citizen would change anything - voting in California, esp. SV part, is next to useless, the outcomes are predetermined anyway), and it's probably a better deal than most of other countries would offer me (that's why I took it), but it doesn't make me bubbling with joy.
I recognize that there's probably no realistic way to avoid it, but as it is for a person having to take drugs due to chronic illness, recognizing the necessity of having to do something does not mean being happy or proud about it. It's just a part of harsh reality. Especially if you take interest in particular details of how the massive trillion-size budgets are spent and how much money is wasted or stolen (illegally or legally) from it. No, platitudes of "society has a cost" do not do much for me. Food has a cost too, but if I'm offered a McDonald's sandwich for $100, I may pay for it and eat it, if all other food around is worse and more expensive, but I won't be proud or happy about it. And would take any legal effort available to me to keep my money out of the taxman's reach. When I feel the need to contribute to some cause, I just open my favorite charities list (unfortunately, much longer than my budget - after taxes - affords me to support adequately) and donate there.
Good for you. I definitely support and encourage you and I will get the benefit too. That being said, will I happily pay my tax? Haha no. I would not hesitate to cheat if the risk is very low.
An IRS budget of $14B means each person in the USA is paying $43 per year to fund the agency (including children).
At the Federal minimum wage, after taxes, that's about a full working day to pay it off. If you have a non-working spouse and one child, three working days.
So it seems like a lot to me.
Here's an idea, why don't we simplify our Byzantine tax filing processes so that the whole thing doesn't cost so much. I know, I know, all that sweet H&R Block tax lobbyist money is addictive, but it would be better for the country if congress would put down the pipe.
The political support for underfunding the IRS comes from the complexity of the US tax code combined with the extraordinary powers of the IRS. It leaves the average taxpayer with the feeling that could be audited and even jailed at any time for non-compliance with some obscure rule.
I am an Australian and I fear the IRS more than the ATO, not because I owe the IRS anything (I am not a US taxpayer), but because I have US customers. There is probably some obscure form or reporting requirement I have missed or filled in incorrectly that could make me the target of some arbitrary action by the IRS. You can see why foreign financial institutions just won’t have anything to do with US taxpayers.
All very sad. It is time to bring the wealthiest back to heel. Companies and individuals cannot be above the law or the states which sustain their lives and businesses will crumble. Time to take back control.
Maybe if we had simpler tax code instead of byzantine monstrosity that happens now, when even professionals can't be sure if particular payment is right, and there's no hope regular citizen can figure it out - we'd not need as much funding to the IRS as we need now. But that would mean giving up the power to control people's decisions by messing with taxation - one of the most powerful levers of control Federal Government can have over the private citizen (Obamacare individual mandate has been deemed a "tax", because that'd make it within Fed's constitutional powers) and one of the most powerful levers to control the economy. Having simple tax code removes that power, and that's why it would not become simple.
> Cutting the IRS’s budget didn’t make sense to him. It was one of the few areas of government that had a positive return on investment
> Since the IRS-reform bill in 1998, the agency is prohibited from evaluating agents based on how much money they bring in. Instead, they are evaluated on how efficiently they open and close audits
I find these pretty interesting. It does feel a little fishy, given the IRS can actually be a revenue generating center for the government. Which would be very different if it was costing more then it brought in.
Seems to me, though I'm not American, that many Americans take issue with the arduous process of paying tax in America. I suggest you take a look at Estonia's tax collection system and it's efficiency as a potential model.
i guess there should be more enforcement but im not a big fan of an organization that presidents have used again their enemies. Also beauracies tend to grow over time and the amount of tax they need (both sides unfortunately). I would bet california breaks 10% sales tax this decade
The IRS administers and enforces the income tax laws beyond the parameters of the laws passed by Congress and signed by the President as well as beyond the parameters laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Moreover, the IRS’s own internal procedures, manuals and literature itself indicate the IRS knowingly deceives the American public about the scope of its true income tax authority.
Classic "Republican" playbook: instead of killing a govt agency/service directly, slowly de-fund it over years until it's crippled, then use said crippled state as "you see, the state just can't provide healthcare/telecom/infrastructure efficiently, it must be privatized" justification, then deliver the remainders on a silver platter for the ultra rich to siphon the profits off.
The IRS has a $12,000,000,000 to spend, and we're worried about a few millionaires not paying their taxes? I'm much more concerned about the first part, how on earth did we give that astronomical amount of funding to that agency and what in the heck are they doing with $12b that couldn't be done with $12m?
I swear people dont understand the size of the US and the scope of problems they tackle. And think everything is a startup for 40 people putting up a SPA. There are 325 million people in the US and that's not counting any companies.
12B means ~$40 annual cost to validate each person's taxes. That's nothing. That's including tracking down fraudsters, costs of audits, ensuring correctness.
One millionaire avoiding taxes is avoiding way more than $40 of responsibility...
For easier math, let's assume that 330m Americans file 120m tax returns. So all in, collection, processing, auditing, technology, customer support (which is excellent btw), management, compliance, etc would be ~$0.10 per return? Even at ~$100 that seems pretty well run. Scale costs.
[+] [-] humanrebar|7 years ago|reply
That is very dismissive of some very salient complaints about how groups were targeted. Read the Wikipedia article. This isn't moonbat pizzagate nonsense. Among keywords targeted were "open source software", "medical marijuana", and "Israel".
A Democratic senator said:
> U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said, "We should not only fire the head of the IRS, which has occurred, but we've got to go down the line and find every single person who had anything to do with this and make sure that they are removed from the IRS and the word goes out that this is unacceptable."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
[+] [-] rtpg|7 years ago|reply
>Ryun has stated he believes that Greenhouse Solutions benefited from its name (although the quick approval might also be due to the fact that Greenhouse Solutions was already operating as a nonprofit and was already on-file with the IRS.)
Like “conservative claims bias (but here is the real explanation).” Might as well place “claims to be innocent “ in the profile of every person in Shawshank
The insistence of people bringing up this thing as a conservative thing only when there were liberal groups also being targeted (There could have been a proper bipartisan effort against this!) is mind-boggling.
[+] [-] jellicle|7 years ago|reply
Every US government agency charged with looking into this said as much - no political bias, IRS completely right to do what it did, which is "enforce tax law".
However, political pressure from Republicans and a few Democrats convinced the IRS to back down, which was a sad outcome for people who dislike corruption in their government.
And recently, the Trump government used a lawsuit settlement to funnel a great deal of taxpayer cash to Republican operatives based on a very flimsy claim. That's an excellent method of backdoor embezzlement itself - just have Republican groups sue the government for anything and have the executive branch "settle" their claims for infinite dollars.
[+] [-] messick|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] didibus|7 years ago|reply
Should audit selection be completly random? If your goal is to catch fraud, isn't it good to try and prioritize audits based on probability of fraud hapenning?
I'm also not sure what is discriminatory. Is being audited costly to the organisation? Otherwise, it shouldn't really be a big deal to be audited no? Unless you're actually committing fraud. Or to I misunderstand the scandal, and they claim that people were fined even though they didn't commit tax fraud?
[+] [-] theandrewbailey|7 years ago|reply
Sounds like the IRS should be the most funded government agency.
[0] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/national-taxpayer-advocate-deli...
[+] [-] anonymouzz|7 years ago|reply
Imagine the US going through a Greece episode, which was caused in big part by tax avoidance. To this day it's perfectly fine in Greece to ask for a ~20% "cash discount" in almost any shop, which of course means simply not paying the VAT tax (similar to the US sales tax).
Edit: let me self-correct - this does not seem to be an actual problem in the US - with this plot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion#Government_respo...
[+] [-] jandrese|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|7 years ago|reply
> "Yet this is precisely what we are doing with the IRS budget."
They might, if $8 out of the $7 brought in by that unit were cannibalized from other units.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] GabrielBen|7 years ago|reply
If all the money were to go to the IRS, congratulations, you achieved communism.
[+] [-] SamReidHughes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RileyJames|7 years ago|reply
I’d be interested to know how others feel. And how we could inspire more people to feel pride in contributing rather than make such efforts to avoid contributing.
[+] [-] twblalock|7 years ago|reply
Society's cost needs to be constrained by taxpayers. We need to put pressure on our governments to spend our tax dollars efficiently.
I live in California, so I pay state income tax as well as Federal income tax. I don't think I get as much per dollar of my tax as someone in Europe does. Europeans pay a little bit more than me (yes, only a little bit, I did the math) and get a lot more from their government, including comprehensive public transit that makes transit in the USA look like a joke, a much better social safety net, comprehensive health care not tied to their employers, schools that are actually good, low-cost higher education, etc. People in the UK get more from their government under Tory austerity policies than Americans ever got.
I don't want to pay more taxes until I get more for each dollar. If the Europeans can do it, so can we, but the political will does not exist here.
[+] [-] oTTjRQxkTz|7 years ago|reply
1) My taxes are overly complicated. I have to hire lawyers and accountants to help. They have made mistakes but I am still liable.
2) My tax bracket pays a very high rate. With state taxes included I am near 50% on income. I don't think that's reasonable and the justification, in my opinion, is more based on a suspicion or dislike of people in my bracket than because I can afford to pay. The government spends far more than it's revenue anyways. If my bracket were moved to 100%, there would still be revenue deficits.
3) The IRS treats me as if I am hiding money. The higher your bracket it seems the more likely you are to be audited. My father has been audited multiple times. I have been audited once. It is not a pleasant experience and every letter the IRS sends causes more anxiety. Honest or trivial mistakes are treated as if done with criminal intent.
4) Nearly half the population does not pay taxes but can elect people who can choose what my rates are. I will never have a majority representation or much power to lower them. This doesn't seem fair to me.
5) The IRS can very well be incompetent or corrupt in the sense of being political but no one will admit that. The assumption is generally that tax cheats are a problem but not a biased IRS.
For me to be proud, I think lowering my rate, simplifying taxes, requiring more Americans to pay, even if it is just a few dollars, and putting something in place to report overzealous IRS agents or corruption there would go a long way.
[+] [-] StevePerkins|7 years ago|reply
My feelings are similar to yours when it comes to paying my LOCAL taxes (e.g. property and sales). Because:
(1) I care about the services that my local government provides (e.g. schools, parks, libraries, roads and infrastructure), and
(2) My local county happens to do a good job at providing those services.
On the contrary, I view the FEDERAL government as a complete and utter mess. Spending all of my contributions (as well as those borrowed from my grandkids) on grotesquely inefficient entitlement programs, an imperial military, and basically just bribing corrupt government officials so that anything can get passed at all. I feel no moral qualms whatever with avoiding those taxes to the extent legally possible.
[+] [-] andyburke|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sonnyblarney|7 years ago|reply
In Toronto, the folks that collect change at the TTC (i.e Metro) stations, earn over $100K a year if they work over time.
On my last visit - I had to stand in line for 20 minutes merely to buy a token with change. There were no change machines and no means for me to use even a debit/credit card.
The 'pass' that they offer (i.e. you load it up, more for commuters) cannot even be bought by the people selling tokens. It's absurd and outrageous. Granted there is some overlap of systems going on as they move to the new pass system - it's still stupendously insulting.
[+] [-] malvosenior|7 years ago|reply
* I don't pay an exorbitant amount of my monthly income to health insurance, mostly due to government meddling in that industry.
* Billions of dollars of weapons aren't deployed in theaters I don't want to fund wars in.
* I see some sort of efficiency or really, non-corruption at the local and state level with the money I'm paying.
Until then, I will continue to feel exploited and that my money would be of better use in the private sector.
[+] [-] oppositelock|7 years ago|reply
So, you feel pride, I feel disgust. Society does have a cost, but building shared infrastructure and whatnot doesn't have to be funded via just one mechanism, one which can do whatever it feels like all over the world.
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|7 years ago|reply
If you're the government, you can always spend the money on stuff you want but your constituents don't want, and then tell them you have to raise taxes to pay for the things they want.
[+] [-] akudha|7 years ago|reply
What is interesting is that taxes in US are actually lower than many European countries. Sure, the federal gov isn't the most efficient one, but hating taxes THIS much just feels weird and wrong to me. Without taxes, civilization as we know will collapse
[+] [-] isoskeles|7 years ago|reply
I had terrible experiences with the public school system growing up, and I doubt it's been fixed since then. I do not trust the government to do the right thing as a result. The government is yet another organization made up of people (or really, smaller organizations made up of people) who aren't necessarily doing their job correctly (or incorrectly, to be fair).
Also, our "society" and the government are not the same thing. Paying taxes to the government is not the same thing as paying your dues to society. As an example, if I have to pick between which person "contributes" to "society" more, a person who pays $0 in taxes because they work but earn very little versus a person who pays $0 in taxes because all their income is made illegally through theft, I can easily point to the former as being a better contributor to society. Similarly, one could make a case against the contributions of someone who pays a lot in taxes because they own a business that harms the environment or has other negative externalities. The point is that taxes are a rather poor measure of contribution to society. It's simply a reward of resources to government which, at least in the US, transforms those resources into a lot of shit including death in other countries.
I will admit that I think this is all necessary in order for the whole system to work, but I'm not going to pretend that the government is good or even, simply, not as bad as corporations. The attitude that taxes are something to be prideful about just seems like cheerleading. Not making a personal dig at you, that's just how I feel about the attitude.
And personally, I'll probably never feel prideful in contributing to taxes. Or maybe when I start receiving social security in several decades. Basically, it would take a lot to convince me that my previous most significant experience with the government (through my education) is unimportant and these other reasons (A, B, C, etc.) over here -- that I've had no personal experience with -- show that government is actually really very good and I should be proud to pay taxes.
[+] [-] smsm42|7 years ago|reply
I recognize that there's probably no realistic way to avoid it, but as it is for a person having to take drugs due to chronic illness, recognizing the necessity of having to do something does not mean being happy or proud about it. It's just a part of harsh reality. Especially if you take interest in particular details of how the massive trillion-size budgets are spent and how much money is wasted or stolen (illegally or legally) from it. No, platitudes of "society has a cost" do not do much for me. Food has a cost too, but if I'm offered a McDonald's sandwich for $100, I may pay for it and eat it, if all other food around is worse and more expensive, but I won't be proud or happy about it. And would take any legal effort available to me to keep my money out of the taxman's reach. When I feel the need to contribute to some cause, I just open my favorite charities list (unfortunately, much longer than my budget - after taxes - affords me to support adequately) and donate there.
[+] [-] matz1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jblow|7 years ago|reply
So it seems like a lot to me.
Here's an idea, why don't we simplify our Byzantine tax filing processes so that the whole thing doesn't cost so much. I know, I know, all that sweet H&R Block tax lobbyist money is addictive, but it would be better for the country if congress would put down the pipe.
[+] [-] danieltillett|7 years ago|reply
I am an Australian and I fear the IRS more than the ATO, not because I owe the IRS anything (I am not a US taxpayer), but because I have US customers. There is probably some obscure form or reporting requirement I have missed or filled in incorrectly that could make me the target of some arbitrary action by the IRS. You can see why foreign financial institutions just won’t have anything to do with US taxpayers.
[+] [-] hkt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] didibus|7 years ago|reply
> Cutting the IRS’s budget didn’t make sense to him. It was one of the few areas of government that had a positive return on investment
> Since the IRS-reform bill in 1998, the agency is prohibited from evaluating agents based on how much money they bring in. Instead, they are evaluated on how efficiently they open and close audits
I find these pretty interesting. It does feel a little fishy, given the IRS can actually be a revenue generating center for the government. Which would be very different if it was costing more then it brought in.
[+] [-] RickJWagner|7 years ago|reply
"Proof the IRS Didn't Target Just Conservatives", from early on in the scandal
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/proof-t...
After the evidence was overwhelming and denial was impossible:
"New Documents Show the IRS Targeted 'Progressive' and 'Tea Party' Groups for Extra Scrutiny"
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/new-doc...
[+] [-] amaccuish|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PHGamer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnadx|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hulton|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] davidgrenier|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmccaf|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BoiledCabbage|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fwip|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lvngdfns|7 years ago|reply
In addition, consider this: https://www.numbersusa.com/news/irs-12-million-illegal-alien...
[+] [-] mschuster91|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BoiledCabbage|7 years ago|reply
12B means ~$40 annual cost to validate each person's taxes. That's nothing. That's including tracking down fraudsters, costs of audits, ensuring correctness.
One millionaire avoiding taxes is avoiding way more than $40 of responsibility...
[+] [-] pchristensen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] devmunchies|7 years ago|reply