Happy Tax Day!

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Tax code could be quite simple and transparent, but then folks wouldn't get to deduct charitable donations or home mortgage interest. They wouldn't get a child care credit and couldn't claim a home office. Yeah, all that social engineering.

In most nations if the government doesn't want you to do something they make it illegal. Here we tax it more. Makes the tax code bonkers. If the government wants to encourage you they give you a tax break instead of just paying you. It appears to be what we want, since no one is really serious about reforming it. So we all use computer algorithms or accountants.

Complaining about paying tax is in a special class of stupid. Sort of like complaining about dying.
 
steingar said:
Tax code could be quite simple and transparent, but then folks wouldn't get to deduct charitable donations or home mortgage interest. They wouldn't get a child care credit and couldn't claim a home office. Yeah, all that social engineering.

In most nations if the government doesn't want you to do something they make it illegal. Here we tax it more. Makes the tax code bonkers. If the government wants to encourage you they give you a tax break instead of just paying you. It appears to be what we want, since no one is really serious about reforming it. So we all use computer algorithms or accountants.

Complaining about paying tax is in a special class of stupid. Sort of like complaining about dying.
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Yes, all that is social engineering. And it certainly complicates the tax code.
 
jsstevens said:
Yes, all that is social engineering. And it certainly complicates the tax code.
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Yup. We could have a tax code where you could fill it out on a postcard. Wouldn't be a bit difficult. But no deductions, credits, and whatnot. Anathema to the American electorate. So we have complicated taxes about which everyone *******.
 
steingar said:
Yup. We could have a tax code where you could fill it out on a postcard. Wouldn't be a bit difficult. But no deductions, credits, and whatnot. Anathema to the American electorate. So we have complicated taxes about which everyone *******.
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Anathema? I have never met a single person who has been opposed to a postcard tax return such as you describe.

The only people opposed to it are our overlords, for they know that much of their power depends on the tax code.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Anathema? I have never met a single person who has been opposed to a postcard tax return such as you describe.

The only people opposed to it are our overlords, for they know that much of their power depends on the tax code.
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And an entire sub-section of the bar who makes a living off of the complexity of the code and lobbying for special tax breaks.
 
jsstevens said:
Yes, all that is social engineering. And it certainly complicates the tax code.
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Social engineering, like using tax money to pay people not to get married when they have kids! o_O Damn the idea of a family raising a child, let's make it more lucrative to be single with kids! :rolleyes:
 
NHWannabe said:
And an entire sub-section of the bar who makes a living off of the complexity of the code and lobbying for special tax breaks.
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Not to mention CPA's who spend a lot of time and money figuring out how to use the tax code to help their clients pay the least amount possible. Hopefully mine is doing a good job. :)
 
steingar said:
They will the second they loose their favorite deduction or credit.
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The issue with removing deductions or credits for the average person is they have built their financial plan around the tax consequences of their actions, whether it's mortgage interest, capital gains, or what ever. It will be hard to change the deductions without a corresponding reduction in rates to even out the tax burden. It's like when I started working tax rates were higher, but you could deduct everything from sales tax to credit card interest and as rates went down so did deductions.
 
steingar said:
They will the second they loose their favorite deduction or credit.
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I did "lose" some of my deductions this year, and I am not happy about it. I will work hard to be sure that does not happen next year.
 
frfly172 said:
Now that I'm retired,I pay every year due to the piddly amount of social security I get. I'm ready for a flat tax. Feeling the Bern,and his 13 % tax rate.
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Cruz was shooting for a 10%, which I'll take over 13 and someone who will try to make this government even bigger and the country more socialist.
 
EppyGA said:
Guessing all of those people before 1913 were unpatriotic
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The govt used to live off of selling all the land they owned...then they ran out of saleable land...

PPC1052 said:
45% of households pay no taxes.
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Propaganda. They may not pay income taxes but between payroll taxes, sales taxes, tolls, gas taxes, etc., they still, on average, pay a greater percentage of their total income in taxes than the typical "well off" taxpayer.
 
timwinters said:
Propaganda. They may not pay income taxes but between payroll taxes, sales taxes, tolls, gas taxes, etc., they still, on average, pay a greater percentage of their total income in taxes than the typical "well off" taxpayer.
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Oops. You caught my error. I meant income taxes. Sorry. But I also pay all the other taxes they do, too. (Except cigarette taxes.)
 
timwinters said:
Nothing political about this thread!

But...

This thread is a testament that D.C. isn't nearly as effed up as the average American is. When did we quit believing it was our patriotic duty to pay our fair share of taxes and rather we choose to ***** about every penny because we no longer have a sense of community?

The last year I was in business (2011), I signed 16 returns but rather than *****, I simply thanked this great country for affording me the opportunity to have business that prospered, flourished, and needed my signature on those returns.

Taxes are pretty much as low as they've ever been. Government waste is nothing new. What's changed is the selfishness of the average American.

IBTL!
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Not really complaining about having to pay taxes. But more about the convoluted manner in which we determine how much we owe.
 
PPC1052 said:
Oops. You caught my error. I meant income taxes. Sorry. But I also pay all the other taxes they do, too. (Except cigarette taxes.)
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Indeed you do, but they are all extremely regressive.
 
bluerooster said:
Not really complaining about having to pay taxes. But more about the convoluted manner in which we determine how much we owe.
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Exactly!

Taxes are necessary and beneficial. Unfortunately, the process now being used to collect them is corrupt and counterproductive, and has created several generations of scofflaws and cynics.
 
Taxes are needed, but we should can about 70% of all the taxes we pay and trim to government to fit said budget.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Anathema? I have never met a single person who has been opposed to a postcard tax return such as you describe.

The only people opposed to it are our overlords, for they know that much of their power depends on the tax code.
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Go ask your local church-goer what they think about losing the deduction for their tithing to the their church. Ask their Pastor what he thinks about his church needing to pay property taxes on their land and building.
 
PPC1052 said:
45% of households pay no taxes.
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False. About that many pay no federal income tax, but they do pay many other taxes and sometimes have a total tax burden higher than wealthier people.

Also, those 45% are making $32K or less. Try living on that sometime before you complain about them.
 
Yawn, here we go, pay no fed income tax = ok, pay 10s or 100s of thousands in fed income tax = not paying "fair share". Bull****.


Edit: Whoa, is bull**** ok to say here now? Didn't filter out.
 
bluerooster said:
Not really complaining about having to pay taxes. But more about the convoluted manner in which we determine how much we owe.
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Having sat through and struggled with seven hours of course work in post graduate school on tax law, and as someone with an undergraduate degree in economics, I hear ya. It's stupid how much tax law there is and how complicated it is.
 
PPC1052 said:
Having sat through and struggled with seven hours of course work in post graduate school on tax law, and as someone with an undergraduate degree in economics, I hear ya. It's stupid how much tax law there is and how complicated it is.
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Very true. But the problem is, everyone wants their slice of the pie but don't want anybody else to have their's.
 
timwinters said:
Very true. But the problem is, everyone wants their slice of the pie but don't want anybody else to have their's.
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That's true. But you also get the vicious circle that occurs when people modify their behavior to avoid a tax so the bureaucrats re-write the law, so people modify their behavior again, so they re-write the law again, etc. etc.
 
GlennAB1 said:
We're returning, to visit, those taxes from the prior year, and we're returning documentation to the IRS that confirms we were taxed properly, by law.
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You sound more and more like a politician with every strange answer.
 
James331 said:
Taxes are needed, but we should can about 70% of all the taxes we pay and trim to government to fit said budget.
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Social Security, Medicare, Military, Transportation and Debt make up over 90% of the US budget and generally nobody is willing to compromise on those.

There is no 70% cut that can be made. So when a politician promises to gut all of the "waste" spending like NASA, NEA, EPA, DOE, etc. it will lower you tax rate at most by like 5%. And much less than that if they care about balancing the budget.
 
Lots of fat you could cut off most of that, just the millitary alone is a HUUUUGE waste, invading a new country every week doesn't really benefit Main Street.
 
James331 said:
Lots of fat you could cut off most of that, just the millitary alone is a HUUUUGE waste, invading a new country every week doesn't really benefit Main Street.
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Oh, I agree with that. I'm just saying that its not going to happen. There isn't any real appetite among voters for a platform that is simultaneously small government and small military.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Last I checked California wasn't exactly spending within their limits....
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When did you last check?

As is typical of fiscally-responsible Democrats like President Barack Obama, California’s Governor Jerry Brown is regarded by most of the state’s Democrats as “tight fisted when it comes to the budget.” During the last “budget battle” between the governor and Democrats, the legislature started pushing the governor a little harder to relax his grip on surplus money because the state’s coffers were “overflowing with billions of dollars in extra cash” after eliminating the Republican-created debt and building a rainy-day fund. This year, the same scenario exists only there are even more billions of “surplus cash” in the budget than the rosiest economic predictions.
The current budget battle is underway, and it is presenting the “same real problem as last year” when the state’s fiscal analysts found $3.1 billion more in surplus than Governor Brown estimated; this year the surplus is substantially more. The dilemma for Democrats in control of bother chambers drafting a budget is that they want to spend more than the record $167 billion proposed by Brown. The Governor’s budget drastically increases spending on education, healthcare and social services, but Democrats want more spent on childcare and programs for the poor. They claim with an additional $3.7 billion in surplus there should be no issue and it is likely not going to be much of an issue.
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PPC1052 said:
Of course he is. Why wouldn't he?
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Do you know how many of his employees get employer provided health insurance? How many are elgible for Medicaid? How many have an employer provided pension / 401k vs. how many will require Social Security?
 
deonb said:
Oh, I agree with that. I'm just saying that its not going to happen. There isn't any real appetite among voters for a platform that is simultaneously small government and small military.
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People get the government they deserve, and most of those people would eat their own poo if the government didn't tell them not to.
 
frfly172 said:
Now that I'm retired,I pay every year due to the piddly amount of social security I get. I'm ready for a flat tax. Feeling the Bern,and his 13 % tax rate.
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FairTax is much better than a flat tax. Also eliminates the whole argument of what constitutes "income" to different individuals. If it's a consumption (sales) tax, you pay as much tax as you want to buy purchasing more or less. No tax subsidies and loopholes, 80,000 pages of tax law stripped down into a couple hundred pages, and the drastic downsizing of the IRS. All of those IRS employees/auditors can go get jobs auditing the Fed and other government entities for fraud and overspending.

www.FairTax.org
 
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Sadly the American people were too stupid to put him into office.
 
SoonerAviator said:
FairTax is much better than a flat tax. Also eliminates the whole argument of what constitutes "income" to different individuals. If it's a consumption (sales) tax, you pay as much tax as you want to buy purchasing more or less. No tax subsidies and loopholes, 80,000 pages of tax law stripped down into a couple hundred pages, and the drastic downsizing of the IRS. All of those IRS employees/auditors can go get jobs auditing the Fed and other government entities for fraud and overspending.

www.F.org
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Sales tax is the least fair tax.
 
JoseCuervo said:
Sales tax is the least fair tax.
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It's as regressive as you can get. The middle class pays a MUCH higher percentage of their income in sales tax as either the wealthy or the poor.
 
deonb said:
It's as regressive as you can get. The middle class pays a MUCH higher percentage of their income in sales tax as either the wealthy or the poor.
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How do you figure? The wealthy go on more vacations, buy more expensive cars and luxury items, larger, more expensive homes, etc., so they'd naturally pay more in sales tax.

The FairTax plan is a consumption tax. The more you consume, the greater the amount of tax you pay.
 
SoonerAviator said:
How do you figure? The wealthy go on more vacations, buy more expensive cars and luxury items, larger, more expensive homes, etc., so they'd naturally pay more in sales tax.

The FairTax plan is a consumption tax. The more you consume, the greater the amount of tax you pay.
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How is that fair? So a rich "tightwad" wouldn't pay taxes?
 
GlennAB1 said:
How is that fair? So a rich "tightwad" wouldn't pay taxes?
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Right - that's the first problem. The wealthy saves more, which is a good thing for them, but a bad thing for the economy. And the uber-wealthy can't even spend enough for it to get taxed if they wanted to. If Bill Gates and his family start spending $10m per month, every month, it would take about 1000 years to tax that. But not even since even at 0.25% interest, they'd still earn about double that. Donald Trump once said that there isn't really a lifestyle difference between someone who has $16m and someone who has $1b - it's a game after that. So at the very least you would need estate taxes in addition to sales taxes, unless we want to create multi-millennia aristocracies.

The second issue is that the wealthy spends more of their money off shore, which won't be subject to sales tax.
 
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