Intuit, Maker of Turbotax, Lobbies Against Simplified Tax Filings 423
McGruber (1417641) writes "Return-free filing might allow tens of millions of Americans to file their taxes for free and in minutes. Under proposals authored by several federal lawmakers, it would be voluntary, using information the government already receives from banks and employers and that taxpayers could adjust. The concept has been endorsed by Presidents Obama and Reagan and is already a reality in some parts of Europe. Sounds great, except to Intuit, maker of Turbotax: last year, Intuit spent more than $2.6 million on lobbying, some of it to lobby on four bills related to the issue, federal lobbying records show."
Think of all those poor accountants! (Score:5, Funny)
How will they survive if we make taxes simpler! Just like all those ditch diggers if we gave them shovels instead of spoons.
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Re:Think of all those poor accountants! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. Was one of the Ryan-as-president ones. Probably Executive Orders. I believe the Warren Buffet expy he appoints as SecTreas uses the tax code to break a table to convince Congress that the tax code needs simplification. It includes some monologuing about cutting capital gains taxes to encourage investment (something that sounds obvious, but is generally unsupported by evidence).
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Sure, it's unsupported by evidence, but it's been widely supported by both parties in congress. The number of actual national electors left enough to believe capital gains maybe ought to face progressive taxation(for all the reasons progressive tax brackets are usually a good idea) is in the single digits.
Re:Think of all those poor accountants! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Every time money changes hands it is taxed. That the person who held it before you aid taxes is completely and totally irrelevant.
I pay income tax. If I hire you to mow my lawn, what I pay you is not tax free just because I have paid taxes on it. Same as if I simply hand you a wad of cash. It changes hands, it is taxed.
Re:Think of all those poor accountants! (Score:5, Insightful)
What studies are you referring too? Everything I have seen has suggested lower taxes on capital leads to move investments.
I will admit that doing studies like these are hard. You have to factor the difference between high vs. low taxation states, how taxes are raised (income vs. consumption vs. investments)that the country has to be publicly committed for the long term (i.e. 10+ years), and how capital is taxed (capital gains, wealth tax, dividend income, etc.)
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All those stocks traded in the secondary market? They create the market for IPOs. They establish the playing field for new businesses. When one sort of business gets high P/Es relative to the others, that sort of business is more likely to get new competitors.
Here's a better question - why not just a flat tax?
Taxes exist to fund the government, not for some social agenda (that we'll never agree on anyway). Tax all income, dividends, and capital gains at X%, and be done with it. You might be surprised h
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Because the left absolutely disagrees with you on that. They absolutely believe that the main purpose of taxes is to drive a social agenda. Sadly, many on the right agree with them.
Not even much money (Score:5, Informative)
It's downright embarrassing how little money it even takes to buy the government. Intuit makes a couple billion dollars a year [intuit.com]. The lobbying spend, $2.6 million, is about eight hours' worth of revenues.
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Re:Not even much money (Score:5, Insightful)
True capitalism at work, everything is for sale, even the laws.
The reason why the laws are for sale. (Score:3)
The laws can be for sale, only to the extent that the lawmakers are selling!
Every special interest should be free to lobby. The real trick is electing representatives who understand that catering to a special interest is, by definition, detrimental to the general interest. (If something is in the general interest, it's by definition not a special interest.)
Re:Not even much money (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not even much money (Score:5, Interesting)
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And god forbid they actually lose talking points by actually accomplishing something they've said they'd like to do.
Nosiree, if we don't change anything, we can keep bitching about it and we can blame the other guys. And, we can keep getting paid by the lobbyists to maintain the status quo.
Because, really, politicians are douchebags just looking to line their own pockets. Some
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and think we should start off with the premise they're crooked and on the take and force them to live under much more careful scrutiny.
You should be doing that already. I know I do. Every society that doesn't is in danger, but with all the ways the government is infringing upon our fundamental liberties and the constitution, we've obviously not been careful.
It's about power (Score:4, Informative)
And god forbid they actually lose talking points by actually accomplishing something they've said they'd like to do.
What they want to do is stay in power. They'll change some things if they get the chance but that's a second order effect. What they really want to do is whatever will keep them in power and they will sell their soul to do it. They'll say whatever they think gives them the best chance to retain power and get re-elected but what they actually do is what shows you their real goals.
Re:Not even much money (Score:5, Insightful)
If we could get back to some Regan-esque conservatism that would be nice. A lot better the the wackos we deal with today anyway...
Re:Not even much money (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to remember that the lines are moving. Compared to Reagan, Eisenhower was a pinko. But compared to Bush Jr., Reagan was at least a left leaning Democrat.
Re:Not even much money (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, that's billions in revenue, not profit, so I wouldn't say they "make" a couple billion per year. In fact, the source you linked to shows that their operating income is negative, so after subtracting expenses from that revenue they are losing money. So, they don't have a few billion in spare cash sloshing around -- that $2.6 million is not a negligible amount of money for them. The fact that they still think it is worth spending on lobbying when they don't have a lot of spare money is perhaps an even stronger statement about how effective lobbying dollars are.
Re:Not even much money (Score:5, Informative)
errrr - the press release says they lost money for the 4th quarter, which I am going to guess is their slow time of the year. IIRC their profit last year was 820m and they have made 680m so far this year. Not billions but nothing to sneeze at either.
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Maybe I've naive, but I really don't think lobbying is just about buying votes.
That is to say, I don't think the government has a perfectly reasonably policy, like simplified tax returns.
Then Intuit comes along and says 'This is gonna hurt our profits', so lets pay politician X some money to stop this bill.
More than likely, lobbying is backed by 'real needs'
Let's face it, there are a lot of people employed as accountants and I guess nowadays, a fair amount of software developers and business. These are real
Re:Not even much money (Score:4, Informative)
Let's face it, there are a lot of people employed as accountants and I guess nowadays, a fair amount of software developers and business.
The people who this simplified "let the government figure it out and send back what they think I deserve" plan wouldn't apply to the vast majority of people who use accountants or probably even most of those who use TurboTax. They're using an accountant because they want every penny back that they deserve. Yes, I said deserve -- the legal amount.
There are already several free tax filing systems. TaxACT Online [taxact.com], H&R Block [hrblock.com], The IRS [irs.gov], and even TurboTAX [turbotax.com], the very company that is being slammed for allegedly standing in the way of free tax filing. If you are a die-hard, you can download [irs.gov] the forms and send them in for the price of a stamp or two (my state forms, seven pages of paper, cost $0.70 to mail.)
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It's not about buying votes, it's about buying legislation.
I don't doubt that companies that lobby for things feel a very real sense of needing what they are lobbying for.
I also don't doubt that there are times when 3rd parties are served or even well served by the outcomes of such lobbying.
But these things ought not be decided based on who has money and who doesn't.
I am all for impacts being analyzed and plans being made to make sure people are not unduly disrupted, but decisions should be made on merit.
We
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Hello again. This time I wont try to have my cake and eat it too, as I have not moderated in this article.
"So lobbying can have good outcomes."
Yes, and a broken ( old style ) clock is correct twice a day. The occasional "good" accident does not mean accidents are good.
( where "good" means has a good outcome ). So, if I were writing a constitution, things would be different.
"It is difficult to separate the feelings that someone bought a result you don't like from an objective analysis of whether what you
Lobbying aside (Score:3)
Re:Lobbying aside (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand, filing Return-free filing would be a nice option...on the other, I like that people have to take the time to notice how much money Uncle Sam is taking.
Most of them only look at how much they're getting back, which is the majority of people. If you really wanted it to sink in, you'd need to end paycheck income tax withholding and actually have them write a check on April 15.
Re:Lobbying aside (Score:5, Insightful)
It amazes me that people *still* give the government interest free loans. Getting money back via your tax return is bad. I strive to owe the government the maximum amount I can each year without penalty.
Re:Lobbying aside (Score:4, Insightful)
I strive towards $0 but that's mostly because I'm not confident in my own ability to invest the money for growth.
Re:Lobbying aside (Score:5, Interesting)
In some cases, it can pay off. I ended up getting around ~$800 back from the feds this year and through a deal on Amazon, I got 10% bonus by getting the refund back in Amazon gift credit. That's a free 80 bucks, well better than any tiny interest rate I could have gotten in a savings account. When the interest rate you can get is higher than the rate of inflation, you might have a point...
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Better than any market investments as well. 10% is a phenomenal rate of return right now.
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10% wasn't better than the market last year. (It is, however, a very solid rate of return.)
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You can get basically anything at Amazon. If it were nothing but toys, or even books, I'd be right with you, but you can get most of your household goods (cleaning products, paper goods) and many non-perishable foods. In fact they're my preferred vendor for most such items.
Re:Lobbying aside (Score:5, Insightful)
While that sounds nice in theory but for most people it doesn't make any different. For example say you get back $2,000 from your tax return. If you intend on saving you could keep in your weekly check that money and put it in an interest barring account and come out ahead. but when your saving account is paying 0.1% interest you are making less then $2 by doing so. $2 a year for most people isn't even worth time time to figure out the proper withholding. And don't tell me about the stock market or similar where i am putting my money at risk. so until interest rates go to a sane level its just not worth it.
Re:Lobbying aside (Score:5, Insightful)
While that sounds nice in theory but for most people it doesn't make any different. For example say you get back $2,000 from your tax return. If you intend on saving you could keep in your weekly check that money and put it in an interest barring account and come out ahead. but when your saving account is paying 0.1% interest you are making less then $2 by doing so. $2 a year for most people isn't even worth time time to figure out the proper withholding. And don't tell me about the stock market or similar where i am putting my money at risk. so until interest rates go to a sane level its just not worth it.
Unless of course you're one of the unwashed masses that has an abundance of credit card debt [nerdwallet.com]. Using that extra money to pay off your debts more quickly can give you a great return, at least in the sense that you'd LOSE less money.
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This is what I said yesterday [slashdot.org] about this:
Here are a couple reasons why I don't worry too much about this:
1) Especially right now, that money wouldn't earn much elsewhere, especially if you put it into a safe investment. If you just keep it in a bank account, for most people it's probably barely worth it. (Th
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I strive to owe the government the maximum amount I can each year without penalty.
They penalize you if you want to owe them more? I don't really see how that is affected by paycheck deductions? Also, you must be the first person I have met with that attitude. [/sarcasm]
.01%. If you have over $25,000 in an account you can get a massive .05%. Linked checking account gets you to .1%!
Seriously though, lets say you make good money and ended up paying $15,000 in federal taxes. What interest rate could you get on that? Quick check at wellsfargo.com says you can get a whopping
So if
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Meanwhile if everyone did this....
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Meanwhile if everyone did this....
The government would miss out on less than $2 billion of the over $2 trillion they collect. Drop in the bucket.
A much bigger loss would be all the people that have holes in their pocket and are unable to pay come 4/15.
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Just a note: Depending on how well your employer games the system you may be loaning it to your employer more than you are to the government. Your employer "withholds" it when it pays you, but it's not cutting a check to the govt for that withheld portion immediately. Smaller employers may even get away with just paying the withholding taxes on their annual corporate taxes. I know my state govt is way more insistent about getting it's tax withholding promptly than the fed is.
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It would not be hard to make it clear to people how much "The Man" is taking.
For example, this is what the IRS might send you:
You make: $X
Your deductions: $Y
Your Tax: $Z
Percentage Paid: %R
For the vast majority of the people in the US, the IRS knows everything it needs to know about you to do your taxes. There is no reason why a voluntary system like this would not work.
Automating taxes (Score:3)
It would not be hard to make it clear to people how much "The Man" is taking.
You'd think so but I'm an accountant and I do our company payroll. You would be *amazed* at how seldom many people look at their paycheck, particularly if it is direct deposit. I get asked all the time how much vacation people have left even though it is printed right on our paystubs every two weeks.
That said, I'd have no problem in principle with some sort of reasonable (yeah I know...) automatic payment system. The devil is in the details and to do it you can't have too many special tax exemptions. (o
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The devil is in the details and to do it you can't...
Well, that pretty much sums up the issue right there. On the face of things, it seems straightforward.... everybody pays whatever the government thinks they owe.
On the other hand, there's so many ways the government can screw things up royally. One year, they missed an education deduction I had because they didn't know I'd gone to grad school that year. They hadn't accepted the paperwork the school had sent in. The proper resolution was for me to write and sign a letter affirming that I had done what I'd cl
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The whole point of those deductions is (ostensibly) to make taxes more fair, ...
Ha, ha. No. The whole point of deductions is to buy sway with voters. In fact the whole point of the US tax code is NOT to help collect taxes. It is to give a way goodies to the proper special interest groups.
If the government wanted more 'fair' taxes, they could simply adjust tax rates higher or lower based solely on income. Why should I subsidize your decision to go to grad school?
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Why reinvent the wheel? If you opt-into this system, the IRS could autogenerate a filled-in PDF copy of the form you select (they already have the PDFs available, and they're editable) and ask "Is this correct?" If it is, you click yes. If you're due a refund, you enter your account information (to have it directly deposited) or indicate you want it mailed to you. If you owe, you enter your account information or you indicate you'll send in a check, at which point you get a form to print with all the releva
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Why would they want to do that??
Your ignorance is useful to the people handling taxes - if you knew just how much you were sending to Washington in taxes, you might just start objecting to the whole thing...
And then where would they be?
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If you're not itemizing your taxes, then you don't need to worry bout those kinds of deductions.
And there's nothing preventing you from entering your deductions during the year similar to Intuit's It's Deductible. Enter in your charitable contributions including item donation and it takes care of the rest. If the IRS wants to audit you then it's your responsibility to make sure you have supporting evidence.
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Right, what we should do is get rid of withholding and make EVERYONE pay quarterly estimated taxes. I suspect we would very suddenly have TEA party ( or similar ) membership right around 53% of the adult population.
Re:Lobbying aside (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you'd just have a bunch of big banks getting into tax financing, offering modest loans at reasonable interest rates(see fine print) to help people who didn't save for their bill.
The withholding system works because it causes the least economic distortion -- the more a tax "hurts," the more adverse an effect it has on day-to-day economic decisions, the more it's liable to cause people to make bad economic decisions, like saving huge lump sums in the bank instead of investing or consumption. A tax "hurting" might be good politics (for some people), but if it causes people to have irregular cash flow or makes it significantly harder for them to make planning decisions it will hurt economic growth.
Re:Lobbying aside (Score:4, Insightful)
People "see" it already, on their paystubs and on their 1040s.
What he wants is for tax collection -- not taxes themselves, just the way they're collected -- to be intentionally disruptive, so that people will attempt to lower rates and revenues not because they are high, per se, but just because the way they're collected causes economic harm.
Yes, technology must be used (Score:4, Insightful)
Please automate accounting more! (Score:2)
but only to outsource technical and engineering jobs. Heaven forbid if we automate away accountants and bureaucracy. THEN technology is taking jobs away!
I actually happen to be both an accountant and an engineer and actively practice both in my day job. I would LOVE to automate a lot of the paperwork shuffling I do as an accountant. Want to make a fortune? Come up with an EDI type system that doesn't cost an arm and leg and allows businesses to exchange invoices, delivery information, order acknowledgements, etc automatically between businesses of any size and that integrates with existing accounting systems. Start with Quickbooks and Sage. I probably
Not Surprising (Score:2)
You haven't got this yet? (Score:4, Informative)
What was their argument? (Score:2)
Depends... They're saying that poor people wouldn't get deductions and tax credits if they did this...
So... that's a credible point.
That said, if poor people did this then the form itself might get reformed enough to account for that without the complexity... perhaps by lowering the fucking taxes.
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Depends... They're saying that poor people wouldn't get deductions and tax credits if they did this...
So... that's a credible point.
That said, if poor people did this then the form itself might get reformed enough to account for that without the complexity... perhaps by lowering the fucking taxes.
Most poor people don't have enough deductions to itemize them, so the deductions are a red herring. Tax credits could be an issue, but it doesn't sound insurmountable. In addition, poor people don't use Turbo Tax, so why is Intuit even bringing it up?
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Most middle class dont have enough deductions to itemize them.
Tax credits can be automated easily. Intuit is just being whiny babies trying to protect the whoring of the poor they do every year.
Taxes are full of scams... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can pay my taxes for free with a check mailed in, or pay $30-$90 to pay it electronically through a "clearing house" and Intuit also get's a cut.
got to Hell Intuit. Go straight to hell.
You guys are way behind (Score:2)
Reminds me of . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
a story I heard on NPR not too long ago. The head of the Government Printing Office was talking about how their headcount was less than half what it was 20 years ago due to heavier use of digital forms. She mentioned how few copies of the federal budget they print every year and so on.
All of this sounds great because she's helping to keep costs down while increasing the availability of government documents to he masses. Who would think that's a bad thing?
The paper industry. They had the head of an umbrella group for the paper and forestry groups who cautioned about moving too fast to go digital, how some people still liked paper forms and so on.
So the next time you hear someone say the government doesn't create jobs, ask them why private industry is up in arms every time the government tries to cut costs by not purchasing things. In this case, the literal tons of paper that used to be used to print government documents or, as in the case of Intuit, all the work they would no longer have to do if the tax filings were simplified.
Government jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
So the next time you hear someone say the government doesn't create jobs
The government absolutely creates jobs. Lots of them. The government is something like 20-30% of the economy and a similar portion of the jobs. This is true for most of the governments on earth and it's actually not a bad thing. Remember that government jobs include things like the military, police, fire, teachers and the like which are all necessary and useful functions. Some amount of administration is useful too. Many important and necessary private businesses make their money contracting for necessary services to governments. Governments definitely create jobs and many of them are even worth creating.
The problem is that the government doesn't generally have a good way to prune back services that are no longer required and doesn't tend to be exposed to market forces forcing it to be efficient. It also means that those who are doing well with the status quo will try to keep it, even when that doesn't make economic sense.
Re:Government jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
You're missing the point. You will routinely hear from the right side of the political spectrum (and private industry) people claiming the government doesn't create jobs, it only takes from the masses.
In their next breath they whine and complain whenever the government cuts back, such as with the Printing Office or elimination of military projects (the Abrams tank comes to mind) because it will cost jobs, completely ignoring the only reason theses folks in private industry have a job is because of the government.
I only bring this up because I like to throw things back in people's faces when they make blanket statements such as this, just like all government workers are lazy or how private industry always does things better than the government.
Intuit is the Microsoft of tax software (Score:5, Informative)
This is just one more thing Intuit does to hurt taxpayers. The biggest and craziest is that where you can e-file your federal return for around $5, most states charge $20, because Intuit sued them for unfair competition when states came out with online 2D barcoded returns. Intuit wasn't upset if a taxpayer filled out a regular PDF and mailed it in, but evidently since the 2D bar coded ones saved states revenue and they encouraged them, they felt it cut into their profits and sued. Evidently the courts agreed and now, you must pay extra to e-file a state return so Intuit can get their cut, even though you aren't using their software.
If people were smart, they would use one of the alternatives to Turbo-Tax, e-file their federal return and mail in their state return. That way, Intuit doesn't get a dime of unearned money.
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Greedy bastards ... (Score:2)
It's shit like this why I don't think corporations should have "free speech". Humans have free speech, corporations are not humans and should not have the same bloody rights.
For instance [reuters.com]:
Because when corporate money is equated with free speech, they can afford to have their speech heard m
Do Something About It (Score:2)
Whatever court decision decided that corporations are people too was garbage.
That would primarily be the Citizens United v FEC court decision of 2010, and further backed up by the recent McCutcheon decision of 2014, though of course other little laws and regulations contribute.
If you would like to do something about it, I would encourage you to join a group such as the WolfPAC [wolf-pac.com] and Move to Amend [movetoamend.org]. A couple state legislatures (California and Vermont, I believe) have *already* passed bills calling for a constitutional convention to propose a new constitutional amendment that puts into l
Re:Greedy bastards ... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, I'm big on that too. It's just that "peaceably assembl[ing]" and "combining assets while being shielded from public scrutiny and any liability" are not (or at least, should not be) the same thing.
What the tax form should look like (Score:2, Interesting)
2015 Tax Form
Line 1 Enter the amount of money you grossed last year....____
Line 2 Divide the amount in line 1 by 10 and write it here... ____
Send in the amount written in line 2
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Don't forget to make the check payable to mumble...[my-name]...mumble, and address [convenient-country-with-no-US-extradition-treaty].
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And if you happen to be a poor person, too bad for you.
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Just to explain your modding into oblivion, lemme spell it out with you.
This is a flat tax. Everyone is taxed at 10%. (Yes, it's a percentage, and not, say $200 flat, but it's what it's called). It is not progressive (taxing the rich a higher percent) nor is it regressive (taxing the poor a higher percent). It's flat.
This has been shown to be a ludicrously bad idea. Not as bad as a regressive tax, but still pretty bad. It turns out that economies usually aren't fair and balanced and the gini coefficient [wikipedia.org] isn
Not possible (Score:3)
The problem with your tax form is that actually calculating the amount of income you had last year is actually pretty complicated for a pretty big portion of the population, particularly the wealthier folks. Seriously. 90% of the tax code not devoted to various tax exemptions is basically devoted to defining income. Why? Because it is not trivial or easy. There are countless corner cases and sources of income and financial instruments and other things to complicate what you income is. We could simplif
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" a pretty big portion of the population, particularly the wealthier folks. "
Wealthy people are not a large portion of the population.
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That's better than the one I saw:
Line 1: How much did you make last year? ______
Line 2: Send it in.
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"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
H. L. Mencken
Please Google, build the QuickBooks killer (Score:3)
Intuit's QuickBooks package is in desperate need of competition. It's thoroughly entrenched in the accounting industry such that the interface is nonsensically-antiquated. Yet, it's become one of those industry standards that Intuit refuses to modernize it or introduce any kind of improvements for fear it will alienate the armies of accountants that have been compelled to learn it.
If google were to launch a cloud-based bookkeeping app, this would be a tremendous benefit to small business owners worldwide.
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When the IRS Is Your Accountant (Score:2)
And when the IRS inevitably discovers they messed up on the "return-free" return they generated for you five years ago, who is liable for the resulting penalties and interest? Because I'm betting it's not going to be the IRS.
Big Government = rent seeking & crony capitali (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is another example - Food Stamps (aka SNAP) and Agriculture policy. You might think food stamps exist to help the poor, but you'd be wrong. Food stamps are part of the AGRICULTURE spending bill, not the health and human services bill. The idea is to stimulate buying of "surplus" agricultural produce by subsidizing poor people who can't aford to buy it. But the dirty secret is that the agrculture policy of price supports both stimulates over-production for some crops and under-production for others while keeping prices high and making food LESS affordable for the poor. With food stamps the agribusinness interests can now sell the 'surplus' created by the price supports (government money) at artificially high prices to the poor (with government money), all the while with the political overhead cover of helping "family-farmers" and the "hungry children".
As a citizen in Sweden (Score:5, Informative)
I can file my taxes in two minutes on the Swedish version of the IRS on the web without the need of any special software unless you count a web browser as special.
Re:As a citizen in Norway (Score:3)
Yeah, pretty much the same here. You logon to their secure web portal, and fill all the forms online. For most people, everything is pre-filled, and you just have to OK it, which can even be done via SMS. Personally I have a more complicated setup involving income and accounts abroad + special tax exemptions, but even then I spend much less time than the Americans I know.
The fact that the taxes also include health insurance is also nice...
By the way, is it true that the US will tax a citizen living abroad b
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No reason this couldn't happen in the US but for this lobbying. The IRS already knows all your income/etc, and if you fill out the forms wrong they'll send you a letter telling you to fix it.
Proposal (Score:5, Insightful)
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As for 'every corner', this is actually rather important. When you focus all your tax burden on some particular metric it tends to skew who pays and who does not further and further. By spreading it around it starts to better represent actual movement of money in the economy rather then specific types of transactions.
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Ehhhhhhhh.. it's not that simple. The government can allocate wealth well or badly, it can waste a significant amount of money by overpaying, by giving a supplier more than the least they would be willing to accept -- classic economic rent. Suppliers win premium prices through lobbying.
It cuts both easy though, lobbying can cause the government to waste m
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Re:Get rid of income Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to talk overall economic health, taxation does not really impact it since all those tax dollars just go strait back into the economy anyway.
Please remove this falsehood from your economic system. If you take productive money and piss it away on boondoggle projects instead of useful purposes then it's a complete loss for the economy. The entire premise of capitalism is that money that gets invested into useful purposes (production equipment, invention, entropy-reducing services) multiplies the value of that money over time. All spending is not created equal (so far from it)! Hanging fiber optics on poles and getting drunk are not equally beneficial!
it tends to skew who pays and who does not
Everybody pays. The producers add their tax burden to the cost of goods. The study from Harvard econ. sets the price of goods as 22% higher (average) than they would otherwise be without the income tax. When that single mother is buying a $3 loaf of bread for her kids' school lunch, more than fifty cents of that is going straight to pay the income taxes of the people in the supply chain. That's why it's the most regressive tax possible. People can only pretend that it's progressive if they completely ignore second order effects and beyond.
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No, the entire premise of capitalism is people own stuff. Period.
There is an assumption people might invest in useful stuff and make rational decisions in their own best interests. The reality is not quite the same.
When billionaires buy multi-million dollar yachts and diamond crusted iPhones you get to see why kings periodically get their heads chopped off.
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Ok, so then let us move that tax onto sales instead. Oh wait, the person still ends up paying 22% higher costs on items then they would be tax free except now the tax burden is skewed towards the transfer of material goods
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"If you take productive money and piss it away on boondoggle projects instead of useful purposes then it's a complete loss for the economy."
What about the most massive boondoggle project in history: World War II?
Massive increase in government spending, massing increase in government debt and massive increase in taxes all to build highly specialized equipment, ship it over seas and where it gets blown up.
The result: decades of economic growth and prosperity ending only with the rise of neo-Liberalism.
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"If you take productive money and piss it away on boondoggle projects instead of useful purposes then it's a complete loss for the economy."
What about the most massive boondoggle project in history: World War II?
Massive increase in government spending, massing increase in government debt and massive increase in taxes all to build highly specialized equipment, ship it over seas and where it gets blown up.
The result: decades of economic growth and prosperity ending only with the rise of neo-Liberalism.
Stop it. You are making too much sense.
You forgot the bit about only certain countries having any factories left at the end of WWII...
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Please remove this falsehood from your economic system. If you take productive money and piss it away on boondoggle projects instead of useful purposes then it's a complete loss for the economy.
What about the economy of the contractors working on those projects of which you don't approve?
The entire premise of capitalism is that money that gets invested into useful purposes (production equipment, invention, entropy-reducing services) multiplies the value of that money over time.
And here I thought the premise of capitalism was private ownership of goods and interests.
All spending is not created equal (so far from it)! Hanging fiber optics on poles and getting drunk are not equally beneficial!
Absolutely correct. The fiber being hung on the pole only benefits the telecom company, whereas getting drunk contributes toward a global supply chain supporting farmers, brewers, and bartenders. That's what you meant, right?
Everybody pays.
Yes, everybody, including the government, contractors, single mothers, and you.
The broken-window falla
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That depends on what the money is spent on. If the money is spent on something that brings a greater benefit than the cost, it helps the economy. Taxing yourself to buy a car doesn't automatically hurt your household economy--it depends on how much you spent on the car and how much income your car will bring.
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You sound like someone who has access to hard data that shows a causative relationship between higher taxes and reduced economic performance. Please post your data; I'd love to see it.
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Re:Endorsed By President Reagan? (Score:5, Informative)
That's quite a trick! Seeing as Ronald Reagan [wikipedia.org] has been dead for ten years, was a Ouija board involved?
Apparently, Ronald Reagan did endorse this idea in 1985 [utexas.edu]. I stand...errr...sit corrected. Please ignore my initial comment. That is all.
From the 1985 speech:
One of many... (Score:2)
That, and their customer support is really awful (the actual software is mediocre). It doesn't handle moving states to change jobs very well. It kept trying to slap me with an entire year's worth of taxes for one state. Customer support was non-existent (see numerous Intuit fora).
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It is "just playing the game." The question is, whose side are you on? Google in many cases has to lobby just to be allowed to do anything at all. Intuit in this case is lobbying to keep the tax system unintuitive.