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TurboTax maker Intuit spent millions in record lobbying blitz amid threats to tax prep industry
(www.opensecrets.org)
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Wouldn’t it be wild if the government just…sent us our refund or our bill? Because they know how much taxes we owe or how much they owe us without needing to play the stupid fucking “gather all your forms” and put it into the right fields game.
That would also completely solve this problem by eliminating the need for turbo tax to exist at all.
For the very rich, its extremely hard to know what they own, filing taxes allows them to hide all the details.
So your government could do what the commenter above suggested for 99% of the population. Got it.
Because that’s what they do in my country. Your income is pre-filled, and most people don’t need to do anything other than double check it and click submit. If you want to get tax breaks for edge cases like uncovered medical care, extra schooling, travel costs as a freelancer, etc., you just follow the mostly easy steps and fill that in.
I want the rich to be taxed; the system is broken bc it allows for loopholes. 100% should just get a bill.
One doesn’t have to exclude the other. I sense the irony in saying this, being Dutch (whose country is considered a tax haven for the rich and corporations unfortunately), but we don’t have to pay for tax software at least. Worst case, you’ll pay for a tax advisor/accounted if you have a really complicated situation with shit like alimony and wish to squeeze every last cent from it.
Loopholes aren't bad, they're incentives for companies to do certain things rather than hard requirements for companies to do certain things.
It's when it's to such an extreme no or little tax is paid that there's a problem.
Loopholes also get a bad name because many of them are carved out to target specific people, companies, and demographics in ways that aren’t helpful to society at large.
Over 90% of tax revenue is collected from less than 10% of the population. Tax the rich is a campaign lie. It already happens. About 50% of adults pay net 0% or get out more than they put in.
The middle class is shrinking and the wage gap is getting worse partly because of the progressive tax system. Only the top 0.1% have the ability to not care about taxes. And even if you taxed them at 100%, they have the tools and money to avoid paying taxes on the vast majority of their wealth.
Tax as a wealth transfer is exactly how to close the gap between rich and poor. You can see the picture but you have misunderstood how the elements relate. Not allowing the 0.1% to escape taxation is exactly what has to happen.
You're missing the forest for the trees. There are plenty of ways to encourage actions without coupling them to taxes. Make the tax code simple, and put the complexity in the systems that deal with people.