Oddbean new post about login | logout The amount of lost time and productivity due to dealing with income taxes nationwide is insanely high. The number of accountants, lawyers, and auditors that work full time on it, plus the percent of time that small business owners and individual taxpayers have to dedicate to it each year, costs an uncountable total number of lost hours per year. And just as bad, it requires a ubiquitous massive surveillance apparatus on all sorts of income to enforce itself. No taxes are enjoyable, but income taxes are really the most counter-productive and onerous ones. Taxes on properties, imports, and retail sales have so much of a lighter touch to track and collect than income taxes.
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I see this meme often, when the truth is, if I let the IRS tell me what I owe, it will always be more than if I do it myself and look for every possible deduction etc. There isn’t one version of your tax return that they will accept. Weak meme.
Yah I hear ya… I find the nature of our tax code & process to be such a complex & weird game, and so is funny in this meme’s quick take.
The tax code is a ridiculous monstrosity, if they are going to steal our productivity they could ay least simplify it.
It creates such a razzle-dazzle that it doesn’t seem so clearly as theft. Imagine if they had a simple flat tax that was billed after you’d earned your full income. People would not simply not pay. Instead we look forward to a ‘return’ 🤪
Always has baffled me when people get excited for a return. So the IRS took more of your money than they should’ve, kept it interest free for a year, and finally returned it to you… and you act like it’s some kind of bonus? Yet if you are conservative on your W4 and pay too little, you owe a penalty (happened to me the past two years, nature of my work) 🤘🏻
Exactly! and the IRS doesn’t want you to owe too much either, that would be like an interest free loan to you (if taxation wasn’t theft). Rather, they’ll pay you back a decent amount later … an interest free loan to them!
the effective rate in australia 20 years ago was 72% and that didn't count that administrative cost that goes to so much make-work parasites it's the same all over the world, a whole class of people whose work literally is wasting your money to skim from the public trough
And all those people lobby to keep the tax code as complicated as possible.
So is the issue of reporting income to government which has already been reported by employers. For the majority of citizens, the government doesn't actually need them to file an income tax return, but the income tax return industry made sure that didn't happen.
US "individual income tax" is in most cases a complete fraud. The average American owes NONE, but is tricked into confessing that they do (aka "filing"). Read Dave Champion's book. Check out https://www.freedomlawschool.org/. If you know what they've done to us with FIAT money, you should understand that they've lied to us all along about income tax, too.😠😡🤬
I live in Spain and it is insane how much time I waste on taxes as a self employed person. Everything from social security, income tax and different fees are drowning. I pay a tax advisor for services and even with that I calculated that I have to waste at least 3 hours a week collecting paperwork. This is also not any help that the spanish tax authority is one of the most persecuting and demanding in the world.
Here's not fun story about taxes in Spain: Once, I forgot to make a quarterly income tax payment to the Spanish Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria). They waited until I was four months in default before informing me that I had not paid. I had given them permission to deduct the amount from a specific bank account. However, I didn't have enough money in that account, so the charge failed. Since they were supposed to take it out themselves, one would think they should know instantly and notify me accordingly. But unfortunately, this was not the case... Being four months in default meant they could fine me between 10% and 20%, plus interest, on the outstanding amount. I had also given them explicit permission to communicate with me via email (by default, they can only communicate through the postal service). This situation suggests two possibilities: 1- They took four months to notice that I hadn't made a payment, then seized the opportunity to fine me. 2- They knew I was in default and waited the required three months before imposing a penalty. I will never know which scenario is true because of how incentives are aligned with tax agents in Spain; either could be possible.
I was doing all of my businesses quarterly taxes. I hate licking envelopes, so frequently close envelopes with a glue stick. My state employment tax envelope seems to have stuck to my federal employment tax envelope. The Feds opened the envelope not addressed to them (should be mail fraud), stamped "Department of the Treasury" over the to line on the check changing who it was written to (should be check fraud) and cashed my check. A couple weeks later the state says I didn't pay my state taxes. I check and show them the cashed check. They caught that the Feds stole my check. I then contact the Feds to ask about my money and they admit they stole my money and tell me I can miss some payroll taxes because I have a credit. I don't pay one payroll's taxes, which is about 2/3 of the amount they stole still leaving me a credit. Shortly after filing my quarterly employment taxes where I have a credit and they owe me money, I receive a notice that I didn't pay my taxes and threatening fines, interest, and seizing my business. I call and spend a couple hours on the phone. They misapplied the money so it showed unpaid even though I had overpaid. They said everything was fixed. Three months later I get another nasty gram threatening to not only fine me but seize all of my assets because I didn't pay my taxes, even though they were over paid and stole my money. I called and spent several more hours on the phone. They finally said everything was fixed and I was fine. A month later I get a really threatening letter threatening to seize my assets and throw me in jail. This time I went to the local IRS office and spent hours more. They admitted that everything was their mistake, but since their system showed me being so late, I now had to show proof of employment tax payments with every payroll for a year. I think it took over 2 years to get my over payment (stolen funds) back and get back to normal. I can't even begin to tell how much I hate the IRS and taxes. They are thieves and brigands. The mafia and the mob seem like gentlemen in comparison.
If I were a (benevolent) dictator: Abolish income tax, institute federal sales tax and property tax, institute a UBI that would cover up to the "poverty line" counteracting the regressive nature of the sales tax. Then I would start slashing government programs and increase the UBI to cover it (eg no more WIC or food stamps because you have a UBI). Maybe one day be able to slowly dial down the UBI as the economy rights itself from the last century of government-directed allocation of capital.
The first step on that path would be to allow government agencies to take any excess budget at the end of the fiscal year and invest it instead of counting it against their budget for the next cycle. They could use some of it to buy Bitcoin, and some to invest in interest earning securities that would help them with their expenses in the future. The interest earned would be counted against their budget for the next cycle, not the total balance of the accounts.
At least in the US, each state is a fiefdom of its own with its own rules that often go down to the municipal level. There is no way to align property tax, import tariffs or sales taxes on a national scale without a complete revolution that would see the Federal Government take over from state and local tax collection. It will never happen. It should be a transaction tax conducted by the financial system and paid automatically with every purchase of anything from billion dollar companies to sticks of gum. It's literally just math. But it would require a complete surveillance state with the computers knowing who is buying from whom, where each person is, what they are buying and how much value is being transferred. Such a system could work on a neutral trust-less foundation like Bitcoin. But do you really think it's likely?
dont go to certain european countries
The tyranny is the point, though. They don't even really need the revenue.
I used to work for an online retailer. Sales taxus so much worse with the internet. The point of sale is where the customer customeris when they click buy, and the business had to collect report and remit the correct sales tax to the correct jurisdiction. We were a small business with two people in accounting, and we spent about half our time trying to figure out the sales tax for many jurisdictions across the US. We had to file every month in a bunch of states, but also a bunch of countries and even a few cities that collect their own sales tax. They each had their own unique set of rules. I think sales tax probably made the most sense of and tax before the internet, but it is madness now.
After 30+ yrs as a War-Tax-Resistor existing solely in the cash economy I have experienced the liberation of attention freed up by not tracking, labelling, and reporting every cent earned and spent. What I didn't know couldn't be used against me, if I couldn't even track my cash flows the Nanny-State authorities couldn't either. I've read that compliance costs add 20% to the cost of doing business. That actually seems low. There are many incalculable costs to the artificial obstructions and shrinkage to capital flows. Even the obsolete idea of 'business hours' restricts the velocity of value flow between businesses. Just as the Gregorian method of accounting was adopted by businesses from the bottom up, despite top down desires to keep them using Roman Numerals for balancing their ledgers. The more efficient method of accounting for value exchanges will win out, eventually.
The three worst taxes are income taxes (spy and control), property taxes (rent payment for your own property), and inheritance taxes (pilfering those who can't take care of their dependents. Also double taxation.). I don't like any taxes, but if we moved all taxes to sales taxes and required that every receipt showed how much money was taken by each taxing authority, there would be a much smaller compliance cost and people would realize how much was being stolen from them. They would be reminded every time they bought something and would be more likely to complain. You could also avoid/reduce taxes by working to produce your own stuff. Of course those who live by stealing our stuff don't want this. They want to nickel and dime us to death and hide how much they are really stealing.
One of the worst parts is capital gains taxes. They deflate our currency so the price of everything goes up and then call that increase capital gains and tax it even though sometimes the capital is worth less in real purchasing power than it was before. It is all phantom gains caused by the government.
Took me 12 hours to prepare a 14-page return this April, just to pay in ~$500. What was the time and stress worth? If most people had to do their own tax return each year instead of using some preparer service, US tax code would've been simplified a long time ago.
FinCEN already knows exactly every transaction you do through the fiat system. IRS can easily figure out what is taxable or not and send you a summary asking you to agree or not.
Yes, but they can't peer into your personal accounting unless you let them. It's why filing is a violation of the 5th amendment. Everything about this practice is illegal and immoral. You're forced to incriminate yourself and then are guilty until proven innocent. If the IRS feels you owe, then you owe. Good luck proving you don't. Fuck the IRS. it's extortion.
break it down to first principles and the reason becomes easy to see. repression. in all its forms. but of course taxes are beneficial for you. you get ..... GM 🙃
Someday, I hope people understand that if someone is taxing you, it's not simply tyranny - it's actual terrorism.
Slavery
The UK tax code is over 10 million words long. At this point, it’s just a game of who has the most resources and scale to optimize against that. Individuals and small business have no chance.
I prefer sales taxes (b2b and b2c) to income and asset taxes. A lot easier IMO.
Let’s take our police powers back and there will be no more institutionalized robbery.
One potential solution could be simplifying the tax code to reduce the complexity and time required for compliance. Implementing a flat tax or a national sales tax could streamline the process, lessen the burden on individuals and businesses, and reduce the need for extensive enforcement mechanisms.
A long time ago, somebody told me about the Perpetual Traveler concept. 1.5 months later i left the country and were not forced to pay income tax ever since.
Income tax is theft. nostr:nevent1qqs8p0snnl59qymz9cq8f63ms99v8r3pu6a874ja2s6k9x6emyx6j5spz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchsyg82krn4d5etsz7dge8nmpztspqrqvr45yl2hs6enfmzexk84wglfupsgqqqqqqs0pnmfl
