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IANAL, but I think you may be wrong here...

http://www.irs.gov/foia/article/0,,id=211443,00.html

Note exemption #3

This then refers to
  6103
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/26/usc_sec_26_00006103----000-.html

Which tells us that you need matieral reason to get the list.

Also Note exemption #6.

While the company itself would not have any privacy rights, the individual doners/members would under the 1st amendment.

Remember, people with six figure incomes pay less then the rest of us because they get taxed at capital gains rates, which can be as low as 15%. Real working people pay around %30 or more.

Six figures? What is this, the 1970s? Of course, the bulk of income earned by people making six figures is taxed at ordinary income tax rates: wages, self-employment income, etc. Intuitively, you have far, far more people with six figure incomes from employment than retired and drawing six figures from investments, or young people drawing six figures from trust funds; and also six figures is way below point of things like hedge fund managers arranging things such that most of their income is in the form of capital gains.

Here is data from the IRS on sources of income classified by AGI. I selected 2006 so you can't say that capital gains are low due to the recession, which started in 2007. As you can see, for the 12 million returns with AGI from $100K to $200K, 3.6% of the income was from qualified dividends and net long-term capital gains. For the 3 million returns from $200K to $500K, it was 8.1%, for the 600 thousand from $500K to $1M, it was 12.0%. A large majority of "six figure income" people hardly have any income taxed at the special 15% rate. Obviously you are correct that someone making a large portion of their income in capital gains and dividends will pay a lower tax rate than many people making their money from wages, but overall it is not until well into the seven figures that the average effective tax rate starts going down.

Here you go dumb fuck. Statistical data showing the explosion in millionaires starting during the Regan years. Notice it's the IRS web site. Scroll down to Tax Return Filers with Salaries and Wages from Forms W-2 Its an excel sheet.

It's your own fault that you are not part of that select class of new millionaires, just like it's my fault that I am not either. But unlike you asshole, I am not jealous. Want to know why the numbers didn't go down during the Clinton years? Unlike you asshole, he recognized something that worked.

From another study on the costs involved in auto manufacturing completed at MIT Vehicle Manufacturing Assembly Labor and Other Manufacturing Costs = 6.5% of MSRP

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics the median wage for employees working in auto manufacturing is $58,400.

Assuming an average family household and both adults work in auto manufacturing the gross income will be at least $116, 800. Looking at IRS statistics for the adjusted gross income level of $100,000 to $200,000 the average household income is $132,881 and after deductions paid $17,388 in income tax. The is an effective 13% tax rate on gross income.

So on a $25,000 car with 6.5% going to wages and an effective 13% tax rate on those wages the portion of the retail cost is $211.25 and add to that the corporate gross profit of 6% from the Stanford auto manufacturing study and a 35% tax rate we have another $525 for a total of $736.25 of income tax in the retail price of a $25,000 automobile which is 2.9%.

And yes, I know there are all kinds of other little taxes here and there you want to throw in to where we are no longer talking about income tax but it becomes so convoluted its not clear exactly how everything is associated anymore, but it doesn't matter. Even if the auto manufacturing workers paid 100% of their income in income taxes you still would not be even close to 22%.

But setting all of that data showing the 22% is bogus aside and just assuming this fantasy world is real lets take a quick look at this Fair Tax. With the word "Fair" in its name it sounds great, we all like fair don't we, but reading Boortz he specifically states that "the FairTax plan was revenue neutral". Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are suggesting but it appears you want no taxes while the FairTax being revenue neutral is not a no tax plan but instead is just tax reform with the same level of taxation but shifted around so revenue for the government, corporations and employees remains the same.

But even in Boortz' comments he makes some outlandish suggestions such as "When the FairTax is implemented, and when business and personal income and payroll taxes disappear, your employer is going to have to make a decision. He will either take some or the entire amount he had been withholding for federal income and payroll taxes and add it to your weekly check, or he will readjust your pay figures so that your entire paycheck will be equal to what you used to call "take home pay" before the FairTax."

HA HA HA!!! Now that is hilarious! Eliminate the payroll tax, which in layman terms means take away the Social Security and Medicare safety net that ensures a minimal level of support for U.S. workers when they reach retirement age, and let the corporations decide if they should keep all that money themselves or maybe if they are nice they will give the U.S. workers some crumbs. Sorry but in the real world history has shown over and over and over that given the opportunity the U.S. worker will get screwed. Scrap that "Fair" Tax plan and try working out something more realistic. :)

That is really what we have. Section 501c(3) of the Internal Revenue Code gives the details. http://www.irs.gov/publications/p557/ch03.html

You seem to be under the delusion that corporations pay tax.

US C-corporations payed $225 billion in corporate income tax in 2009. But you are right, actually their consumers payed the tax :)

it is a real net loss to give to charity, not a break even.

You get to deduce up to 50% of your gross income with charity deductions.
See Publication 526

Hmm.... During an election year, politicians proclaim a love for lowering people's taxes. During other years, they try to lower taxes for businesses in their areas.

Okay, the picture is definitely not as simple as I suggested it is, but in any case, I would suggest the history of corporate tax rates is not as significant as the corporate tax rates relative to other countries. Here are a few references that discuss tax rates and history:

First, A little old, but paints the current picture

Also, the ultimate reference for everything paints a bizarre picture of corporate tax rates.

And this, from the IRS, gives a long history.

Then there's this interesting article

Tell that to the IRS

They already know.

Interesting comment about cities being more subsidized. Do you have any evidence? I think that cities are punitively taxed, yet people still move to them because the benefits still outweigh the extra taxes.

For example:
Urban areas pay more than they otherwise would for telecommunications to subsidize rural connectivity
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/federal-subsidies-for-rural-living/

Fuel used for non-farming purposes cannot claim back tax paid on it. Rebates for an industry primarily situated in rural areas sounds suspiciously like a subsidy to rural areas.
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/industries/article/0,,id=98980,00.html

Agricultural subsidies are a giant rip-off for taxpayers, funneling money to the largest producers of wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton. While rural residents are not typically better off for this, there are a lot more urban taxpayers than rural taxpayers.
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/rural-subsidies

Large cities often impose an additional sales (or wage) tax in addition to what the state already imposes; rural residents avoid paying those taxes.
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbycity2005/index.html

Rural areas generally create more CO2 per resident than urban areas, but I feel certain that the costs of CO2 reduction will not be assessed proportionately.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16819-city-dwellers-harm-climate-less.html

As for why urbanites still live in cities, despite all these 'crushing' taxes? One reason might be economic: earnings grow more quickly for individuals who live in cities. The analysis points to the advantages of being close to experience you can learn from.
timharford.com

So this comment might not be conclusive, but at least I have some evidence, rather than just prejudice for holding my opinion.

For anyone interested in looking at it: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/1913.pdf

Ah, I was not aware of the quarterly option. Can you do that to federal also?

Yes and no.

In the sense that OP most likely meant, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf explains what's involved in sending quarterly tax payments (whooo! do your taxes 4 times a year instead of 1!) and you could always submit a W-4 to your employer asking them not to withhold taxes for the IRS, BUT 'No' in the sense that http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf notes that your W-4 withholding request is "subject to review by the IRS."

So if you would owe any taxes for the year (whether or not you sent the money quarterly) then the IRS is eventually going to tell your employer to withhold taxes from you no matter what your W-4 said. And sometimes the IRS will do that even if you will not be earning enough money to owe any taxes for the year. (they did that to me when I was only working during the summer between semesters)

Ah, I was not aware of the quarterly option. Can you do that to federal also?

Yes and no.

In the sense that OP most likely meant, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf explains what's involved in sending quarterly tax payments (whooo! do your taxes 4 times a year instead of 1!) and you could always submit a W-4 to your employer asking them not to withhold taxes for the IRS, BUT 'No' in the sense that http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf notes that your W-4 withholding request is "subject to review by the IRS."

So if you would owe any taxes for the year (whether or not you sent the money quarterly) then the IRS is eventually going to tell your employer to withhold taxes from you no matter what your W-4 said. And sometimes the IRS will do that even if you will not be earning enough money to owe any taxes for the year. (they did that to me when I was only working during the summer between semesters)

Indeed. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf

That's a really poor way to look at it, since you're basing the vertical scale based on the one wealthiest person, throwing off the scale of the rest of your graph making it impossible to estimate an integral. Play with the income tax stats yourself. In 2007:

The lower half(below $40k) representing 45.8% of taxpayers accounted for 9.1% of taxable income, and 5.6% of income tax revenue.
The top half ($40k-$1 mil), representing 53.2% of taxpayers accounted for 70.4% of taxable income, and 58.3% of income tax revenue.
The upper crust (over $1 mil) are 0.9% of taxpayers and accounted for 20.5% of taxable income, and 36% of income tax revenue.

So the bulk of income tax revenue comes from the moderately wealthy, those making $40k-$1 mil.* Arguing that the wealthiest individual doesn't pay enough, as your l-curve site does, and using that as a reason to raise income taxes on the moderately wealthy doesn't really make a lot of sense since the people you're proposing to raise taxes on aren't the wealthiest individual. Cranking up the tax rate on people with incomes over $10 mil (a "merely" 33-foot tall stack of $100 bills 0.72 inches from the goal line according to your site) may make you feel better, but it won't increase income tax revenue significantly since they only represent 8.2% of taxable income and 9.8% of current income tax revenue. It's very difficult to raise income tax revenue significantly without dipping into the lower-upper class (to $100k as Obama campaigned on) and upper-middle class ($40k-$99k). (And no, arguing that they're using tax dodges so their gross income is much higher than their taxable income doesn't work either. I ran those numbers as well and the people with the biggest ratio of gross to taxable income were in the $4k-$12k range. Those earning $1+ mil had the smallest ratio. Apparently the AMT is working.)

*(The cutoffs are somewhat arbitrary; I chose them because they broke up taxpayers into roughly 50% blocks. Feel free to pick $30k or $50k or whatever you like from the IRS figures and run the numbers yourself. The median seems to be around $45k.)

I may be comparing apples to oranges, but...

The IRS costs apx $12 billion, has 1142 "Forms and Instructions" (most seem to be forms). The law is reported to be 3,387 pages itself accompanied by 13,458 pages of regulation spread across twenty volumes.(http://www.trygve.com/taxcode.html)

And that's just the federal tax code. We also must worry about individual state and local tax codes, many of which are nearly as bizarre and convoluted as the federal ones. Definitions frequently differ between the IRS and state agencies.

Why not have Google spend two-years building the interface with a plan to turn control of it over to USPTO employees in 2012? It seems like by then the USPTO could have gained the technical skills necessary to administer their database instead of turning to keys over to some different 3rd party contractor.

You don't understand how government IT works these days.

Most government IT shops in the U.S. have not yet recovered from the election of Bush the Younger. When he came into office, the overall attitude of the new guys in charge was that they hated government, hated government workers, and believed that it was a God-given truth that all government workers are incompetent at all things they do. Thus, anything that could be contracted out must be contracted out. Internal IT got downsized, outsourced, demoralized, broken, and spat on in many, many places.

Just as an aside, this idiocy reached such insane heights that high-level executives at one government agency actually floated a plan to do away with internal local IT support and replace it, where feasible, with something called "depot maintenance." Reduced to nuts and bolts, they actually considered contracting with Best Buy for certain instances of in-the-field deskside support! This made perfect sense to the bigwigs. After all, Best Buy is private industry so they must be more competent than anyone who actually works for the agency, right?

That attitude crippled many agencies and most have yet to recover. Even if Google built the system and handed it over with a ribbon around it, it's likely that the executives at USPTO would go looking for a contractor to charge lots of money to run the thing. (Disclaimer: I'm not there; I'm just speaking from broad experience with multiple agencies. I hope somone from USPTO will chime in.)

It's just part of the culture. I know it seems bad, but eventually people will wake up to the fact that if you keep electing people who believe that all government is bad, the result is going to be...well...bad government. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that, doncha know.

Laws require limits, arbitrary though they may be, whether that is limits for tax brackets, drinking age or poverty level for an average family of four; that's just the way it is.

Yes. But they come to reasons for them. The poverty level being chosen, as far as I could tell, was because that was the most regressive the makers of it could come up with and think they'd get away for it. There's a logical reason for 21. It may not be right. It may be arbitrary. But there is logic behind it. For using the poverty level, there's no logic. "That's the minimum amount to live" is as far as they got. Well great. But that's circular. Every time I ask "why the poverty level" I get the definition of poverty level. Even you did it. Yes, I know who sets it and how. That's irrelevant to the use of it by Fair Tax.

As for volatile income, what do you think the average middle class tax payer has been experiencing for the last decade or more?

Again, not even coming close to addressing my issue. I never said income was or wasn't volatile. I directly implied it was, and that's obvious. I stated that expenditures are *more* volatile. Since you didn't disagree at all and whine about how volatile income is, then you must be acknowledging that the Fair Tax will have massive swings in income for the government between years unlike anything we've ever seen before. Otherwise, why would you have completely dodged my question and instead made up something unrelated to it to discuss?

The government wastes approximately one 1/4 to 1/3 (depending upon who you believe) of each year's tax revenue simply collecting it under the present income tax system.

From http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102174,00.html as quoted at http://www.nteuirswatch.org/Numbers2.htm "42 cents. How much it cost IRS employees in fiscal 2006 to collect $100 in tax revenue." Since we collect something on the order of $1 trillion in income tax, and the IRS's budget is about $10 billion, that seems to me to be about $1 per $100, but in either case, 1% on overhead is a little bit away from the 33% number you gave. Given that I've documented my sources, I'd be interested in who says it takes hundreds of billions of dollars to collect the revenue. Sure, it would be nice to trim that 1% off the budget, but it seems silly to be off by 33 times the real number and try to use that to justify a massive change in taxes. If they do their numbers on the FairTax as well as they do the numbers on the cost of the IRS, I will add that to the list of reasons I oppose the FairTax.

If your primary objection to Fair Tax is, "it isn't progressive enough", simply adjust the rate and raise the reimbursement level to achieve whatever level of progressivity that you desire.

Fine in principle, but when I asked the question of officials in Fair Tax, including the schedules they have on those rates and the effect on the economy, the answer was "we haven't a fucking clue, now go fuck off." Sometimes they were more polite than that, and sometimes not, but that was *always* the answer whenever I asked the question of someone officially affiliated with Fair Tax. If you have ever gotten a different answer, I'd be interested in the name of the person you talked to.

The real question is how much corruption and waste are you willing to continue tolerating under the current US income tax system simply because you like its "progressive" feature?

Well, perhaps the number falls between the current level and 33 times the current level.

I tend to agree with the grand parent, those who oppose Fair Tax are either special interest members (i.e. tax attorneys, accountants or other recipients of political patronage), misguided people (generally on the left) or people who don't have any skin in the game (i.e. no significant taxable income or asse

I'm looking at this from a slightly different point of view. If I, as a small business, accept credit card payments, I'd be insane not to expect the IRS to have its hooks into data on my receipts. But if I pay someone $600 for stuff, the IRS is going to expect me to track this for them? That means I'll have to get taxpayer IDs from any vendor I buy stuff from.

Try this some time: Walk into a local shop, buy a load of crap and then whip out your 1099-K form and ask them for their social security (or taxpayer ID) number. Odds are that the clerk will think you are nuts.

it means that they will have to collect your Taxpayer ID number and then validate it.

so no illegal alliens can use E-bay.

Perhaps you weren't aware that illegal aliens can get a ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) from the IRS, and can actually report and file 1040s every year with that same TIN. Even when here illegally (thus making their entire income illegal).

The IRS doesn't care as long as you pay taxes, unless they feel you didn't pay enough, then it's up to you to prove you paid enough not up to the IRS to prove you didn't.

...you can easily find tales of IRS agents abusing their authority to look up info ...

Sure, that's true. It's happened in the past so there are records of it that are easy to find.

But it's sure not common. The employee who was led out of my office (yes, I work for them ) in handcuffs last week could testify that IRS employees who look up ex-spouses get fired and prosecuted. Every access to the Integrated Data Retrieval System, the front-end to nearly all our master files, is logged and automatically checked against the employees dossier. If you look up a family member or yourself you get fired and prosecuted. If you look up a famous person without cause, same outcome. If you look up someone who just happens to live in your neighborhood (even though you had no idea you did so), an investigation is opened and it's never pleasant.

I firmly believe that of all "large" agencies the IRS is the most trustworthy. The stats on firings for such reasons are available to the public and I'd feel comfortable comparing them to any other agency.

Personally, I think it should be coproclepticratic... Government via the uncontrolled theft of people's shit.

We already have that.

Probably it just means corporate and national security outfits will have all sensitive data pass through a nice strong VPN connection. The laptop you carry through customs will be freshly formatted and ready for any amount of probing.

That's exactly the way we do it. We send people to France with some regularity and it's illegal to take an encrypted device into that country. Thus, we wipe the machine and put a base, unencrypted image on it. User flies to France. Once inside, an encypted blob of user data is VPN'd to the local IT guy who puts it on the laptop. User does his job. Before flying out, local IT guy wipes the machine.

If Australia is going to start insisting on poking around in our machines, we'll have to do the same for employees going there.

Of course, if it's optional I imagine our folks won't be subjected to it. Those red passports open a lot of doors. :-)

(Actually, I've never seen one of our "official business only" passports. International travelers have their official passports stored in a safe in Washington D.C. and only get them issued right before departure. So I'm not sure they're red but that's what I've been told.)

I don't know what you're thinking of when you say "most jurisdictions", but in the U.S., in an employer-employee relationship, a work for hire is "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment". That's a quote from Section 101 of the Copyright Law of the United States. That's it. No extra "if it's in the contract" or other weasel words. Explicit, succinct, and definitive.

OTOH, in a contractor or collaborator relationship, the definition of "work for hire" is a multi-part test. But in this case, I don't think that applies. Assuming the Anonymous Question Submitter is being literally accurate in his wording, he (she?) said "Later a university department hired me, on a part-time basis, to develop this project into a solution that they needed." (emphasis mine).

So, of the two-part definiton of an employer-employee work for hire, "hired me" establishes the "employee" part of the equation*, and "to develop this project" is the "in the course of his or her employment" part.

IANAL, but I can read. If the facts presented are accurate and complete, it's as cut and dried as the literal word of the law can be. (i.e., subject to interpretive modification by courts as their whim allows, but until the lawsuit is decided I have to assume the letter of the law is the law.)

*maybe. The words "hired me" are occasionally used to described the contractor relationship as well. The distinction is itself an interesting body of rules and lawsuits, but I think the Internal Revenue Service guidance is illustrative. Interestingly, the burden of proof is on proving someone working for you is, in fact, an independent contractor. Lacking that, the default case is an employee.

while not mentioning that he & Melinda give along the lines of 1% ~ 2%.

Yeah, that Gates, he's a real miser.

Outside of that, though - saying "1-2%" is playing the same percentages game that politicians and bloggers love to play when they say that the wealthiest people "only" pay a 15% tax rate, while the poor middle-class working man is paying 20-25%. It doesn't make a good sound bite to say that (for example) in 2007 the wealthiest people (over 100k in income) have paid 203bn in taxes (for 2007, last year data is available for now) while the total income from under 100k earners was 38bn. (Source: http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=96981,00.html)

Can you provide a link on that? The IRS is cracking down on such actions, and the requirements for them to be contractors are going to be more than IBM would want. ( http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.html )

I work for a giant TLA. ... We're headed straight to hell, aren't we?

humm I believe you have already arrived

I work for a giant TLA. Our AV is Symantec. Our removable media and whole-disk encryption products are in mid-migration to all-GERS (from a combination of GERS and WinMagic).

We're headed straight to hell, aren't we?

In the US you currently pay tax on any legal gaming winnings, but in many cases it's almost the honor system as far as reporting goes. Also, If you DO win, documented losses are deductible but that just might get you audited if you have not been reporting in previous years and suddenly you win big and can produce documentation of past losses...

BTW, you're supposed to report and pay taxes on unlawful winnings as well, but I doubt most people do. And I'm pretty sure unlawful wager losses are not deductible, but I don't know anyone that has tried it.

I bet the car dealer loved having to fill out an IRS form 8300 on you.

That's an exchange of capital, and the IRS DOES want it's cut. They don't want a part of your house or pen. They want LEGAL TENDER!

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html

The Free File program provides free federal income tax preparation and electronic filing for eligible taxpayers through a partnership between the Internal Revenue Service and the Free File Alliance LLC, a group of private sector tax software companies. Many companies offer free or paid state tax preparation and efiling services. Some companies may not offer state tax preparation and e-file services for all states. http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html

So I guess the "This Road Is Being Paid by Federal Funds" sign I drove by on the way to work today was all part of a vast conspiracy.

For years, there's been a pie chart near the end of every for 1040 instruction booklet showing how incoming and outgoing funds are allocated. Interest on the national debt is 8%.

This year it's on page 100: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040.pdf

Maybe it's so fast because it only has 50-75% uptime. The IRS website is the only website I've ever seen that was "closed." See here.

This Application Is Available During the Following Hours:

Monday - Friday: 6:00 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Eastern time
Saturday: 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern time
Sunday: 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. Eastern time

You're (probably) not rich enough to *have* to pay for actual liberal policies.

Like the middle class? It was built with 90+% top marginal tax rates. Now Warren Buffett pays a smaller % than his secretary.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Besides, one anecdote (assuming just for the sake of argument that it's true) is nothing compared to the fact that 86% of all federal income tax revenue is paid by the top 25% of taxpayers. That's up from 84% in 2000. The top 50% of taxpayers pay 97% of all income-tax revenue. Just the top 1% (which would include Buffett) are responsible for a whopping 39% of income-tax revenue; that's also up 2% from 2000.

"In 1980, when the top income tax rate was 70%, the richest 1% paid only 19% of all income taxes; now, with a top rate of 35%, they pay more than double that share."

You might want to read up on the Laffer Curve to learn how decreasing tax rates can lead to increasing revenue.

Here in Australia the ATO (Australian Tax Office) publishes it's own tax return submission software, E-Tax free of course for anyone holding an Australian tax number. This program is the only means to submit personal tax returns electronically, this is mostly for security reasons.

You mean like freefile here in the states?

In fact, they don't even have to file to be treated as tax exempt.

Holy crap!

I was about to post to say you were full of shit on this one, so went to the IRS site to get a reference, and it turns out you're right.

"Religious organizations" still have to do all the paperwork that regular non-profits do, but there's a special exemption for "churches" that waive all these requirements. They don't even have to pay the $150 a year that we have to.

The IRS has a handy summary Q&A explaining how it works.

They have to obey certain rules, such as they're not allowed to transfer Church property to private individuals for less than market value (but nothing prohibits the church from owning a private jet that's used solely by Pat Robertson, for example).

Also, the church is prohibited from spending a "substantial part of its activity" in attempting to influence legislation, nor may it interfere in political campaigns. Of course, these rules are blatantly violated by large churches all the time.

There's even special rules for churches limiting the IRS's authority to audit them.

Damn.

"You may deduct only the amount by which your total medical care expenses for the year exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income." --Topic 502 - Medical and Dental Expenses

Check out a hunting supply catalog, the same device NOT sold as a medical item cost 90% less....

You pay for the exam.

You pay for the hearing aid.

But you are also paying for the licensed technician who helps you chose the right hearing aid. Casts the earpiece for a proper fit. Adjusts the settings to properly compensate for your hearing loss.

Provides follow-up support and service.

You pay for the record-keeping.

Should something go disastrously wrong on the job, you just might be asked who installed your hearing aid.

The prescription hearing aid is a tax deductable medical expense. Topic 502 - Medical and Dental Expenses

Have a tax code that's short enough for a single person to read completely through in less than 2000 hours of reading (leaving two weeks for actual work)

Become a New Zealand citizen... seriously.

Our tax code is 3408 (PDF) pages long: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2007/0097/latest/viewpdf.aspx . Most of that is irrelevant and can be skimmed (contents: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2007/0097/latest/DLM1512301.html). You would need to revoke your US citizenship: "If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, the rules for filing income, estate, and gift tax returns and paying estimated tax are generally the same whether you are in the United States or abroad." as per http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97324,00.html

Other reasons:

• I am now a part owner of a business, and I find tax simpler now I am not a normal tax payer.
• If you are a normal tax earner, the process is simple (and extremely simple if you get a tax consultant to do it - although most people don't bother).
• It is a great place to live. Most stats confirm that.
• The New Zealand IRD (IRS equivalent) has a very good online system where you can review your personal or business IRD account and details i.e. tax payments, tax due, etc etc.
• A downside is that you will have to learn parts of three other languages: Maori, Credulous and Monty.
• Our IRD usually just want to sort out problems, with the minimum of hassle. I personally have sorted out some complex back-dated issues.
• New Zealanders generally like Americans (your government hasn't done anything obviously nasty to us).
• The IRD have a call centre, and when I used it I have always been treated well, and I have talked to competent staff that answered questions (or that passed me to relevant managers, or otherwise they got information correct). I have also emailed the IRD (on their web system) and they gave back correct and helpful information. The call centre has a toll-free number, and if it is busy, the phone system tells you how long the wait is, and asks you if you want a call back.
• New Zealand is not a police state.

Fundamentally, it seems like the New Zealand IRD is really interested in not wasting your time. I cringe at the stories about the IRS, and the dealing personal friends have had with it.

PS: Our state and private health care systems work too (from experience. Also our health stats mostly rank better than the US). If you want to pay for private health care (i.e. health care beyond what your taxes pay for) it is cheap, available and it also works.An expensive all-options private plan for an unhealthy 40 year old is about USD30 per week. http://wellbeingcalculator.southerncross.co.nz/OnlineQuote.aspx (I hope accessable from a non-NZ IP address). Get a quote by selecting a plan and answering 4 questions: (Q1) Are you a non-smoker? ie. have not smoked at all over the past 12 months, (Q2) Do you eat five servings or more of fruit and vegetables per day? (Q3) Do you exercise three or more times a week? (Q4) Do you drink: Female - two or less glasses of alcohol a day (14 per week)? Male - three or less glasses of alcohol a day (21 per week)?

Ya see the thing is generally speaking capital gains tax is less than income and payroll tax. Consultants running their own companies generally pay capital gains on most of their income whereas employees pay income tax and their employers pay payroll tax, which generates more revenue for the government.

Agreed with the rest of your post, but you're wrong about payroll taxes. Payroll taxes (the employer's portion) are simply matching amounts of what the employee pays for social security and medicare (and a small amount of unemployment). If you're an employee and pay $x in SS and Medicare taxes, your employer also pays an additional $x in SS and Medicare on behalf of you.

Self-employed people pay a self employment tax to match lost payroll tax revenue. Essentially, they pay $2x in SS and Medicare taxes, to match what they and their employer would've paid if they had been employed by the company instead of hired as a freelancer. So the IRS isn't losing any payroll taxes from someone being self-employed.

I believe the crux of the "lost IRS revenue" argument is that capital gains tax is generally less than income tax, and self-employed people are pretty anal about deducting business-related expenses whereas employees aren't (they're supposed to get their company to reimburse them, and the company "deducts" those expenses since they generally only pay taxes on net income: revenue minus expenses).

Where'd my links go? (*sigh*) The IRS Section 530 3 point test, and the pre-530 20 point test which currently applies to software developers, drafters and other technical people.

(you can request a tax payer ID number from the IRS which looks exactly like a SSN)

This appears to not be true:

An ITIN, or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, is a tax processing number only available for certain nonresident and resident aliens, their spouses, and dependents who cannot get a Social Security Number (SSN). It is a 9-digit number, beginning with the number "9", formatted like an SSN (NNN-NN-NNNN).

To obtain an ITIN, you must complete IRS Form W-7, IRS Application for Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (PDF) . The Form W-7 requires documentation substantiating foreign/alien status and true identity for each individual. You may either mail the documentation, along with the Form W-7, to the address shown in the Form W-7 Instructions, present it at IRS walk-in offices, or process your application through an Acceptance Agent authorized by the IRS. Form W-7(SP), Solicitud de Número de Identificación Personal del Contribuyente del Servicio de Impuestos Internos (PDF) is available for use by Spanish speakers.

Unless you see somewhere else, where citizens (who already have an SSN) can get another number solely for tax purposes?

All this of course is moot, because it's not reported in a field marked: "Illegal Income"... it's lumped into a field marked: "Income from Other Sources:"

That is not accurate. The "Other Income" box requires you to break out the types and amounts.

This is the text from Form 1040 Line 21... Other income. List type and amount (see page 29)

While it is accurate that the IRS has strong limitations on who it can share information with, one exception is reporting the commission of federal crimes. If any federal agency wants the information, they can get easily jump through the hoops necessary to get it.

Also the IRS shares the information with state and local tax agencies. States can also gather their own information through their own tax forms.

There are no constitutional protections from the information on your tax returns being used against you in a non-tax related criminal trial.

Really? How much money is being spent on welfare in the US?

57% of all federal expenditures, according to this (p. 100).

I know that this opinion is popular on Slashdot, but there's something that is easy to forget: many, many people are just not very intelligent. And for them, the world is a fundamentally scary place where a lot of very bad things happen for apparently random reasons. (Even before there were tax refund loans, people paid H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt to fill out a 1040EZ, because they couldn't understand it. Go work in a public hospital ER, or for a public defender, and you can meet these people too.) Religion - for all its faults - lets them believe that someone is watching out for them, and that it will be all right in the end. The fact that elites have co-opted it for their own purposes does not diminish this; the elites will co-opt anything - religion, democracy, communism, dictatorship, business, society - because the ability to co-opt things to your own purposes is what makes you become and stay an elite.

In the U.S. you can write off gambling losses to the extent of your gambling winnings. See Topic 419. ;)

A fair distinction, but the program is a partnership between the IRS and "Free File Alliance, LLC". http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html It meets the criteria of being an IRS program, and way to freely electronically file your federal taxes.

I think you know little of how waiters work then. They already don't declare their tips fully.

True but if they don't declare at least 8% of their sales as tip income it will almost certainly trigger an audit. This information is required to be reported on form 4070 and the IRS knows there is a high propensity to cheat.

To all those who don't realize that you CAN file your taxes for free in the US:

http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html

There are 20 states which also participate in this program- allowing you to file state returns for free as well.

AL, AR, AZ, GA, IA, ID, KY, MI, MN, MO, MS, NY, NC, ND, OK, OR, RI, SC, VT, WV

The group responsible for this program is the Free File Alliance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_File_Alliance