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Massachusetts' Big Brother Tech to Watch Taxpayers
rocketjam writes "The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts state Revenue Department has launched a new technology offensive which strives to piece together all the stray bits of financial information about individual taxpayers that is contained in various public databases in order to catch tax cheats. The databases have been around for years, but technology has only recently enabled the state to assemble and review the information in a time-efficient manner. The so-called 'Discovery' initiative is already bringing in an additional $1 million a week. While denying the state is playing 'Big Brother', the Revenue Department Commissioner, Alan LeBovidge predicted the state may eventually be able to track so much financial information on individuals that the state could complete the citizens' returns for them."
Oh, that's just great... Especially since there's about fifty ways that even a simple tax return can be computed. You've heard of those experiments where they take relatively simple tax information for a fictional family, and send it to 30 different tax accountants, and the result is about 25 or more different returns, ranging from "you owe $1800" to "you're getting $2300 back"? Gee, I wonder which computation Massachusettes would take...
I suppose they think they can include the $20 my wife's employer paid me in cash the other day for fixing one of their computers (it was a pretty minor problem). Granted, $20 doesn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things - but it is still possible, using greenbacks, to make one's financial transactions very hard to track. Consider people who receive paychecks instead of direct deposit, cash their checks at the grocery store, and keep their cash on-hand. How well do you track that?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
but they won't.
They'd never accept the liability for doing the returns.
We're left with all the intrusions and none of the benefits.
Am I the only one that wishes the IRS would sent me a summary of what has been reported to them? At least that way I could reconcile *before* signing my name to something.
t
How about the state not spend so much fucking money? Is it really that hard?
If you live in a state that has a sales tax, you can't really avoid taxes by shopping online, by phone, or by mail. Yeah, you avoid the sales tax, but by causing to have imported into the state a taxable item you owe a use tax, which is usually equal to exactly the sales tax you would have had to pay on an in-state transaction.
The problem is, for an individual, it's hard to collect a use tax on most things. Your state can't ask an out-of-state vendor for their sales records because they're out-of-state and therefore not under your state's jurisdiction. They can't really force you to give a true answer because you have the ability to plead the Fifth Amendment if you're ever accused of not paying a use tax you should have.
It's a problem the states have wanted to solve ever since online shopping got big, but there hasn't exactly been a breakthrough. The states that don't have a sales tax have no reason to help the states that do. Tax classifications can vary from state to state, or even county to county or city by city, so computing what tax is really owed is a complex task that nobody wants to do either. So, it's still one of those problems in the unsolved bin at this moment.
Most citizens' financial information is already known by the government. Working people pay taxes through paycheck withholding. The only ones who can cheat on their taxes in any significant way are corporations who are basically on the honor system when it comes to paying taxes these days. That's who this kind of system is designed to detect. Don't believe the hype. Working people are being ripped off by corporate tax cheats. The tax burden is being shifted to the middle and upper-middle classes while the elites get off scott free.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Is that the reactions are too easy to predict. Personally, I like seeing tax cheats get caught, because it means I pay less. As long as there a legitmate system for addressing grievances, I don't see a problem. Big Brother is an overused cliche.
Good work.
I know I'm trolling. No need to remind me.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I'm not a lawyer or a legal expert but something about pulling this data together and possibly going on "witch hunts" smacks of "unreasonable search..." Either way, it's scary.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I work a number of different jobs throughout the year, and have to deal with the considerable annoyance of having each one attempt to deduce what my yearly earnings are going to be and tax me accordingly.
The jobs that pay me $200/week (even if I'm only working two days there) will take out almost no taxes becuase they assume I'm making $10,000/year. When I'm paid $2000 for one week of work, I get taxed on the ludicrous assumption that I'm going to be making $100,000/year. Neither assumption is accurate and both leave the government taking out a grossly incorrect percent of my wages in tax anticipation.
Why can't the government compile a system that will help companies to estimate what my tax payment should be not simply by what I'm being paid in the current week, but by looking back over the whole last year and seeing how much I've made this tax-year (through different employers) and what that average income is going to end up being near.
Better yet, why can't we come up with a system that doesn't depend upon weird estimates as the year goes on, but allows you to announce at the beginning what your income is going to be near and then simply take out the percent that that tax bracket would warrant. Then, if you were accurate, you'd have no refund and no taxes do and you could just fold everything up and go home.
Damned taxes.
--
RumorsDaily
"Information wants to be free", right?
Hasn't this been the whole point of the last century of effort in the field of computing? The constant push for faster processors? The drive for larger, faster storage, in smaller form factors? The constant advances in memory efficiency and effectiveness? For generations now, everybody has been working for smaller, cheaper, faster, computing--working very successfully at it.
Everybody wants it. Everybody wants their information to be more portable, more accessible. That's what the Internet is for. That's why relational databases were invented. That's why SQL and cross-platform development tools are so important. That's why everybody is lusting after Wi-Fi.
It's all so that more information can move with greater speed over greater distances, and be organized and studied with greater ease. That's what you've been working for. That's what you want. It's what everybody wants. The academics who used the original ARPAnet want it. The government wants it. The Open Source community wants it. Microsoft wants it. Your boss wants it. You want it. I want it.
Privacy was an illusion, perpetuated for millenia by a lack of technology. But the information is out there. It always has been. And you want it to be free. Now, you're finally getting what you want, and it's only going to get cheaper and easier from here.
Everything is going according to plan. Your plan.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Spend money on educating kids, not on the admin that run the damn schools. You can't tell me that you honestly believe that state goverment is ran as efficently as possible.
They're the same overloads as before. They're just more public about it since the Bush administration has laid the groundwork for them to do whatever they want to citizens.
The Bush administration has exactly what effect on state government, again?
(Or, since this is Massachusetts we're talking about, perhaps I should say "commonwealth government" instead.)
IMO Bush is indeed a bad president, but it's reactionary and irrational to blame his administration for EVERY change in government that you don't like.
Right. Let's blame the Bush administration for what happens in Massachusetts. This is the state that the Kennedys run and from which Bush's likely opponent, Kerry, hails, with Uncle Ted's blessing, of course.
Get a grip, Bush-bashers. What the Bush administration is doing was already happening all around the world before G.W. wet his first diaper.
So, they're going to crack down on the cheaters. Do you think this means the tax rate might go down, then? HAHAHAHAHA!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
This time, they're just being more technical about it...kinda scarey though...
Their logic is backwards from the article tho. It says to the effect, 'if you don't want more taxes..pay the ones you owe'
I'd say...if you had more reasonable taxation...we'd be more willing to pay them....but, losing 30% or more our of my paycheck...is ridiculous....and that's just payroll taxes. Then sales tax, use tax, phone tax, gas tax, tax on cable...etc.
Enough is enough I say...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
...gov'ts would have done this earlier - while the Patriot Act presumably made some information easier to get that gov'ts would not have otherwise have gotten, the main impetus driving this collection is the ability to gather personal and financial data using the internet. Once that capability came along, it was only a matter of time. Bush didn't make it possible - the tech did. Once the capacity is there, people want to use to best enhance their power, and bureaucracies (sic) are no different.
Also remember that both Democrats and Republicans gave us the Patriot Act and its spawn - while Ashcroft (and by consequence GWB) can take the blame for some of its misuse, they didn't give themselves this power - our elected representatives did. Something to remember come November.
>
> doing it yourself, or having a 3rd party accountant or software do it is the way you keep the revenue service honest - true to their own convoluted, overly-complex rules.
Doing it yourself also makes it blatantly clear to you that the tax code has nothing to do with raising revenue, and everything to do with social engineering.
Seriously. With respect to those who died on the Challenger, did we really need Congress to direct the IRS to spend time writing up "Astronauts Who Die In The Line Of Duty" guidelines for the 2003 tax year? Do we really need laws that micromanage our lives to the point that seven people on the entire planet (maybe 6, I'm not sure if the law covers the Israeli, but if he earned that income from NASA, perhaps he also has to dual-file with the IRS) get a tax break?
If the goal of tax policy is the collection of revenue to fund projects that the State has decided to commit resources to, the answer is "no".
If the goal of tax policy is to remind the serfs who is Lord and who is Serf, and that the Serfs had goddamn well better keep in their place if they know what's good for them, then the answer is "yes".
Do your taxes by hand with a calculator. And decide for yourself on the basis of your observations, what the tax code is really all about.
I'm not gonna go Randroid and suggest that taxes should be abolished. I'm not even gonna go with my personal opinion that taxes should be reduced.
As someone who lives in America, the land that spends $200 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR in complying with ITS OWN GODDAMN TAX CODE, I am going to go so far as to say the Internal Revenue Code needs to be scrapped and replaced with something less complex, even if tax rates rise under a new system.
Either the US tax code is radically reformed, or I - someone who pays more in taxes than I spend on all other expenses, including my own food, shelter, and entertainment combined - will fucking walk to any country that'll have me.