Slashdot Mirror
Congress is About To Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing (propublica.org)
Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system. ProPublica reports: Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Mike Kelly (R-Pa). In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry's profits.
"This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program," said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center. Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.
"This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program," said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center. Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.
Just like health care, they throw the good of the population under the bus to protect existing industries that profit from the horribly broken status quo. And a large chunk of the population has been tricked into liking it that way.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I know...you make exceptions so you don't tax necessities of life (food, medicine, etc)....but after that, everyone has skin in the game, it is a fixed fair rate, and then you don't need a CPA, you fill in the post card.
You made X? You pay Y.
Easy peasy...no need for 3rd parties at all.
Hell, you could likely come up with almost no corporate tax, or very little (simple rates)...and you'd have businesses flowing into the US as a benefit offering more jobs.
Then again, it would be simple and easy and efficient.....so, at the same time, I think I"ll wish for a pony too.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
given how often the IRS gives bad advice on taxes, and the fact that they're not responsible for errors, I really don't have a problem with this. Nobody in their right mind would use any software made by the IRS anyway.
US corporations actually run the US, the elections are only there to change the people whom are told what to do, and to give the voters the false impression they have a choice.
"If Voting Made a Difference, They Wouldn't Let Us Do It" - Mark Twain (?)
You'd need a constitutional amendment for a national sales tax or VAT. Plus those are regressive tax schemes.
Interestingly, you could probably do a national sales tax if all the money went directly to some sort of UBI - the requirement is that the money be sent to the states in proportion to population, can't be spent directly by the federal government.
A flat tax on all forms of income (including dividends, interest, inflation-adjusted capital gains, and so on) would be ideal. Make it progressive by sending everyone a check for a fixed amount on top of that tax. No need for an income tax at all: a payroll tax will cover all wages, sine it's a flat tax. But we'll never get this, because the very rich would pay a lot more.
Now as soon as you allow any deductions whatsoever to the flat tax, it's ruined as loopholes will immediately be added for the 1%, and the tax rate will neeed to double to bring in the same total. But if there were no deductions or exceptions of any kind? Golden.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
it is not to late to stop this monstrosity
if just 10% of the people on slashdot actually bothered to contact their congressional delegation (1 rep + 2 sen) this wouldn't
you don't call you loose your right to complain
call email telex wire now
this is something you can do
Why do we need a "flat tax" or a "fair tax".
For 90% of Americans, who take the "standard deduction", tax calculations aren't even "calculations". I could write an Excel spreadsheet to do them in an hour. The govt has ALL of the relevant information and could just do them for the people. You don't need to do some kind of "flat tax" or "Fair tax". It already is EASY
The problem is that most Americans don't understand it because of laws like this one.
Software is different though - it has essentially zero cost of duplication and distribution. That's the entire premise behind the open source movement - leveraging that zero cost of duplication and distribution to maximize benefit to society. Essentially you can view what the IRS is doing as hiring a few people to write tax software for them (so, maybe $200k in development costs), then duplicating and distributing it to everyone for free. Even if the IRS charged double their development costs for it, I doubt Intuit and H&R Block could compete with that price (e.g. if they sell 10 million copies, then each copy should be priced at less than 4 cents).
One other important point - the IRS already needs this software anyway, since they have to know if people are paying the correct amount. And really, as the summary points out, the IRS already receives most of the data that people enter in their tax forms, so forcing people to transcribe all of the data is a waste of time and obvious source of errors.
Isn't it the _basic_ role of the IRS to make it as simple and automated as possible ?!?
A lot of the blame can be put on Grover Norquist, the leader of Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax, small government group. One of the things his group advocates for is to make filing taxes as hard as possible. The group fears that if filing taxes is easy, then people won't resist paying them or the growth of government. For those of you who may not be aware, Norquist pushes aggressively for politicians to sign a "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" that basically fights any new taxes. For Republicans, it's almost mandatory less have one of the largest right-wing groups move against you.
Yeah, because those slackers making 15k a year should TOTALLY pay a third of their income to make filing easy. No other possible solution could exist. All those countries which fill their citizen's tax forms out for them are merely fake news.
The agency in charge of collecting your taxes is not allowed to provide a portal where you can submit them your tax information, and instead you have to pay a company to fulfill your legal obligation to file taxes?
What a dystopian shit hole.
Article 1 section 8 says:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Duties, imposts, an excises are taxes on transactions, on doing things, as opposed to a tax on being (either a tax on a person being alive or a thing existing). A sales tax is an excise tax. The requirement, then, is that the tax is uniform - the feds can't set a different rate in California than Florida. Note there is no mention of census or population. So no Constitutional issue with a national sales tax.
So where DO we find a mention of population?
We find that regarding "direct taxes", which are taxes on being (either a person, being a alive, or a tax on a thing based on what kind of thing it is - a tax being a car or being a house). This as opposed to taxes on transactions, on doing. Direct taxes therefore are:
Real Property taxes
Capitation ($x per person)
Personal property taxes
See
Murphy v. Internal Revenue Service and United States, case no. 05-5139,
For these direct taxes only, the Constitution provides that:
--
Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers.
So the feds can't tax each of the states $1 billion for property, direct taxes (taxes on people or property) have to be apportioned by population.
What does "apportioned" mean? Well, we're talking about taxes here, not spending. Apportioning TAXES means how taxes are levied amongst the states. As mentioned previously, this applies only to direct taxes, so it has no relevance for transaction taxes anyway.
Income - PovertyLine = Taxable income. With a flat tax, calculating the amount is easy.
You make 30,000. You subtract the 25,000 Poverty Line (or whatever it is) from your income. That leaves 5,000 that is taxable. A 10% flat tax rate means a $500 tax
Even the rich guy with a 500,000 income gets to subtract that 25,000 from his income. Not that it will make much of a difference in his taxes. The tax would be $47,500, assuming a 10% flat tax.
But I have three kids. Where's my deduction?
You don't get a child deduction. Having kids was your choice that other people should not be required to subsidize.
What about my mortgage interest deduction?
You don't get a mortgage interest deduction. Buying a house was your choice that people stuck in apartments should not have to subsidize.
Incomes and tax rates chosen at random for illustration purposes only.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Income - PovertyLine = Taxable income.
But I have three kids. Where's my deduction?
You don't get a child deduction. Having kids was your choice that other people should not be required to subsidize.
Your idiotic argument doesn't even define "ProvertyLine", which will definitively be affected by all the children born whose parents you're denying any deductions.
But hey, that's fine - don't have any kids! In 40-50 years we'll have an empty country, complete with cities, ready for colonization!
"The job of the IRS is to collect taxes, not prepare them."
except that how is the IRS supposed to know if you filed and paid the correct amount?
that's right, the IRS has to also compute its version of what you owe to see that it matches, i.e. it has to "PREPARE" your taxes ANYWAYS. And they have to already have almost all info needed. Its all duplicate effort -- a waste of your time.