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Posted on 05/04/2014 5:03:51 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s a couple of weeks too late for this to help most people this year, but I’m sure many of you ran into issues filing your taxes. It’s a huge pain in the backside, isn’t it? Over at Redstate, Matthew Clark dredges up a brilliant scheme from Ezra Klein which should make all of your lives easier.
Why not let the IRS do our taxes for us?
Liberal wunderkind Ezra Klein (formerly of the Washington Post and now of Vox.com) was pushing this new idea a few weeks ago.
Well it wasn’t really new. He’s been pushing it for years.
The idea is to let the IRS, which already has your income and other tax information reported to it, prepare your taxes for you. Klein promotes that it will save billions of dollars and millions of man-hours and “make the IRS your friend.” I mean who really likes doing their own taxes?
But it’s one of the absolute worst ideas I’ve ever heard.
Well, sure… the idea is bound to have a few critics, but not everyone would oppose it apparently. I don’t know if they still do this, but back in the 80′s I dated a girl who informed me that she had never filled out a tax return. Each year she simply filled in her name, date of birth, SSN and other personal bits on a blank 1040 and stuffed it in an envelope with her W-2. She then mailed it off to the IRS and had never had any problems with it. Now, I’m not sure if this was legal and her return was processed properly or she just hadn’t ever been caught, but she claimed to have gotten refund checks in the past, so I assumed it was possible.
Should you do it? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there might be a few people who could conceivably benefit from it. Young, single folks with one source of regular income who rent (rather than owning their home) and with no major outstanding debt or savings, could possibly get away with this and not lose much in the bargain. But I also agree with Matthew in that the IRS has the least possible incentive imaginable to put in any effort to ensure you get all of the deductions, etc. possible and pay the lowest bill. I mean, even if you implicitly trusted the government to begin with, this just sounds like a recipe for losing money.
” if you implicitly trusted the government to begin with, this just sounds like a recipe for losing money.”
If you implicitly trust the government you probably don’t have the sense to spend your own money well to begin with.
A 10% (just a figure to work with) tax on all personal purchases as the only taxes the FEDGOV get, THAT would be simple and final.
So it will never be the policy.
I used to wonder why the govt taxed us when they can just print the money they need.
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Ezra Klein, founder of Journolist ping.
Maybe no one else remembers this, but when Obama got into office, the first thing he did was use Affordable Care Act to increase the number of IRS agents by the thousands and he also tried to make it so that the only people who could prepare tax returns for money were people who were sanctioned by the govt.: IRS Enrolled Agents, tax lawyers, CPA’s and tax preparers who would have passed a special IRS test for tax preparers.
The courts struck that testing requirement down, but I’m sure that they are still looking for ways to deputize all people who prepare and submit tax returns and to require all tax payers to use these professional tax preparers (deputized agents) to legally file.
Later, they will make sure these deputized agents are trained to go through all of your private business to make sure you are adhering to every PC thought and practice demanded by the Marxist administration.
Cui bono.
Elvis Presley did this. His father, who handled Elvis’ finances, was afraid of using private accountants because he thought one wrong slip and Elvis would be broke and/or go to jail. So they had the IRS do their taxes for them directly. As a result, they never gave Elvis many deductions he was entitled to. And when he died, the IRS came after his estate, claiming that the IRS was owed 2.5 million. And soon increased that claim to 25 million.
A flat tax, as commonly proposed, isn't a solution to this problem. The complicated part of the income tax code is determining what income is taxable and what expenses are deducted. The simplest part is determining what tax rate to apply.
Abandoning income tax and going to some form of consumption tax is the way to go. It is in this situation only that I agree with the estate tax. If the estate is made up of income which has already been taxed, it is wrong to tax it again at death. However, if someone had hoarded a fortune under a consumption tax (and avoided taxes as a result), it would be fair to tax the estate upon death - call it the final transaction.
I would love to dismantle the IRS just for the message it would sent - we are tired of your abusive tactics. Unfortunately, some tax authorities would have to be in place to assure compliance.
Counter proposal....
10% import tariff
10% income tax on non citizens
0% tax on citizens.
If we only taxed imports and foreign workers you bet your bindle the irs would see our borders would be secured.
Two birds. One stone.
The author is likely too young to know that back in the 1970s and 1980s the Consumers Union (think “Consumer Reports”) filed identical tax returns with each regional IRS office.
They filled in income from W2 forms, provided all required reciepts and so on, and then let the IRS offices process the returns. When they got the results back NO TWO RETURNS WERE THE SAME.
The IRS can’t even calculate taxes owed consistently. Keep in mind, the tax code has grown a LOT since then.
[Insert Ayn Rand quote about govt WANTS the laws broken.]
At least the meaning still comes across and is valid, right?
Qui bono or cui bono is a Latin term which literally means ‘as a benefit to whom’. The translation of qui bono is ‘who with good’. It refers to the hidden motive or to the indication that the party who is actually caught for a crime is not the one who originally did the crime. In criminal investigations the rule of qui bono is applied. Qui bono is also applied in cases where an act is done with the intention to gain benefit.
This becomes a moot point if you simply eliminate corporate taxes altogether. (Ronald Reagan’s greatest non-implemented idea.)
LOLOL! unfortunately it'd be easier to pass a law to get rid of the IRS than one to tax aliens...
Oh yes.
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