How broken hearted is f16 about the IRS being restrained as a result of the shutdown? Oh the humanity! :P

Oh gosh, wait time is going to go from hours to more hours to get in touch with the IRS.

It's pretty bad though when you need them to do something so you can avoid overpaying or committing a felony.

Right… just like the thousands of IRS workers DOGE was going to lay off

I've only dealt with the IRS once and it was a bad experience. Back in 2009. They required you to fax them your responses. You could not email them or talk to them on the phone. They would then send you physical mail as their response. LOL.

Seems like making sure people and especially corporations pay what they owe would be a big part of government efficiency.

AtomicActuator said:

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It's pretty bad though when you need them to do something so you can avoid overpaying or committing a felony.

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By all means...please...defend the IRS.

Logos Stick said:

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I've only dealt with the IRS once and it was a bad experience. Back in 2009. They required you to fax them your responses. You could not email them or talk to them on the phone. They would then send you physical email as their response. LOL.

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Try getting your wages garnished without ANY notification.

That happened to me in 2010.

Federal Income tax collection and paycheck deductions should be shutdown during government shutdowns.

I won't defend the IRS - they are bad in a lot of ways. But the broad requirement of the government to collect revenue is non-optional.

Pass a flat tax and eliminate 95% of them.

That wouldn't change much - many tax evasion techniques would still apply in a flat income tax.

Edit: for example, classifying personal expenses as business expenses to reduce taxable income is advantageous regardless of whether you are paying a flat percentage or a progressively scaled rate.

AtomicActuator said:

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I won't defend the IRS - they are bad in a lot of ways. But the broad requirement of the government to collect revenue is non-optional.

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Maybe it should be.

We are tired of punitive taxation.

I went into an IRS office several years ago and I felt like the entire workforce was drugged. They had me enter information into a computer terminal that had round keys that were impossible to type on, and it was just overall a zombie experience.

AtomicActuator said:

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That wouldn't change much - many tax evasion techniques would still apply in a flat income tax.

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Then do a consumption tax.

Tom Fox said:

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Pass a flat tax and eliminate 95% of them.

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Better yet, maybe we should eliminate all income tax and just use a VAT.

Sat next to a furloughed IRS employee for a few hours this past Saturday in a casino poker tournament. He said he wasn't worried about eventually getting paid and was already collecting on a military pension, military disability and some small amount of social security.

AtomicActuator said:

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I won't defend the IRS - they are bad in a lot of ways. But the broad requirement of the government to collect revenue is non-optional.

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Revenue is income from business. The government taking it from me at gun point is not revenue. It is taxation.

Little Rock Ag said:

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Tom Fox said:

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Pass a flat tax and eliminate 95% of them.

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Better yet, maybe we should eliminate all income tax and just use a VAT.

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EDIT: Tom Fox beat me to the punch.

AtomicActuator said:

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It's pretty bad though when you need them to do something so you can avoid overpaying or committing a felony.

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If you have a specific example, maybe you could give it to us? There's almost no precedent for the IRS making retro changes and then holding you accountable to that in your prior year filing.

There are thousands upon thousands of CPAs that likely know the tax code better than the person that is fielding phone calls at the IRS.

Hell, I waited for 4 months for them to process a form while they were fully staffed and expanding under Biden.

I hope they have a long unpaid vacation.

Still ways to cheat a consumption tax or VAT. To get a similar total revenue as today, the rate would need to be super high, like more than 20%, which would incentivize black market purchases to avoid the tax. So an enforcement agency would still be required.

I'm all for shrinking the government and reforming the IRS, but revenue enforcement is always needed when coercive revenue collection is involved.

Tom Fox said:

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Pass a flat tax and eliminate 95% of them.

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Adopt AI and eliminate 95% of them.

AtomicActuator said:

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Still ways to cheat a consumption tax or VAT. To get a similar total revenue as today, the rate would need to be super high, like more than 20%, which would incentivize black market purchases to avoid the tax. So an enforcement agency would still be required.

I'm all for shrinking the government and reforming the IRS, but revenue enforcement is always needed when coercive revenue collection is involved.

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Your problem is the requirement to have the same revenue as today. Eliminate large swaths of the fed government and all entitlement spending.

Use a consumption tax.

Profit.

AtomicActuator said:

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Still ways to cheat a consumption tax or VAT. To get a similar total revenue as today, the rate would need to be super high, like more than 20%, which would incentivize black market purchases to avoid the tax. So an enforcement agency would still be required.

I'm all for shrinking the government and reforming the IRS, but revenue enforcement is always needed when coercive revenue collection is involved.

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I get that there is no perfect system that can't be gamed, but the current maze of regulations that average Americans are forced to navigate annually is absurd. I'll do my lawful duty and pay, so just stop trying to confuse and frustrate me every spring.

DrEvazanPhD said:

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The government taking it from me at gun point is not revenue. It is taxation.

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no notes

Agreed - the tax code is insane, and the tax filing process is ridiculous. And we in part have lobbying from tax lawyers and Intuit / TurboTax to blame. They profit from our pain, and the more dysfunctional the IRS is, the more they make.

AtomicActuator said:

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Seems like making sure people and especially corporations pay what they owe would be a big part of government efficiency.

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Well they're not policing themselves so why should they be policing others?

Quote:

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• More than 5,800 IRS and contractor employees owe nearly $50 million in overdue taxes.
• Of the 3,323 IRS employees with unpaid taxes, 2,044 owing more than $12 million were not on a payment plan.
• Of the 2,484 IRS contractor employees with unpaid taxes, 1,729 owing more than $17 million were not on a payment plan.
• Despite the IRS having the authority to fire employees who willfully fail to pay taxes, just 20 of the agency's tax cheats were terminated.

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IRS Employees owes millions in back taxes

AtomicActuator said:

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Agreed - the tax code is insane, and the tax filing process is ridiculous. And we in part have lobbying from tax lawyers and Intuit / TurboTax to blame. They profit from our pain, and the more dysfunctional the IRS is, the more they make.

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Both tried to get the irs to make being a CPA a requirement, they lost in court. Lobbying is the least of what they do

TheEternalOptimist said:

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How broken hearted is f16 about the IRS being restrained as a result of the shutdown? Oh the humanity! :P

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I want to party like its 1912.



The Infernal Revenue Service is at its best when it is at a limited or (better yet) non-existent state.

Much would change for the better in this country if the 16th Amendment were repealed.

Flat tax on individual income. No deductions at all. Everyone pays the exact same percentage.

Currently anyone not paying about $13,500 per family member in income tax is a mooch.

Hopefully they will be too busy to scrutinize my return

AtomicActuator said:

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Seems like making sure people and especially corporations pay what they owe would be a big part of government efficiency.

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Corporations should pay no taxes.

Eliminate SS and Medicare tax

Flat tax on individual income.

Personal income is still reduced by expenses when you are self-employed or have a small business. Overstating and misclassifying expenses when self-employed is the oldest trick in the book.

Edit: ok, it's the second oldest, behind just underreporting cash revenue.

AtomicActuator said:

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Agreed - the tax code is insane, and the tax filing process is ridiculous. And we in part have lobbying from tax lawyers and Intuit / TurboTax to blame. They profit from our pain, and the more dysfunctional the IRS is, the more they make.

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The whole premise of developing TurboTax is to simply the tax preparation process and it was developed not by Intuit but by Chipsoft back in 1984.

TheEternalOptimist said:

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Federal Income tax collection and paycheck deductions should be shutdown during government shutdowns.

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I shared this yesterday but they shut down the online payment system for flood insurance which is administered by the federal government through FEMA.

We had to call a human to get it paid. If that isn't the height of shutdown idiocy, I'm not sure what is.

Can't operate an automated payment system during a shutdown, but we can still take a payment through a call center.