Law is complicated for many reasons. Private people (here referred to as the personally taxed) don’t have the means, both financial and time, sometimes also the ability to understand the language used in lawmaking, which isn’t made to be easily understood, to keep up with the law. Normally people aren’t really expected to, if you’re a “good” person (morality being subjective and cultural, of course), you’re unlikely to break a law and get punished for it (not diving into edge cases of people forced by their circumstances). But then you’re forced to comply with tax law. If it’s automated, you can get unrightfully made to pay more without your knowledge. If it’s not, you get forced into a game staged against you. People shouldn’t be taxed. Tax should be solely handled by the companies, because they have the means to hire people dedicated to taxes. I feel like this is very important and tax is frequently brought up in many ways, but I don’t see people speaking of this and I’d love to!

Disclaimer: I file for tax literally refreshing for it to be available and help other people with their tax. It’s precisely why I think personal taxation is wrong. I know too many people who paid way too much in tax and didn’t know and cannot claim it, because it’s been too long since.

  • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Income taxation abolition would be incredibly popular among right wing morons and idk why the left doesn’t capitalize on that but hey Im not a money nerd maybe I’m naive in just thinking the govt doesn’t need to penalize individuals to fund itself when it controls the fucking currency.

    • uralsolo [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Income tax abolition would be sick as hell, imagine snapping your fingers and making everyone’s paycheck bigger. You could replace it 1:1 with taxes on capital gains and stock speculation and it would do a lot to level the financial playing field between the rich and the poor (who would still be paying the lion’s share of sales taxes and other govt fees, something else to look into).

      • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        It would also just like simplify things for people. It’s hard to tell how much I’m really improving my situation getting another $2/hr when it’s like, oh, now those dollars get taxed more. And my rent is still gonna go up, and the cost of my food, etc. Yay

        I want a $2 pay increase to mean you’re actually taking all that home and not require some fucking calculus to figure out what it actually means for you

  • footfaults [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    The only reason you have to make a guess about your taxes is because of the personal tax lobby in America. There are lots of other countries out there that send you a tax form that lists out their calculations and what you owe as a result, and then if you have a problem you obviously speak to the tax authority and work out the issue.

    In fact, that already happens in the US if you have property taxes. The local government tells you what they think the land and improvements are worth, and if you have a problem with it, you contact them and dispute their formula.

    Like, it’s not an all or nothing proposition here. The issue is that there is a bunch of companies that make money by keeping the tax process annoying and opaque and they lobby Congress to cut the IRS budget every year so the IRS doesn’t have enough people working for them to answer questions and deal with disputes.