@SteveSoCal wrote:
@Cassiespark wrote:
So you post an admonishment about not getting political, and then go on a political rant about rich people. Which isn't, btw, true.
To clear up any misunderstanding, I agree that the wealthy pay the majority of taxes, and was not stating otherwise. You may have missed my point, which was not necessarily political, nor a rant about rich people. It was essentially an economic observation, in a thread about IRS audits, which is an economic discussion.
The wealthy who pay the majority of taxes have a general understanding that one political party's win may result a more friendly tax base for them. I don't think it's a particularly debatable nor controversial opinion that the difference in said tax base would be millions of dollars.
While the top 10% may contribute a majority of the taxes paid, they do not directly control elections, so my mildly political point was that resources from the 10% are being focused toward convincing the other 90% to vote in their economic favor.
The ridiculous component is someone voting one particular way based on the economics of defunding the IRS in order to avoid an audit. It's extremely short-sighted (i.e. foolish) since it doesn't take into account the myriad other ways that said tax laws and potential enforcement of said laws may affect them positively.
So, the OP I was responding to was probably either attempting to convince others to vote in their chosen direction for non-economic reasons, which is in bad faith, and I could make a good argument for being against forum guidelines...or they are a fool who doesn't understand the financial impact of their suggestion. Based on the number of grammatical errors in the post after 3 rounds of editorial, I suspect the latter.
More government, bigger government is NEVER good for citizens. I believe in law & order, but I do not believe police forces should look like small armies. More IRS agents is not good for citizens.
People should be honest when they do their taxes. Period. You report all income, unless the law specifically says you do not have to report it. For now, at least, if you make a $1 doing mystery shopping, auditing, or other gig work, you have to report it. Even if you do not receive a 1099. Then, you use the tax laws to your advantage to take every deduction and expense you are legally allowed to take. It's a numbers game. Large corporations are good at it, which is how you get companies like Amazon either not paying any taxes or not paying "their fair share," whichever story is the flavor of the day. I'm not sure what "fair share" is anyway. Funny, nobody seems to ever define it. Probably because the people that b***h and moan about it ARE part of the problem they claim is a problem.
All of this could be solved by first doing a major rewrite of the tax code. To my knowledge, nobody currently still in the race is even talking about that. There is a lot of talk about not taxing certain income. A simple, straightforward rewrite of the code would be more beneficial to everybody. We also need to stop spending. I don't mean cut-off all spending, I mean we need to stop the PORK. If Calabasas, CA wants a million dollar water fountain for people who think they are kitty-cats, so be it. The taxpayers in Calabasas can pay for that. It should not be a part of the insane spending bills that come out of Congress, where it is hidden on page 485 of a 900-page bill that was developed behind closed doors. We need to stop sending money overseas. If helping Ukraine or Zimbabwe is important to you, super. Send your money directly. I'd like to keep as much of mine in my pocket, especially when I have a leaky roof and cannot afford to put a new roof on right now because eggs are $7. My hope is that we will one day to go a flat tax, and that we will phase out social security and allow the babies born today to keep their money and actually put it to work for them through investments. That is much better than giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan.
You can throw it all away. When things break, things shatter. Keep it written on your face, the little details matter.