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Comment by THE_PUN_STOPS | Hacker News Reader

You can thank Grover Norquist[1] for that. The Taxpayer Protection Pledge [2] that he promulgates to US republican lawmakers is the primary mechanism though which those legislators justify blocking simplification and streamlining of tax filing. If it's easier for people to pay taxes the government will probably ask for more cash if we implement those systems, right? Therefore it must be blocked according to the pledge! The logic is airtight!

Ironically in reality this is actually pretty much the opposite of taxpayer protection and amounts to additional tax paid to private corporations on TOP of our existing taxes.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Taxpa...

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Theoretically, the ideas he's talking about make sense. If say, you're a single person w/ no dependents who doesn't itemize making the process much simpler is attractive.

However - as Ted Cruz showed everyone - being able to do your taxes on something the size of a postcard is only possible if just about every specific deduction is cut out.

Once people saw that, it was DoA.

Also, while I'm here, can someone explain what was supposed to replace the IRS in Cruz's plan? (State Governments?) I mean, somebody has to administer and manage this process, however simple it might be.

> Theoretically, the ideas he's talking about make sense.

You'll want to be very clear about which of his ideas "make sense." You're talking about the guy who equates estate taxes with the Holocaust.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=145298...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2004/01/06/o...

> Also, while I'm here, can someone explain what was supposed to replace the IRS in Cruz's plan?

It wasn't meant to be good government, or even tenable government. It was an idea designed to appeal to stupid people. That is all.

(The failure of such a stupid idea to actually work or be implementable could be spun politically. The spin wouldn't have to be especially plausible, either, because, you know... stupid people)

I assumed PUN was referring to the parts of Norquist's ideas that should actually be taken seriously - spoiler, there are few - as opposed to those which are grounded in antigovernment paranoia and veiled xenophobia.

My mistake.

Even then 90% of the 1040-EZ is instructions on how to actually use the form. If you cut all that out and just have the boxes to fill with labels it's not much bigger than the post card it's just needlessly hard to file.

I recall seeing recently (somewhere in Europe, I think) the idea that because the government tracks this information anyway as people get paid throughout the year, all that is required is basically you (the taxpayer) attesting that the information being submitted is correct.

At that point, you just sign the form and send it back.

Yeah, the only place it really breaks down is where you're on the line between the standard deduction and any itemized deductions and finding out requires going through the whole process with itemized to see if you come out better. I've been right on that line since buying a house and it's annoying every year.

It's also unlikely to happen because a dedicated faction in the GOP specifically want taxes to be as annoying as possible to make people resent it more.

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