Hacker News Reader

Comment by rev_d | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I'd describe it as fascinating, so much as abusive.

The really complicated and intricate bits are the web of Tax Treaties, Tax Treaty Protocols, Revenue Procedures, and memos that redefine how a foreign concept maps on to US tax code.

All of this complexity (and the accounting cost that goes with it) is because the United States is the only developed country in the world that taxes nonresident citizens. You end up with so many situations where it's hundreds to thousands of dollars to compliantly report foreign income, even though the total tax owed is $0.

View on HN

Fun fact: In Canada, you are legally required to file your taxes if and only if you would owe taxes. If you would get a refund or there would be no refund but no taxes owed either, it is up to you whether you want to file your taxes or not.

You don't have to file in America either if you don't owe

You also aren't required to get your taxes right, which most jokes about "the government will jail you but let all the rich guys cheat" rely on. Ignorance is a defense in tax law.

That would basically be a flag raised over your house/apartment saying "IRS Please Audit Me"

I don't think this is correct by law. I'm pretty sure you're required to file a return if you earned any income in a fiscal year.

That being said, de facto you are correct. The CRA will chase you if they think you owe them money, but is happy never receiving your returns if they owe you money.

You may be right. This area is too complex for me to make a certain declaration about.

>I'm not sure I'd describe it as fascinating, so much as abusive.

Agreed, most taxes are protection money masquerading as necessary evil that supposedly benefit the citizens.

I've never understood how people view paying high taxes as a point of pride. Pay your taxes so violent men with guns don't throw you in a cage, sure. But to view it as a badge of honor when that money is half getting totally wasted and half very efficiently being used to kill people abroad...no, I'm not gonna applaud someone for pushing for more taxes.

Pay your taxes so that society can afford infrastructure that benefits everybody?

If it was being spent well I think a lot fewer people would complain.

A small fraction is spent on infrastructure.

The more we remove supermajority protections, the closer we move to 50% of the people thinking it isn't used well.

Not sure why you're being downvoted.

I think they're being downvoted, in part, because a lot of people here either assume it is being spent well, or justify it as a necessary evil.

What might be valuable would be for someone to whip up an app that allows you to input the taxes you paid and breaks it down by the federal budget. Kinda like a receipt, but for government.

I did it with a few odd items, once, and it was pretty interesting.

For example, I found that I paid $7/mo for each of our aircraft carriers and $0.02/mo for the president's salary and secret service protection.

It might help people gain better perspective where their money goes. I'm not quite sure why this kind of thing isn't mandatory, frankly. An itemized "bill" may change people's opinions on taxes, especially the most favorable.

I mean, this already exists - there are tons of sites that slice and dice US spending with nice visuals etc. etc. Sure, I didn't see an itemized "bill" on page 1 of Google, but such a thing would be insanely incomprehensible for most people given that if you itemized the budget down to the level of the president's secret service protection, you'd end up with millions of line items.

It doesn't have to be incomprehensible. Just diggable.

Click through to finer and finer granularity. Searchable.

It's just ("just") a data vis problem. I'd work on it but too busy.

Maybe for the future. Could be fun.

This is literally the first search result on DDG: https://www.usaspending.gov

> The more we remove supermajority protections, the closer we move to 50% of the people thinking it isn't used well

I assume you're talking -- primarily -- about the Senate and the filibuster? If so, you'll be pleased to hear the UK has managed OK for the last 400-500 years in having a parliament that can do _literally anything_ it wants with a majority of 1 person[0] including deciding to pick on a single person individually without trial and subject them to whatever it pleases[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder

Not just the filibuster. The senate has eroded 60 vote rules on other things like confirmations. I think this is detrimental to the integrity of the system - how can a vote of less than 60 be used to ammend a rule requiring 60 or more? It's definitely a violation of the spirit of the law.

It might work for the UK, but the UK is quite different from the US. For one, the house of lords was supposed to represent the wealthy whereas the Senate is supposed to represent the states.

Secondly, there are far greater geographic distances and differences between the members of the country. This usually means there are great differences in needs and priorities. This was kind of the point of reserving most rights for the states. If using simple majority, the smaller and more rural states will eventually get tired of things being crammed down their throats. We are starting to see this already with an increasing number of sanctuary city/states and multiple topics.

Lastly, does it actually work well? It seems that almost 2/3rds of people in the UK think the rural areas are neglected.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/7587/government_neglec...

Poor reasoning since the systems are so different, and intentionally so.

You need to see taxes as a monthly subscription that makes everything around you better. Unfortunately some of that stuff is bad investment, but you get to actually have a say in how that big pool of money is being spent, and it’s very transparent.

I agree that it's transparent. But, do you know anyone who believes they have any say in how that money gets spent? do votes matter in any way whatsoever? most of the money is spent at the federal level. is anyone happy with political outcomes? even the winning party? (even a house/senate controlled by the democrats or all republican, have a hard time passing the bills they want).

40% of GDP seems like a pretty large subscription charge. 40% of the avg person's salary would be over 20K per year.

I could see this model working better if all the states were individual countries that can tax and spend the way they want. but the system as set up in the US just doesn't seem to make anyone happy because there's way too many diverse opinions on what to spend it on and how much to tax.

I mean, yes? Do you believe that if there was no voting that the money would get spent in better ways?

40% is a lot, but also the vast majority of federal spending goes to the safety net: unemployment insurance, social security, Medicare, health services — these categories are each more than spending on defense.

Personally, though I’ve never had to rely on unemployment insurance, I’m definitely glad it exists!

The political arguments about spending are basically noise at the margins by comparison.

Defenese spending is much more than you think: it's not just the "defense" category, it's also department of energy, dept of veteran affairs, dept of homeland security, and there's other sections where defense spending comes from. All together it's a sizable chunk.

Social security (20%), medicare and medicaide (20%). unemployment is a very small part as far as i know.

Your numbers are technically correct since you only gave one significant figure, but you're still rounding off more than $300 billion and also forgetting to count almost $400 billion in smaller programs.

Out of $4.4 trillion:

Social security - $1 trillion - 23%

Medicare - $644 billion - 15%

Medicaid - $409 billion - 9%

SNAP, EITC, Unemployment, SSI and other Income Security Programs - $303 billion mandatory spending + $73 billion - 8%

That's about 55% of the total on various parts of the safety net.

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56324

you're talking to the wrong person, I personally think I'm not being taxed enough. I make absurd amounts of money while people are dying in the street (SF is the city with the highest number of homeless people I've seen in my life, and I've travelled the world)

You can solve this conundrum individually with donations: taxes would go contrary to your stated goal, as the destination of funds is not in your control

Let’s make all tax donation am I right?

Maybe, maybe not. But certainly things like specific targeted programs one should be.

Nothing whatsoever prevents you from voluntarily increasing your payments to the government, both federal and state, or even municipally in the form of donations. Yes, you can request that they take extra money and they will happily do so. So once you're done patting yourself on the back about how progressive minded you are, just pay more. It would however be nice if people who claim to feel the way you do didn't so often try to force others to be just as "generous" by throwing scorn on people's legal attempts at tax reduction.

He doesn't actually want his own taxes to go up, he wants taxes of other people in his bracket to go up. His own increased taxes is just a price he's willing to pay.

I don’t see how this would fix the problem? The issue is not how much I pay, it’s how much people pay in general.

can I make some guesses? are you single with no family, yet?

(correct me if i'm wrong) if you had a family to support, with the truely enormous financial costs that SF brings, I think you might change your opinion on this matter.

Why can't it be based on how much services you use? Lots of literature has been written on private law and it already operates this way on many private properties.

Because 5 year olds can't afford school fees.

If half is wasted and half is used to kill people abroad, how are they building roads, schooling children, and killing people domestically?

As soon as you get over that sort of hyperbolic cynicism, you may recognize that communities, through democracy, provide for such services as are necessary for a functioning society using taxes.

No, there’s no opt-out, as it’s impossible to stop you from ever using any of the amenities that come with the package that is “living in society”. If you are American, there are dozens of countries that will allow you to immigrate with relative ease if you believe they provide a better deal or have limited government in the way you envision.

If there are none to your liking, that’s maybe a clue that yours isn’t all that bad. There are many comparisons, across industries and countries, that allow you us to come up with a reasonable floor for the costs of providing some specific service. And western democratic governments, contrary to popular and tired complaints, do rather well.

Less than 15% goes to roads, schools, and (I assume you refer to when you sardonically say "killing people domestically) law enforcement.

You appear to have a high view of government spending, and that also seems to be because you're unaware of how it's spent and how it's wasted.

Yes, parent was being hyperbolic when they suggested 50% is wasted and 50% to kill people abroad. But I think you're serious that you believe the US government apparatus is somehow responsible with all of our money.

Sure, the government may waste "only" $500 of my dollars a year on asinine programs (like seeing if zebra fish get addicted to nicotine), but there is tremendous waste in how money is allocated, budgeted for, paid out to contractors, and used for assistance.

If you think we run a tight ship (we don't) or have no room for very serious improvement (we do), then I think maybe you're not aware of what's going on.

Please study this more.

I think you might have responded to the wrong comment - the one you responded to never claimed that there wasn't waste in government spending, nor did they claim that the government was a shining beacon of efficiency.

On a different note, something like "Please study this more" as an ending statement adds nothing constructive to a comment. It just comes off as smug and passive aggressive.

I responded to the correct comment: the one that effectively said, "if you don't like it you can leave," in response to their parent comment that suggested they're not enthused to be asked to pay more taxes while we have such waste. Perhaps I misunderstood their response, but I take offense to the suggestion that someone who criticizes government should leave instead of utilize the apparatus of democracy.

That sort of response smells of totalitarianism. If you find my suggestion that parent try to understand the flaws in our government's structure passive aggressive, but don't find their suggestion that their parent move to another country anything short of actively aggressive... I'm not sure how to respond.

There's nothing smug or passive about my statement. I do absolutely implore them to understand their government more thoroughly.

I'm sorry we can't see eye to eye on this. (And no, I'm not being passive aggressive or smug with this statement, either... or this one lol)

You seem not to put any attempt into seeing the value of government, many of its programs or its spending. You made fun of addiction studies on animals like a fox news host, with derision, bad faith and ignorance. And them you tell others to do their research.

Get humble.

> asinine programs (like seeing if zebra fish get addicted to nicotine)

Understanding the physiology of addiction in animal models is a step towards curing it in humans. It's anything but asinine.

Thank you for clarifying the value of the study.

If you don't want to pay taxes, waive your citizenship and move to Somalia.

Tax is optional, you just don't want to give up it's benefits.

The 'just move' argument doesn't work. People want to live here and improve the country at the same time. Likewise, someone may say to someone who advocates for higher taxes 'waive you citizenship and move to Sweden,' which is equally unfair

I think there's a point where it's reasonable to say that the goal they have is too far from where America exists now and they should give up and leave. Someone who wants to introduce a monarchy, for a random example that I expect is uncontroversial. And arguably, a society without taxes is also beyond that line.

> And arguably, a society without taxes is also beyond that line.

The argument is not for no taxes, the argument is that taxes are too high. Reducing taxes is definitely achievable.

This is what I think when I read about these libertarian paradises people want to build on a huge floating barge in the ocean.

Watch how fast they start radioing for the coast guard when the pirates start showing up.

I think the libertarians of all people would have an ample supply of munitions. I could see a libertarian offering a pirate safari

They wouldn't be able to maintain a sewer system or a public health infrastructure though so they'd probably all get cholera.

> They wouldn't be able to maintain a sewer system or a public health infrastructure though so they'd probably all get cholera.

But imagine the market for patent snake-oil medicines that would create! The business opportunities boggle the mind.

Keep moving the goal posts. All these things can be done (as they are generally done privately). The only thing Libertarians can't do is fight a total war.

Yes, they can be paid for by turning to piracy so you don't have to raise taxes.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/771371881

Piracy can only happen in non-private properties.

or, see how fast the surviving citizenry starts raising a defense budget when the US Coast Guard doesn't show up

USA was created as a "libertarian paradise" with people renouncing citizenship and picking up guns to defend it.

It is not what it has become in the last 200 years. Modern society is very hard to revolt like this country was founded, but there are sprouts of it in the crypto community.

Somalia may be an overkill.

Florida, on the other hand, does not tax its residents, while still having roads, schools and police.

> Florida, on the other hand, does not tax its residents

Yes, it does.

It doesn’t happen to use a personal income tax, but it absolutely does tax it's population.

That being said, Florida's sales tax is less than that in New York and property tax is half of New York's.

The roads in Florida are generally better (and cheaper), schools are good [1] and Florida State University is ranked higher than SUNY [2].

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education

[2] https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/florida-state-universit...

>waive citizenship Except you get a massive tax if you try to do this too

There's no such thing as "waiving" your citizenship. You have to renounce it. It's a complicated process that must be done in person, under oath, before a consular or diplomatic officer. And there's a bunch of paperwork.

Also, crucially, if you have not obtained citizenship elsewhere first, you will be a stateless person with no rights anywhere. So you can't just renounce your citizen and then move.

Also, it's irrevocable — if you change your mind, you can't get citizenship back except by immigrating the hard way (visa/green card track).

You may also owe an exit tax, depending on your recent income and current wealth. Oh, and it costs $2,350.

> you just don't want to give up it's benefits.

Your mistake is in assuming the tax is necessary for the benefits.

We know some roads would be built without a tax. The issue is that only roads that benefited the wealthy would get built. Taxes are required for equitable access to public infrastructure.

Taxes are what give the rest of your money value by giving USD an inherent demand. Thinking you're losing out is bad economics because you're forgetting everyone else also pays.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com