Hacker News Reader

Comment by rr808 | Hacker News Reader

> Intuit spent more than $2 million lobbying last year, much of it spent on legislation that would permanently bar the government from offering taxpayers prefilled returns. H&R Block spent $3 million, also directing some of their efforts towards the bill.

Yes they probably lobby against it, so would any company if its important to them. $5 mil in lobbying is loose change. These are not big businesses - HR Block has a market cap of $4 Billion about the same as a bunch of companies no one has heard of.

However the real reason is politicians making the tax code as complicated as possible, giving breaks to favored groups.

You can't believe such a hugely important thing as tax is swayed by such a little piece of lobbying.

View on HN

My takeaway is a bit different:

- You can buy the tax policy you want for surprisingly little money

- The lawmakers who create tax policy are happy with the average american being annoyed at the IRS all the time.

In the US, those specific lawmakers would generally be the Republican Party, who explicitly want tax filing to be a manual process for various reasons.

Similarly, I doubt the IRS wants taxpayers to know how much it knows. What if the IRS has no idea about someone's Craigslist hobby fixing and reselling old computers that technically should be considered taxable and add 10% to their income? They probably prefer the ambiguity about how much they know.

This is the real story, in my opinion. The income tax code in the United States boils down to:

Here is a simple, large amount you owe.

You can reduce it by:

1) changing your behavior in ways we like

and

2) telling us everything about your personal and financial life

It's a disgusting invasion of privacy on a far far larger scale than, say, the PATRIOT act. H&R Block and Intuit are just leeches on the back of the tumor that income tax represents.

do you feel that any payment to a government is useless?

No, I do not. In fact, when it comes to income taxes, I object to the social gamesmanship + privacy invasion more than the actual amount. A solution I prefer would be a federal sales tax, combined with a Universal Basic Income.

The UBI would be equal to the amount of the tax on up to some minimum income level (say, 50k / year). In other words, everyone gets a monthly check that is essentially a rebate on their sales tax up to the income threshold.

That's simple, loophole-free, and avoids the privacy invasion that accurate income tax collections require.

That only works until individual wealth outstrips consumption. It also punishes people from participating in the economy.

I think we have the first problem now anyway. And I have no problem with a tax code that gives a little friction to profligate consumerism. In any case, I don't think you need to worry about my idea becoming policy any time soon :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com