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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

> If the government wants everyone to pay their taxes, why doesn’t it make it as easy as possible?

Various people in congress want it to be complicated so that people will be even more unhappy about paying taxes.* This is the same reason states require sales taxes to be specified separately and one reason VAT/GST has been repeatedly rejected in the US.

* I am not unhappy about paying taxes. I get a lot of services more cheaply than I would through the private sector (and some that make no sense to be privatized)

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That and massive lobbying from TurboTax and similar companies. There is also concern that millions or at least hundreds of thousands of accountants would be out of work.

> one reason VAT/GST has been repeatedly rejected in the US

the other being, it would not be instead of other taxes; it would be in addition to them.

in addition to the current sales tax?

that would not make any sense. a VAT of the same % value would lower the total tax paid because in a resale only the increase in price is taxed not the whole price.

I really want to see what would happen if the "taxes are theft" crowd actually lived in a society without taxes.

I suspect they'd go maybe a couple months before they were like "hey we should pool money together to fix the potholes in the roads". And eventually they're going to form something that looks a hell of a lot like a government, and they're going to have to collect something that looks a hell of a lot like taxes. And then give it a couple of generations and you'll have a brand new bunch of human house cats crying "taxation is theft".

Which is why the only practical thing to do with libertarians is to ignore them.

You might like this book about an attempt in New Hampshire

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541788516/

I've heard about that, it went about as well as one might expect.

I find it really bizarre because it's like they didn't even try. They really just thought that they could completely gut all of the government services, replace them with nothing and the wonders of magical capitalism would just handle everything.

There is the concept of economic externalities[1] that drive costs up in ways that people don't even think about.

Like mail delivery. If you didn't have paved roads and police then all of your deliveries would have to be, essentially, in armored cars with good shocks (i.e. almost off-roading capabilities). The cost of operating those vehicles is high, and the costs to you to ship a parcel would also be absurd. FedEx can get a shipment to you in 3 days because there is a robust infrastructure that isn't besieged daily by robbers

This isn't an abstraction: Wells Fargo got its start moving money across the "wild west" in armored transports. There was a reason for that, and they were often the only (expensive) option for shipping if there wasn't a train or regular trade route though rural towns. They even had custom shotguns (the original "coach guns" made for that specific purpose.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coach_gun

This is one of the problems.with equilibrium theories. They don't describe how the equilibrium is reached, they simply assume it will be reached.

It makes perfect sense when you realize their world view was based in naivety and ignorance and belief. They quite literally believe that capitalism magically fixes everything.

tl;dr it went poorly

How long until they start burning through $1 trillion a year on military airplanes that don't work?

The sane reaction to that is "hey our government kinda sucks, we should change it via (voting/protesting/a coup/a revolution)" or if you're a bit more cynical "hey our government kinda sucks, I'ma start working on getting citizenship/a visa somewhere else".

Not "hey we should live in magical fairyland where nobody collectively organizes anything but I still get to live almost exactly as I do now".

(Also potentially workable: "hey our government kinda sucks, I'm going to go and live on a commune with a small enough number of people that we can actually coexist based on general kindness and goodwill")

The sane reaction is to stop paying taxes.

>The sane reaction to that is "hey our government kinda sucks, we should change it via (voting/protesting/a coup/a revolution

That's not a sane reaction; insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The military industrial complex is not going to be killed through the democratic process, because it owns both sides.

The underlying philosophy embedded in your statement is part of the issue in America in recent years: people have become apathetic. A representative government isn't a one time and you're done deal. It requires lots of people to genuinely put time and effort into it.

Multiple times in the US'es history we've had even more greed, corruption, poverty, etc, but protests and social movements helped reset the needle. Things like normalizing 8 hour work shifts had to be fought for.

Currently both major parties get away with a lot of what they do because most of us don't participate and force both sides to answer questions and be accountable. Like, I think pushing for non-winner takes all voting at some levels would be good. But I don't goto local party events or involve myself, so I can't complain too much.

Let’s not conflate America’s “democratic process” with the democratic process. Your silly FPTP voting system is barely the tip of the iceberg.

If you're referring to the F35, I encourage you to look at the evidence about it. LazerPig [1] does a great job in presenting some of the hair brained ideas of reformers [2]. I used to be firmly in the reformist camp until I actually examined the evidence. The A-10C for example, has one of the highest rates of friendly fire, affecting both US [3] and British [4] servicemen. Using binoculars is not a great way of navigating an aircraft.

I'd also ask you to consider: Is it better to make an affordable aircraft, if it means the pilots flying it are more likely to die?

There's more than enough avenues which can be done to reign in Military overspending. No one is denying that the Military overspends on many things. It's a serious problem. Generally though, targeting the machines keeping people from crashing into the ground is not the one to aim at.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH8o9DIIXqI

[2] https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0208reformers/

[3] https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2015/02/06...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMnyVioLJbs

Edit: I think this comment sounded a bit rude the first way I worded it. Hopefully it doesn't now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The airplanes work perfectly fine - at least as wealth management ...

Do you think there’s a threshold at which point non libertarians would agree taxation is theft? Perhaps when gov spending is 80% of gdp ? 90%. 100%? 110%?

We’re already now at 44% here in the US. And if you’re in the Bay Area or tech, almost certainly your paying a lot more if you count all the downstream taxes like property taxes permitting sales tax, and all taxes you pay when you buy stuff.

> Do you think there’s a threshold at which point non libertarians would agree taxation is theft?

No. Including interest to banks, most Western nations are already way beyond 110% taxation on private individuals. Meaning if you work hard in a normal job your whole life, you should expect to be heavily indebted when you die, without any personal property except for a few trinkets.

It's the same in Germany, the only difference is that the government made a deal with major banks so you can pay your taxes at their ATMs. Actually paying your taxes in cash at your government tax office practically never happens.

Is it "a deal" or just the ordinary banking system?

In Britain it looks like you can pay at your bank or Barclay's Bank (where the government's account for this purpose is), but the process is the same as paying an electric bill or rent in cash at a bank.

> Various people in congress want it to be complicated so that people will be even more unhappy about paying taxes.

I am like this. I am not opposed to taxation generally, it is necessary for society—but I want to be reminded how much I am paying, and what I am getting in exchange for that

>but I want to be reminded how much I am paying, and what I am getting in exchange for that

Do that on your own time. Stop forcing the rest of us to pay Intuit $30 every year just so we "stay informed" or other nonsense.

Oh man, my comment came out totally wrong. I meant to endorse listing sales tax seperately, I have no objection with the IRS pre-preparing taxes as long as I review them

Where in the tax filing process does it tell you what you are getting in exchange?

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