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> How would the government be able to know the income and deductions for small businesses

Determine the amount of average deductions for small businesses, benchmark against however much money you want to extract from small businesses, then give all small businesses a blanket standard deduction.

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Yes, this argument is all about the tension between ease of filing and the complexity of the tax code.

It really has very little to do with TurboTax lobbying, but that’s a framing that sells.

I personally have a problem with "benchmark against however much money you want to extract from small businesses"... So a hard NO from me.

How do you think tax rates are determined…?

You have to balance the books somehow. I'm not saying "pay for forever wars on the backs of small business owners." I'd like to see a personal wealth tax of 80% of any wealth over a certain benchmark ($50,000,000 maybe?), and 80% profit taxes for any companies with more than $1 billion in net profits. In my ideal world, small business owners should not really have to pay much in taxes, with the largest companies paying the lion's share.

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