Quote:
Originally Posted by Xist
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey fired 134 of the state's 332 audit and collections employees and the state lost $83 Million in taxes...
As of 2015, the IRS had 79,890 employees and an annual budget of $11.4 Billion.
Let's say you have one rate for devices that cost a thousand dollars or less and personal vehicles that cost thirty thousand or less, but a $60,000 vehicle has four times the taxes of a $30,000 one, and so forth. Houses are expensive, too, but while I am sure you can still find a nice place somewhere for $100,000, while the cheapest patch of dirty I found in San Francisco was $200,000 for 1473 square feet of a steep hill without street access.
I liked the idea of simplifying taxes before I started paying them. Perhaps those 80,000 tax wo\men enjoy their jobs, but how much of that $11 - 12 Billion could go towards...
|
Auditors are hardly necessary when tax loopholes are closed. The problem with deductions is twofold; not only do they artificially manipulate the market to benefit special interests at the detriment of everyone else, but those loopholes are difficult to regulate. Who is going to audit if you have 1 eyeball or 3, for instance? The tax code almost entirely relies upon the goodwill of citizens to be honest, and exploits those who aren't sophisticated enough to claim deductions which they are entitled. Can you imagine if businesses were run this way? You're expected to calculate your own bill using thousands of pages of law as a "guide", and if you make a mistake and are caught, must pay a penalty and possibly face criminal charges.
You're already inventing ways to make something that should be simple very complex, while introducing unfairness by penalizing expensive things.
...and poor people shouldn't expect to live independently in high rent places. I'm far from poor and have no delusions about affording a mortgage in SF. Fortunately the world offers other opportunities, including splitting a dwelling among several people (common in Portland).