IRS knows your financial transactions. They should just send a bill and the taxpayer should have the right to dispute or pay.
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No, the IRS simply do everyone’s taxes and send them either a bill or a check. And if an individual/family/corporation thinks the IRS’s calculation is wrong or incomplete, that person can file their own return.
This is how it’s done in most countries. The idea of having to figure out your own taxes is a scam in its own right, brought to you by Intuit and H&R Block.
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It’s actually a lot more nefarious than that. My dad and step-mom were audited. They live in a rural area of the Ozarks, and my step-sister is disabled and unable to care for herself. They have enough money to live simply but comfortably, and my step-sister draws disability. The local H&R Block CPA told them that she was seeing more and more cases like theirs, where disability benefits was the issue. The IRS wanted proof she was still alive, still disabled and still needed care. I guess a decades old diagnosis of microcephaly isn’t enough for them.
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In retrospect, I made a tactical error in not being born rich.
Lesson learned.
Again.
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It’s a good thing that class warfare means capital gains taxes, not what a plain reading of the term might suggest(because reasons); or I’d be concerned to see such an overt example of it.
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Hey, hey, let’s not overlook the influence of anti-tax agitators like Grover Norquist who want to ensure paying taxes is as painful as possible.
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Oh man, The Onion is just on fir… uh, oh. It’s not The Onion? Well. Well, that’s… Uh… awkward.
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The US has long complained about European governments giving state aid to Airbus. The Europeans retort that Pentagon and NASA contracts for Boeing are effectively state aid.
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Mulla had lost his ring in the living room. He searched for it for a while, but since he could not find it, he went out into the yard and began to look there. His wife, who saw what he was doing, asked: “Mulla, you lost your ring in the room, why are you looking for it in the yard?”
Mulla stroked his beard and said: “The room is too dark and I can’t see very well. I came out to the courtyard to look for my ring because there is much more light out here.”
– From Classic Tales of Mulla Nasreddin, via QI
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Billions. If they paid any taxes, even a fairly meager rate would put it in the billions.
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I think this might change with a slight modification to Elizabeth Warren’s proposed tax on lobbying. Don’t tax the lobbying directly. Instead, cap how much companies / individuals are allowed to spend on lobbying and tie that cap to how much they pay in taxes. If you or your company pay up to some threshold (let’s say $10000) in taxes you’re allowed to spend a maximum of that threshold lobbying each year. Above that, every $x you pay in taxes raises the limit on how much you’re allowed to spend lobbying by $1. [A linear relationship may not be ideal, and even if it is we can quibble about the slope of that line, but I think you get the idea.]
So Amazon may be allowed under the tax law to pay $0 in taxes … but then it is only allowed to spend up to that (low) threshold of $10k lobbying the government. If they want to spend a million dollars lobbying Senators and Representatives they may need to pay tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.
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Too regressive.
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Thank you, yes.
But the “real” problem is a guy making $20,000 a year not paying his fair share, for some people, I guess…
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This doesn’t suprise me at all, unfortunately, but damn is it utterly depressing
I say the IRS should assign audits based on where a majority of the money in the United States is based, proportionally speaking, based on accumulation of wealth.
This would not only more fairly target the rich who already try to avoid getting audited, but it would theoretically average the amount of tax liability being investigated proportionally.
America loves fucking the poor over in every way possible by design until they beat the dead horse into the ground, can we please stop that?
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Hey, I paid too much tax last year and I got a $9.00 refund, along with $0.19 interest. WoHoo, going to Checkers for a berger…
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And a small cup of covfefe
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I’m drinking covfefe right now!
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I bet it tastes real bitter
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