IRS puts unfair focus on the poor because they are easier to audit, ARTICLES

[GlamRocker]

IRS: Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor

 

It’s Getting Worse: The IRS Now Audits Poor Americans at About the Same Rate as the Top 1%

 

OUCH

[Gloomy]

The IRS is a bunch of honorless thieves.  

[Chef Remy]

I like what Rutger Bregman said at Davos.

Think if the US would simplify the tax code, and get rid of the tax loop holes. Which only the upper income bracket really use and maybe some of the upper middle class. And pay what the should in taxes.

I hate to tell people but Reagan Economics and trickle-down economics did not and does not work. Like communism has not worked.

Reagen economics not taxing interest on stocks is what also helped make a greater income inequality.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/19/rutger-bregman-historian-who-confronted-davos-elite-on-higher-taxes.html

 

Think the US should look at other countries and maybe use their model and change it to fit the US culture. IE the Nordic Model, a market economy. 

The problem is the current system in the US is rigged for the upper class. And it is not a fair playing field. 

[Nick2]

Our president does not pay taxes...why should the rest of us?

[SithLord]

My dad works for the IRS (not on the scale of these, just small businesses) and it's true. Richer people make it a huge headache for them and it takes forever to track down everything they have and go through all the loops and wait for the middle men and everyone to communicate and get paperwork through. 

And every time they change the tax code, he has to re-learn all the rules and everything so people can't try and trick him and his colleagues. 

 

I'd support a simpler tax code that allowed for fewer loopholes for the rich and to make it easier to audit them. 

 

EDIT: and the gov certainly isn't helping. My dad has sat around the house, bored, for months every time the government can't get it's shit together for budgetting. That's for both Obama and Trump, so this isn't a liberal bitching about Trump again, just stupid politics and fighting. 

[Gloomy]

5 hours ago, Nick2 said:

Our president does not pay taxes...why should the rest of us?

Yep I think nobody should have to pay taxes.

[uhtred]

2 hours ago, Gloomy said:

Yep I think nobody should have to pay taxes.

How would you pay for government services like roads, police, water, etc? 

[Sally]

Congress would have to vote on a new tax structure, and that's very partisan in the US.  Trump's lowered taxes for wealthier individuals and corporations got through Congress because at that time both the House and the Senate were Republican.  

[gisiebob]

16 minutes ago, uhtred said:

How would you pay for government services like roads, police, water, etc? 

how would you pay for government services like currency, even.

[Gloomy]

8 hours ago, uhtred said:

How would you pay for government services like roads, police, water, etc? 

Privatize them. The government doesn’t even do a good job at maintaining those things (and I think the government should be abolished anyway).

 

https://reason.com/2019/04/01/12-year-old-michigan-boy-is-filling-poth/

 

 

[uhtred]

Private armies have proven to be a bad idea in the past.  Private courts have obvious failings.   Self regulation of business has the problems that are just coming out of  Boeing now. 

 

[Gloomy]

2 hours ago, uhtred said:

Private armies have proven to be a bad idea in the past.  Private courts have obvious failings.   Self regulation of business has the problems that are just coming out of  Boeing now. 

 

The thing with the free market is, if you don’t like the way a business is handling things you’re free to choose a different one, or even start your own business. What are your options if the government is fucking up? Vote for the “lesser of two evils” and MAYBE they’ll fix it? 

 

Government run armies and courts are a better idea? Tell that to all the innocent people minding their own business who have died in drone strikes, and all the people who are in jail over a little weed.

 

All government regulations do is create monopolies. Big corporations pretend to be against things like minimum wage laws and pointless regulations that make it to where only big corporations can afford to stay in business, but it’s all a facade so the bleeding hearts can be like, “See? Those big greedy corporations don’t want to pay their workers fairly or make sure their companies are regulated.” But in reality they love those things because it means less competition for them.

[SithLord]

I'm going to have to agree to disagree about the small government thing. Not everyone has choices and a "free market" is an ideal and will never be a reality. You say you can always start your own business, but monopolies and similar structures that have huge corporations working with each other to screw over smaller businesses make that difficult to say the least. Also, not all of us are able to start our own businesses, so it's a horrible excuse because I might as well say "You don't like public education? Teach your kid yourself! Surely you understand enough about English, science, math, history, etc. to teach a kid because you have a reasonable complaint about the institution, right?" 

 

I understand not wanting someone to take your money for taxes, but I'm a believer in public good. We pay taxes to help everyone, not just ourselves. We have police to protect us so we won't need to carry around guns for our own self-defense. We have an army to protect us from even bigger threats. We have a postal system to ensure we can all communicate without having to pay a shit ton. Privatization is not the utopia many people support. It is a short sighted individualistic idea that doesn't care about the community and those less fortunate than one's self. 

[uhtred]

7 hours ago, Gloomy said:

The thing with the free market is, if you don’t like the way a business is handling things you’re free to choose a different one, or even start your own business. What are your options if the government is fucking up? Vote for the “lesser of two evils” and MAYBE they’ll fix it? 

 

Government run armies and courts are a better idea? Tell that to all the innocent people minding their own business who have died in drone strikes, and all the people who are in jail over a little weed.

 

All government regulations do is create monopolies. Big corporations pretend to be against things like minimum wage laws and pointless regulations that make it to where only big corporations can afford to stay in business, but it’s all a facade so the bleeding hearts can be like, “See? Those big greedy corporations don’t want to pay their workers fairly or make sure their companies are regulated.” But in reality they love those things because it means less competition for them.

Several issues, but the "start your own company" requires capital which many people do not have.   Regulations often replace the need for extremely expensive and time consuming regulations.  If I get in an airliner, I know that it has been inspected according to some government regulation. Otherwise how can I know its reasonably safe when airlines could change names, (no regulations remember) as they wished.  I'd have to keep track of all of the safety records or all of them before I took a flight. 

 

[Gloomy]

43 minutes ago, uhtred said:

If I get in an airliner, I know that it has been inspected according to some government regulation. Otherwise how can I know its reasonably safe

How do you know the government didn’t accept bribes from the airline to have them pass all the regulations? It wouldn’t even be the most corrupt thing the government has done.

 

I don’t want to derail this thread too much, but I’ll just leave this little thought experiment for people who think we need government. If humans are so evil and corrupt, then why would you want a group of humans to have an unchecked power monopoly over you? The government is made up of humans, is it not? Unless you’re one of those people who thinks the government is a bunch of lizard people or something. 

[SithLord]

4 minutes ago, Gloomy said:

If humans are so evil and corrupt, then why would you want a group of humans to have an unchecked power monopoly over you?

The government isn't unchecked. History can show you the extremes of a government being checked, but less extremes show things like rioting and protesting laws or policies. 

[gisiebob]

16 hours ago, Gloomy said:

Government run armies and courts are a better idea? Tell that to all the innocent people minding their own business who have died in drone strikes, and all the people who are in jail over a little weed.

how would such attacks and detainment by private organizations or individuals be any less distasteful? arguing that organization is bad because individual's foul play within it is not an argument for individualism.

[Gloomy]

5 hours ago, gisiebob said:

how would such attacks and detainment by private organizations or individuals be any less distasteful? arguing that organization is bad because individual's foul play within it is not an argument for individualism.

An individual under the non-aggression principal has no reason to kill someone else except in self-defense, and if someone else does try to kill them then that’s what the 2nd Amendment is for, and has no reason to detain someone just for putting something in their own body. Being part of the government just gives individuals an unjust reason to do those things.

 

”Government, when it is examined, turns out to be nothing more nor less than a group of fallible men with the political force to act as though they were infallible.” - Robert LeFevre

 

One more thing, if y’all want to know more about anarcho-capitalism, there’s plenty of videos, articles, etc. made by ancaps (actual ancaps, not people who strawman us and come up with a bunch of “the sky is falling!” arguments) that explain how things would work in an ancap society. It’s all at your fingertips, and it’s not that hard to find.

[gisiebob]

2 hours ago, Gloomy said:

An individual under the non-aggression principal has no reason to kill someone else except in self-defense, and if someone else does try to kill them then that’s what the 2nd Amendment is for, and has no reason to detain someone just for putting something in their own body. Being part of the government just gives individuals an unjust reason to do those things.

 

”Government, when it is examined, turns out to be nothing more nor less than a group of fallible men with the political force to act as though they were infallible.” - Robert LeFevre

 

One more thing, if y’all want to know more about anarcho-capitalism, there’s plenty of videos, articles, etc. made by ancaps (actual ancaps, not people who strawman us and come up with a bunch of “the sky is falling!” arguments) that explain how things would work in an ancap society. It’s all at your fingertips, and it’s not that hard to find.

whoa there whats this non aggression principal and second amendment that you are talking about?

 

sure there might be a logical or historic president for that kind of thinking, but we are dealing with fallible people, aren't we?

[Gloomy]

19 minutes ago, gisiebob said:

but we are dealing with fallible people, aren't we?

Sure, and bearing arms is how I deal with fallible people. 😛

[gisiebob]

2 hours ago, Gloomy said:

Sure, and bearing arms is how I deal with fallible people. 😛

how would your individual armaments protect you against such warlords?

[Gloomy]

12 minutes ago, gisiebob said:

how would your individual armaments protect you against such warlords?

Because the government never does anything bad to other people and never goes to war with other countries....

 

And guns DO make it quite difficult to mess with people. You’d have to be a wreck less idiot to pull that on an armed populace.

[gisiebob]

2 hours ago, Gloomy said:

Because the government never does anything bad to other people and never goes to war with other countries....

 

And guns DO make it quite difficult to mess with people. You’d have to be a wreck less idiot to pull that on an armed populace.

yes, sure. but you are arguing for something better than an government, yes?

 

and despite any possibility that an armed population is safer, aren't you arguing for people to have the right not to be armed? or are you arguing for only some freedoms?

[Gloomy]

3 hours ago, gisiebob said:

yes, sure. but you are arguing for something better than an government, yes?

 

and despite any possibility that an armed population is safer, aren't you arguing for people to have the right not to be armed? or are you arguing for only some freedoms?

Technically the burden of proof is on the pro-government people since they're the ones making the positive claim that humans need a government to initiate force against them. I'm a peaceful person who minds my own business, if you think I need a government to initiate force against me (including the initiation of force to steal some of MY income that *I* own) then prove it. Prove that it's okay to tax people because following a straight line of reasoning, taxation is no different than someone robbing you.

 

One of the many videos on the subject that you can find if you just look:

Spoiler

 

 

Yes, you have a right not to be armed, but being armed is the most efficient way to protect yourself. If someone breaks into your house to murder/rape/do whatever else to you, would you rather take care of it yourself or hope someone else saves you? Sure you could call the cops, but they could also take a long time to get there, or they'll shoot you because they think you're the criminal and they're "scared for their life", or they won't help you at all because the Supreme Court ruled that police do not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm.

[gisiebob]

ok, this is just a side request, but that video, it isn't intended to convince an outside perspective, it's intended to reaffirm already held values...the intentionally annoying composition made it very hard to watch, and while it doesn't outright discredit the information conveyed, absolutely veiw these kind of videos with a critical eye when their intended audience is an echo chamber. and pls try to share ones that are not painful.

 

if we were chosing a government you would be absolutely correct. but we are introduced to an established government, that is our status quo and moving away from that in any sense is what requires an appreciable argument.

 

[Gloomy]

20 minutes ago, gisiebob said:

that is our status quo and moving away from that in any sense is what requires an appreciable argument.

 

That’s like saying Christians don’t have the burden of proof because they’re the majority in the United States, or Muslims don’t have the burden of proof in Muslim majority countries, etc.

[gisiebob]

1 hour ago, Gloomy said:

That’s like saying Christians don’t have the burden of proof because they’re the majority in the United States, or Muslims don’t have the burden of proof in Muslim majority countries, etc.

no, it's like saying someone growing up in a christian household is burdened with proving a more viable faith for themselves to hold.

[Gloomy]

56 minutes ago, gisiebob said:

no, it's like saying someone growing up in a christian household is burdened with proving a more viable faith for themselves to hold.

If they have no faith or religion at all then the burden of proof is not on them, since that would be the negative claim. It doesn’t matter if they are raised in a religious family, it’s still the negative claim.

[gisiebob]

58 minutes ago, Gloomy said:

If they have no faith or religion at all then the burden of proof is not on them, since that would be the negative claim. It doesn’t matter if they are raised in a religious family, it’s still the negative claim.

if you are raised into a faith then that is what is normal and deviating from that requires an explanation, even to your own self. something that I feel is more wrong than right, but nonetheless is accurate.

[Gloomy]

1 hour ago, gisiebob said:

if you are raised into a faith then that is what is normal and deviating from that requires an explanation, even to your own self. something that I feel is more wrong than right, but nonetheless is accurate.

So if I have kids and raise them to believe that our house is full of invisible elves that nobody can see, feel, hear, sense, or observe in any way, then the burden of proof is on them to prove otherwise if they stop believing me? That’s not how it works.