[MathMonkeyMan]

> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative.

I'm primed to believe this because I'm a registered Democrat raised in that kind of household. Is it true, though? The logic makes sense, but how could we really determine whether a tax-bashing neoconservative actively protects labyrinthine tax practices in order to justify adjacent political ends? I'm more likely to conclude that it doesn't happen.

[orev]

You should do some reading about Grover Norquist, his organization Americans for Tax Reform, and the Taxpayer Protection Pledge that most Republican politicians are pressured to sign. I think you’ll find that your assumptions about what political operatives are willing to do are wrong.

A very large part of the current craziness has been enabled by people so incredulous that nobody would “stoop to such a level” that they ignore the topic completely, only to find out when it’s too late that they do, in fact, stoop down to that level and the damage has already been done.

[gabereiser]

Ahhh the good old republican pact. This is true. Norquist wrote a manifesto that all republicans had to swear to like it was the Bible or he was the godfather (pre-trumpism). They purposefully screw up or otherwise entangle tax codes to the point where frustration lends folks to be sympathetic to their calling. It’s a classic case of pay no attention to my right hand.

https://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/137800715/the-man-behind-the-...

[thelastgallon]

The right way to do this is to remove tax withholding by employer. If people really have to write a check every month to IRS, they'll start questioning more. For quite a few people on HN, the taxes they pay would be more than all other expenses combined.

[gabereiser]

Yes please. Being aware of just how much tax you’re paying will make people really interested in where it’s going. I’m ok with paying my taxes, but where exactly is that going? Let’s talk about this 35%…

[0cf8612b2e1e]

This Planet Money episode[0] has a few short interview clips with Grover Norquist (author of the conservative Tax Pledge). He said that supporting a Ready Return program would be equivalent to breaking the pledge because it is then easier to raise taxes.

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/epis...

[MathMonkeyMan]

Ah, so requiring one to file their taxes is akin to allowing them to own firearms. A check against incursions on freedom. That an industry makes a killing on it is just a side effect :)

[ethbr1]

I would break US tax arguments down along a few axes. Individual political identities line up all over on different ones.

   - Progressive rate vs flat
   - Detailed vs simplified
   - Policy via taxes vs outside of them
   - Low taxes vs high taxes + benefits
   - Use tax (e.g. sales) vs income tax
   - Labor tax vs capital tax
   - Gov-cooperative filing vs adversarial

My read on how we got to where we are is (1) all politicians love byzantine tax codes, because it allows sneaking favors in without repercussions + (2) people love getting money.

Consequently, we get a convoluted tax code that advantages special interests who can lobby, sold and balanced with enough direct benefits to people that they're happy.

Which... is a complicated sausage, but doesn't seem like the worst way to resolve a fundamental tension?

And then everyone stares at the resulting Rorschach blot of de facto tax codes and sees what they want to see.

"Look, it's ridiculously complicated! That's why we need a simple, flat rate tax!"

"Look, it's ridiculously complicated! That's because the corporations/wealthy are trying to screw you over!"

[yieldcrv]

most people cant receive a benefit beyond the standard deduction or a poverty tax credit so they have no need to have an idea of … everything else

[LapsangGuzzler]

> how could we really determine whether a tax-bashing neoconservative actively protects labyrinthine tax practices in order to justify adjacent political ends?

We rarely have the ability to truly determine a politician’s motives in a concrete and objective way because many of the decisions they make are not transparent due to lobbying and other forms of influence.

Fundamentally, the American right argues consistently that the government does not represent the interests of the people and actively works to render the government ineffective.

Whether they intentionally use taxation as a means to achieve political gains or not, it’s pretty undeniable that taxation causes resentment when the government appears to be so ineffective. Ultimately, you’re trying to determine if this is intentional or not, which doesn’t make that much of a difference.

As Jon Stewart used to ask on his show when trying to assess the motivations of conservatives: are they stupid or evil? Which is just a simpler way of asking: are they being intentional about this or not?

[alistairSH]

Reagan believed paying taxes should hurt - the more painful to pay, the more the public would want to do away with taxes. Reagan did soften his stance while in the White House, but the GOP never got on board, even to this day.

[c420]

"As Ronald Reagan once put it, “Taxes should hurt.” He meant that when paying the taxes you owe is a painful process, you are very aware that government is taking your money. Then the governor of California, he was resisting the introduction of state-tax withholding, which, he felt, made it too easy for government to take money and too easy for taxpayers to miss what was happening."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/american-t...

[Terr_]

So basically collective-punishment masquerading as informed-consent.

[Obscurity4340]

Weirdly one of few uses cases of consent they actually care about

[c420]

"But in the United States, filing taxes is painful by design. The tax-collection system as we know it is the outcome of three forces: corporate lobbying, a stubborn resistance to borrowing good ideas from other Western nations, and the Republican Party’s decades-long campaign against taxation itself." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/american-t...

[javajosh]

It's not proof, but it's telling: it's the same reason sales tax is not included in the price of an item, unlike VAT in Europe. They want you to know how much you're paying.

This happens in other spheres. Two that come to mind are death penalty cases, where opponents play for delay after delay, and divorce court, which is designed to be horrible for everyone, and therefore limit the number of divorces. I'm sure something similar happens to abortion clinics when there is a sizable resistance to them.

[ibizaman]

That’s honestly the right mindset. Our brain loooves conspiracy theories. In a way, it’s more comforting to us to think we are lead by very intelligent mischievous people than to realize most of us just do an ok job, have imposter syndrome, etc.

[hooverd]

It's not a conspiracy theory when they literally come out and say it.

[rayiner]

I suspect it’s more conservative politicians have a strong incentive to oppose easier tax filing—they want everyone confronted annually with how much taxes they pay—while conservative voters are cross-pressured and as a result won’t affirmatively demand easier tax filing or punish a politician for opposing it.

[check89]

> easier tax filing

> everyone confronted annually with how much taxes they pay

The latter doesn’t contradict the former.