John Edwards: Trust The Government To Do Your Taxes
You Can't Make This Stuff Up
By Dan McLaughlin Posted in 2008 — Comments (20) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
As if he needed to work harder to solidify the perception that he trusts the government to know everything in your life better than you do, John Edwards wants people to trust the IRS to do their taxes for them:
John Edwards is suggesting that the Internal Revenue Service prepare tax returns for 50 million Americans who have simple tax circumstances.
The former North Carolina senator laid out the idea in an audio podcast posted on his Web site April 7. For Americans whose employers and financial institutions send all of their relevant tax data to the government, the IRS would calculate their bills and mail them completed returns, which he called "Form 1." Filers could sign the form and return it, or reject it and file their own return if they disagreed with anything in the IRS's calculations.
Read On...
First of all, start with a mental picture of how exactly a federal agency produces an additional 50 million forms in just a few months, and if you form in your mind an image of smooth, flawless execution by white-lab-coated experts running superintelligent supercomputers, well, you haven't spent much time with bureaucracies.
Of course, the taxpayer will do one of two things with the IRS-prepared form: either check its accuracy, in which case it saves little or no time, or sign it unchecked and return it. Either way, the idea is pointless at best, unduly trusting of the competence and disinterest of the bureaucracy at worst - to say nothing of the infantilizing assumption that people should have yet another thing done for them at public expense.
As Jim Geraghty notes, Edwards is imitating a California program, but there are reasons to believe that this program, ReadyReturn, is not trusted by a lot of taxpayers: only 22% of respondents used it:
At the delightfully unsubtle URL taxthreat.com, the ReadyReturn opponents touted a poll that found that 67% of respondents opposed the program, that 7% of respondents trusted a state agency to prepare their taxes, and that 81% preferred "an independent tax preparer."
The tax code is indeed too complicated, but the answer is less complexity and offering people at least the option to use a simplified flat-tax* form, not having the government pass the rules and then interpret them for its own benefit.
* - By which I mean "flat" as in "without deductions/exemptions" - flattening out the tax rates being a separate issue that goes more to the growth vs. progressivity debate than to tax simplification.
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John Edwards: Trust The Government To Do Your Taxes 20 Comments (0 topical, 20 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Will the government start wiping our bottoms for us after we go potty? I'm sure that will be John Edwards's next proposal. He'll justify it by saying that it will reduce the spread of illness by eliminating the need for individuals to wash their hands properly after using the bathroom. Unfortunately, when the government fails to perform its duty properly (the result of all government programs), there will be millions of helpless Americans wandering around with dirty backsides because they will no longer be capable of wiping themselves. They'll be angry at the government for their dirty bottoms and insist upon paying more in taxes to get their bottoms wiped properly in the future.
What a great idea John - let the fox guard the chicken coop. Oh yeah, and government has such a long, unblemished record of running things competently and efficiently (except for the $40M worth of food for Katrina relief that rotted in Liousiana, oh yeah and that Walter Reed thing, and those $400 hammers the pentagon buys, and . . .) that this makes perfect sense. What an idiot John Edwards is.
Hey John, want to do something that is logical and helpful (two things that rarely converge when Democrats are involved)? Why not dramatically simplify the tax code so that we don't need the government or anyone else to help us figure out our taxes. Wow, now that would be revolutionary. It would be so easy that even a caveman could do it.
I agree that the tax code should be simplified, but I'd argue against a flat tax. And 22% isn't exactly insignificant. Why is this a bad idea? For people who just take the standard deduction and don't need to itemize, this would be just fine. It could be completely automated - citizen didn't itemize last year? Automatically do a 1040EZ with the standard deduction and send it out. The citizen doesn't have to accept it, and if it is accurate, the gov't can get the return back quicker because all thats needed is a sig.
It's just another government expense that the higher earners will end up paying for. Let's say that it's all automated and costs just $1.00 per household to run the numbers, print the returns, and mail them out. With an estimated 50 million households in this "simple return" category, that's still an extra $50 million. And I'm sure I'm wrong and that it would cost much more to do this.
I have an even better solution. Just stop sending forms out to the bottom 40% of earners. They don't pay any taxes anyway, so why pay for all that paper and processing? All we need is a thousand IRS workers to go personally knock on the doors of the top 1% of earners and something like 95% of income taxes will be collected in a week or two each year.
They still have to FILE. Because it's the law. It doesn't matter if they don't pay taxes they still have to file. It still takes processing to receive those filings. If they processing is already done, you're saving the time of reviewing those 50 million returns, because they're already done.
Sorry for not being clear.
Well, the first paragraph was serious--it's a significant added public expense that only 1 of 5 recipients of less than half of all taxpayers will probably actually use. Better to just simplify the tax code, in my opinion.
But the second paragraph was meant to be satirical.
I might actually support a government-prepared return upon the taxpayer's request--maybe charge them a small "convenience fee" for the service. In other words, if the person goes to the IRS website and requests an automated return, more power to them. Like others here, I would be hesitant to trust the IRS. But if those with very simple returns and trusting souls want to do that and pay for it, what does it matter to me? They can review it if they want, or they can just sign it and be done. Most of these folks would probably be getting "refunds" instead of having to pay, so it would be pretty straightforward.
Me, I always owe more in April because I'm self-employed. If more people had to write those quarterly checks for ALL of their taxes and ALL of their Social Security, there'd be rioting in the streets every three months. This withholding system we have anaesthetizes taxpayers--it's diabolically ingenious of the government to do it that way. The government even gets the hidden bonus of getting to earn interest on all our tax payments all year long before they have to send us those "refunds" (sans interest, of course).
Agreed on that front. The problem is, can you really trust taxpayers to save and pay? Furthermore, many taxpayers would actually rather have withholding than pay quarterly, making changes unpopular.
I also would support automatic tax calculation for simple returns. It would probably fund itself.
But even more, I'd like to see an overhaul, FairTax-style.
It's called private industry. People can either prepare their own returns (which takes all of about 15 minutes tops if you aren't itemizing) or they can pay a business 30 bucks to do it for them. They'll even figure out if they should itemize or not. We don't need a new government program created here.
If anything, I think everyone in Congress should have to prepare their own returns, for themselves and any entities they have a controlling interest in. Then maybe you would see something done about the ridiculous tax code.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
silly Rabbit, taxes are for kids....
Managing Editor
How much more power can we afford to give to the nanny state?
Dan has it correct; the words that should frighten us most:
"I'm from the Government and I'm here to help"
"... a government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul" --GBS
I don't even trust H&R Block to do my taxes... and I'm a college student; my returns are fairly simple. This is just a bloated, costly mess (although you've gotta admit, it would be funny seeing IRS people try to file Schedule D for somebody).
"I could explain, but that would be very long, very convoluted, and make you look very stupid. Nobody wants that... except maybe me."
From the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, I believe?
And don't give me any lip about being off topic. Greatest Movie Ever. I watch it at the theater 6 or seven times when I was 12 years old. Bought a felt fedora hat and a bull whip. I still have them somewhere, I think.
Anyway. There are several tensions that need balanced here.
1) We want a relatively small federal goverment - bound by at least some king of enumerated powers.
2) We have an entitlement debt looming, and need to either deflate the debt or raise federal income or structurally decrease the debt. Probably all three. Inflating the debt away WILL do damage to the weakest recipients without adjustments.
3) While Rush may argue - with truth - that the rich pay a dispraportionate share of federal income, the flip is that those who do not pay into the system - an increasing percentage of the population - are decoupled from the pain of federal spending. Decoupling action from consequence is anathema to the principles of conservatism.
Kind of random thoughts, but that what came out.
I always loved that scene, it's such a metaphor for Big Government.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
I (and others) have argued that the current system is a violation of the 13th amendment. They require me to do work for which Im not compensated in order to file my taxes. I have said before that the IRS should be required to calculate the taxes for everyone. I dont have to calculate my property tax, the local PVA does it and I can appeal their evaluation.
That said, something flat and simple that the IRS could calculate would be preferred. Or, best option, the repeal of the 16th amendment.
They require me to do work for which Im not compensated in order to file my taxes.
You could say the same thing about taxes in general. You're still working for the government free of charge. You don't get to work for yourself for another couple weeks yet.
I have said before that the IRS should be required to calculate the taxes for everyone.
Be careful what you wish for. They'll be happy to prepare your returns, in exchange for giving them access to all the information they need to prepare it.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
From the link we've been given: A key part of John Edwards proposal is,
Filers could sign the form and return it, or reject it and file their own return if they disagreed with anything in the IRS's calculations.
the claim that Edwards wants us to "trust the IRS" would be true only if we were not given the option of disregarding the IRS figures if we disagree with them.
First of all, start with a mental picture of how exactly a federal agency produces an additional 50 million forms in just a few months
That's not actually such an impossible figure, especially when most of it's electronic. If you produce 100 forms per second (easy when you can parallelize the task like this one), it's only four days to produce 50 million of them.
And I believe this is only variation on an existing theme. For years you've been able to ask the IRS to calculate your taxes for you under certain circumstances, per Publication 967.
I still think this is a weird band-aid solution. I'll bet it would have popular support, though!
tuck us in at night", compete with bottie and teddie.
Yes, together we can get this nation moving again, and who says the Dems don't have that elixir of politics, new ideas.
Nobody said anything about them being good ideas, just new.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville