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1. Embed this notice
   Jess👾 (jesstheunstill@infosec.exchange)'s status on Saturday, 29-Mar-2025 23:14:38 JST Jess👾

   As I do my (US) taxes again ...

   Any politician who wants to talk about government deficits are unserious assclowns if they don't put as their top two priorities:

   Make it super duper easy for most normal folks to pay the right amount of taxes

   Make it super duper likely people and companies who cheat on their taxes get caught

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 29-Mar-2025 23:17:55 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @JessTheUnstill The system is designed to:

     1. Make people resent paying taxes.

     2. Make people shell out money to corporations.

     3. Make it obvious that the whole thing, just like homework in school, is all busywork to demonstrate submission to the system. Uncle Sam already knows exactly what you owe or are owed back, but wants you to say it too under threat of being caught lying.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 29-Mar-2025 23:20:25 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @JessTheUnstill In a system designed to run a functional government off taxation, normal people would never see or interact with the tax system. Businesses would pay 100% of payroll tax without ever showing it on a paystub, and nominal wages would just reflect that cost. Only business owners would deal with tax system at all.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 01:08:21 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Gantua

     @gantua @JessTheUnstill Yeah it shouldn't be shown and it shouldn't be based on your personal details at all. Just on how much the employer is paying you.

   • Embed this notice
     Gantua (gantua@pleroma.marchera-pas.fr)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 01:08:23 JST Gantua

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     @dalias @JessTheUnstill We already have something like that in France: the government gives your employer the percentage of income that must be paid. It's still displayed on the paystub.
     
     In practice, it means your employer can infer personal details from that percentage alone, and track it over time. If it's high, you're probably single. If it's medium, you're probably in a small family. If it's low, you're probably in a big family. If it's higher than high, you're earning more money via another gig...
     
     There is an option to give your employer a "standard" percentage and pay/refund the rest, but that percentage is between medium and high, so penalizes everyone but singles, so almost no one bothers with it.
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 01:39:23 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Gantua

     @JessTheUnstill @gantua Well if the government paid back flat amounts to each person, unconnected to taxation, you'd have a much simpler version of that without the need for collecting & sharing all kinds of personal data and without any of the associated operating expenses...

   • Embed this notice
     Jess👾 (jesstheunstill@infosec.exchange)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 01:39:24 JST Jess👾

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Gantua

     I'm okay with the basic notion that the more people someone is supporting with an income, the lower their tax rate is. And doing tax withholding is much better to ensure people don't fuck up paying their taxes and get penalties or criminal charges. But yeah, it certainly could be simply the employer sends the standard percentage to the government, and the government then sends people back their refund or tax credits.
     @dalias @gantua