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Originally Posted by filtherton
Well, yes. Things are more complicated than they frequently appear. The Post's agenda might have had more to do with not boring and confusing their readers than anything else.
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What about truth? Isn't that more important than simplicity?
Why does our tax code have to be so complicated? Shouldn't the average person be able to easily figure their tax obligation, with no surprises?
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No one is going to turn down an extra $20k in pretax income because they don't want to pay more taxes (provided they net an increase in money).
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The point is not making the extra money, but the "smoke and mirrors" games our government makes with the tax code. In addition don't you find it disturbing that those advocating for the poor are actually making it more difficult for the poor to accumulate wealth. Are you happy that poor people face what amounts to a 50% marginal tax burden when they start to do better? Like I have written in other threads, the "rich" are going to be o.k., because they have options and armies of tax experts to work with. The entrenched poor don't have a problem, because they have no real opportunities to make more money. Again, the real burden is carried by the middle class and high income earners (in some cases, not really "rich"). So, Obama's plan is basically a plan intended to fool people into thinking his plan will do what it is not really going to do. McCain's plan is not much better, but at least there is no pretense with his goals.
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I haven't owed taxes for most of my adult life, but I'm still going into considerable debt to put myself in a position to earn a lot more money (and pay a lot more taxes). When a computer program does your taxes, simplicity of the tax code becomes less relevant.
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The guy who spends time understanding taxes is going to have an advantage over the guy who does not. the more complicated the tax code the bigger the advantage. In the examples I gave if both families had the exact same cash flow, but the first family had 1099 income that could be offset by legitimate business expense lowering their taxable income to the amount in the example - perhaps they have a net advantage of $8,000. If they did that every year for 20 years, saved the money in an account earning 5%, they would have about $300,000 in the bank.
But, I am betting that person will be highly scorned by the left as being a greedy capitalist deserving of having that money taken to support the family that did not take the time to understand taxes. But, like I said - tax policy does not have to be so complicated - simplify it and put everyone on an equal playing ground.
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And it could just as easily be complexity that ends up benefiting the less wealthy. The devil is in the details.
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Please disregard everything I wrote and believe what you currently think. Let's compare notes in 20 years.
