Impressive and educational 3-part series unpacking and demystifying taxation, PW.
I have a couple of questions.
1. How much uncollected tax is out there by cheats not paying what they owe? As a diligent tax payer I’ve long wondered about how much revenue we miss by underfunding the IRS.
2. What impact would the Big Beautiful bill (in its current form) have on these taxation concepts and recommendations you’ve outlined?
Yo! IRS says it's something like $600B--so there's a pony in there. The problem is like many other things--throwing money at it doesn't work well. This is mainly because of complexity. You need to simplify the heck out of the system. For example, try reading some of the new IRA rules for qualifying for tax credits. You'd need an army of IRS agents to figure out who qualifies and who doesn't. Then if you want to get the cheaters, you have to spend on an investigation and lawsuit. Included in that $600B is the IRS' take on what they could get. But they can't in reality and never have. So let's live in the real world and simplify the heck out of the tax system to avoid interpretation issues. And, oh yeah, spend more on compliance too--with a focus on complying with black and white rules.
Big Beautiful Bill is almost diametrically opposed to what PW suggests. Tax revenues will lower as % of GDP compared to today, similar to 2019. And spending will also increase -- not due to anything that's in the bill, just the slow, steady and predictable increase of social security, medicare and other mandatory expenses. Medicaid is probably one of the least well funded of the federal grant programs, and that's the one they choose to cut? I'm scratching my head on the whole thing. Not serious at all about righting the fiscal ship. But like most things--is anyone surprised? One thing you gotta give to Trump--he said he was going to do all this and more than enough people voted for him. SInce it's 100% repubs driven, you can see the Two Party Duopoly problem at work--everyone trying to keep their jobs and keep the $$ flowing to their states by toe-ing the party line. In this case, even the centrists are falling in line because they lack the leverage.
Impressive and educational 3-part series unpacking and demystifying taxation, PW.
I have a couple of questions.
1. How much uncollected tax is out there by cheats not paying what they owe? As a diligent tax payer I’ve long wondered about how much revenue we miss by underfunding the IRS.
2. What impact would the Big Beautiful bill (in its current form) have on these taxation concepts and recommendations you’ve outlined?
Keep up the good work!
Yo! IRS says it's something like $600B--so there's a pony in there. The problem is like many other things--throwing money at it doesn't work well. This is mainly because of complexity. You need to simplify the heck out of the system. For example, try reading some of the new IRA rules for qualifying for tax credits. You'd need an army of IRS agents to figure out who qualifies and who doesn't. Then if you want to get the cheaters, you have to spend on an investigation and lawsuit. Included in that $600B is the IRS' take on what they could get. But they can't in reality and never have. So let's live in the real world and simplify the heck out of the tax system to avoid interpretation issues. And, oh yeah, spend more on compliance too--with a focus on complying with black and white rules.
Big Beautiful Bill is almost diametrically opposed to what PW suggests. Tax revenues will lower as % of GDP compared to today, similar to 2019. And spending will also increase -- not due to anything that's in the bill, just the slow, steady and predictable increase of social security, medicare and other mandatory expenses. Medicaid is probably one of the least well funded of the federal grant programs, and that's the one they choose to cut? I'm scratching my head on the whole thing. Not serious at all about righting the fiscal ship. But like most things--is anyone surprised? One thing you gotta give to Trump--he said he was going to do all this and more than enough people voted for him. SInce it's 100% repubs driven, you can see the Two Party Duopoly problem at work--everyone trying to keep their jobs and keep the $$ flowing to their states by toe-ing the party line. In this case, even the centrists are falling in line because they lack the leverage.
The 215 to 214 vote count along partisan lines in the house says it all.