A 2021 report from the Congressional Budget Office indicated that the $80 billion in added IRS funding over 10 years would yield approximately $200 billion in added tax revenue without raising taxes. The Biden administration this week said $140 billion would be added to the debt over a decade due to the cuts, per the Washington Post.
Anyone who says republicans are good at the budget and national debt should be laughed out of the room.
They are the worst of people and I pray that saint luigi will visit them.
The IRS started using their bigger budget to go after the wealthy and fight their lawyers instead of just nickel and diming the classes that can’t afford to fight back, can’t have that
It’s a classic CEO move though: cut the workforce and expect the numbers to go up.
That’s not why they did it though.
The extra funds that were recently given to the IRS that had Republicans screaming they’re coming for you Johnny America! were ment to give the IRS the means to actually go after the wealthy who have methods of evading taxes so complex that typically the IRS can’t afford to spend the time chasing so they just focus on us poors.
Republicans obviously cant have the ownership class actually pay taxes like the rest of us or they wouldn’t be Republicans.
My analogy was rather cryptic. What I meant was that they were doing cuts on the very mechanism that generates revenue, just like a CEO doing a mass layoff.
Cutting money to the only government agency that can actually turn a decent profit, in order to save money. How very republican.
Hmm, I wonder if we could make a public business for auditing, and work with the IRS. Full transparency and stuff maybe. I don’t know how much work this is, but apparently there’s a bucket of money to be made for getting it back, just make it a percent amount of recovered funds?
Open to thoughts, or if this already exists - let me know.
USPS
turnsmight turn a profit now that the ridiculous rules that republicans put in to try to bankrupt it have been revoked.Wait, really?
https://apwu.org/postal-service-reform-act-2022
There is proof that we fixed it.
Here is an analysis done in 2019 that says that stupid requirement was the only reason the USPS hadn’t been profitable since 2006 when the republicans originally passed the crap.
https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/
I’m unable to find profits, but they generated $77 billion in revenue for 2023
Know that I wasn’t doubting you, I just didn’t want to get my hopes up for nothing.
Here’s the next radical idea I’ve heard; have the post office offer simple banking services.
Wow, I had no idea that they actually fixed the problem that they created.
Sad that they’re still going to privatize it along with every other federal agency…
Wow, I had no idea that [the Democrats] actually fixed the problem that [the Republicans] created.
No points for guessing who benefits most from a reduced IRS budget …
Is it illegal immigrants on welfare?
Well I know of at least one illegal immigrant who’s getting billions in government subsidies.
Out of utter curiosity, how does someone who has overstayed their visa become a citizen? I thought overstaying a visa automatically throws up red flags
perjury. lying on immigration paperwork. an act that could and should get his naturalized status stripped, him kicked-out, and then banned from re-entry.
This is my new favorite bedtime story. Thank you
You pay for citizenship. Money.
Bah. You have unlimited get out of jail free cards when you can create your own monopoly board.
It’s illegal immigrant billionaires. Partly.
Depends on who you ask …
So you are not saying it isn’t illegal immigrants on welfare?
Well I think we can all agree that illegal immigrants on welfare are at fault here. Close the boarders and end H1B visas, case closed and America is great again.
Damn bro, you’re riding that line where it isn’t clear whether you’re serious or joking at least until the second comment. Enjoy the rush!
Now…you keep saying that word. “Again”. I can’t figure out where you are deciding the point in hiatory it was EVER great.
It’s a nation founded by racist slave holders, who were historically drunk at their founding meetings, and only exist at all because the french are some stubborn and vengeful people.
And from there, they’ve spent more time AT war than not. Taking about 145 years to even give women the right to vote at all.
Then from there, it was almost IMMEDIATELY followed up by the great depression, caused by the wealthy trying to impose their lifestyles to be paid for by everybody else. A practice that 100 years later is still happening.
Then after the great depression, there was WWII.
After that it was the Korean war, then Vietnam. Then the whole recession in the 80s, mixed with nuclear fears.
Then the 90s happened…you had two different woodstocks in the 90s. Make up your mind, America! Plus we had to endure Jay Leno with his CONSTANT Bill Clinton sex jokes. I mean, all late night hosts made a joke or two when a new development happened, but Lenos material was like 80% Clintons penis. And he was the ONLY one still doing it in 2003!
Then 9/11 happened, and the post 9/11 years weren’t great. Those were the years that my then whore of an ex cheated on me with 22 guys in the span of 4 years before I found out. So naturally that means the entire country was doing bad.
Then we had the Obama years. Kinda boring really. The problem is everybody thought “OH SHIT! FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT!!! IT’S GONNA BE SOME CHANGES!!!” He even campaigned in 2008 on the idea of hope and change.
And then what happened? Nothing of interest.
So I don’t know when America was EVER great.
Can someone define that?
Sure as shit hasn’t been great for people of color.
The dumb part is … the US has to somehow finance a big giant monster of a military … if billionaires and millionaires stop paying taxes where the hell will the money come from? Taxing the poor and middle class more won’t even pay for all their expenses.
The wealthy want it all and think they can get poor people who have no money to pick up the slack.
I’m no economist but it’s pretty plain to see that none of this makes sense.
That’s generally how the big powers from the past died: they get hollowed out from the inside by the elite our of greed. Then there is one or more external shock (pandemics, climate, war, disasters, resource depletion or agriculture problems are a few classics) that it can’t handle anymore and things collapse. It looks things are following that well-worn path. China is even counting on this and aims to be the next big power.
Yup, when you slowly hollow out the pyramid until there’s nothing supporting the top, the pyramid collapses
There was never a good time to support the top of the USA.
Governments that can print their own money don’t actually get money from taxes; taxes are how excess money is taken out of circulation. The budget actually gets balanced by inflation and everyone’s money being worth less. It’s a flat tax on people with cash.
Couldn’t have been accomplished without democrats
Not Republicans. Congress did. The bill only passed because of a bipartisan vote.
So, Republicans are no-so-quietly saying that everyone should cheat on their taxes, or is this just for the rich?
Always just for the rich. When they reduce IRS funding, they audit low hanging fruit because it’s much cheaper
I think game theory stipulates that everyone is wise to cheat on their taxes. The amount the average person usually end up paying in back taxes is less than the potential reward of getting away with it, jail time is almost unheard of, and the more people that cheat, the harder it is for them.
Not saying everyone should do it. But the only reason they have gone after people like Snipes and Stewart were to put the fear into everyday Americans.
You are correct and that’s an excellent demonstration of how fucking broken our tax system is. Notorious tax cheats like Trump should be in jail or be hit by fines many times over the discrepancy. Granted, our tax code is currently so convoluted (thanks Intuit I fucking hate you) that it’s extremely easy to accidentally make a tax error - we should adopt a system like Swedens’ of just precalculating taxes and allowing individuals to submit corrections but there’s a gigantic fucking industry that wants to keep shit as difficult as possible.
America has a lot of really deep problems tied to corruption and greed - UHC was recently highlighted but there are dozens of industries that exist parasitically that we should absolutely dismantle.
Unfortunately those industries have enough money to sway spinless politicians to their cause so getting rid of them is incredibly difficult.
Most of us are paid by a company, which is reported to irs. You can’t futz with that. People who get tipped, on the other hand …. There’s nothing but you conscience in the way. Or of course gig workers can play with what they write off, just like any other company. You know, it’s really only those of use paid a salary, whether hourly or annually, who have to follow the rules
Right, but when they go after people who fraudulently write things off (either intentionally or not), who do you think they go after? The gig worker, or the multi-millionaire with a stable of attorneys?
Or we could all pay our taxes and not waste taxes on chasing down those of us who don’t. Game theory says we want the government to have as much budget as possible with as little of our money as possible. Tax evasion means we spend more on taxes to cover the cost of recovering more evaded taxes and the budget is smaller. We are hurting ourselves.
Depends… Tax evasion is super illegal, and you will go to prison for it (unless you can afford good attorneys, then maybe not). That is different than simply not paying your taxes, but good luck getting away with that.
Anyone who makes $100,000 (gross) in wages, or less should not have to pay Federal taxes. Wealthy corporations, citizens, and all churches should be paying their fair share of all taxes.
Churches should get tax deduction for money spent on real charity, however they should pay taxes on money received and spent on everything else - looking at those mansion homes, expensive cars and private jets.
Churches should get tax deduction for money spent on real charity
As long as this shit is actually audited, because they 1000% will cheat on this.
It would be interesting to see what happened if we banned tax deductions for all charities.
We donate ~560 billion dollars annually.
Note we believe it only would take about 20-30 billion to house every homeless person in America.
So how is that 5% of our donations can solve homelessness… Yet we pay 20x that and people are still homeless?
Corruption you say… All the way up
“But anti women’s choice billboards IS charity!”
Ugh, fuck these shitters.
Tax churches and suddenly charity might not be required after all…
I’d argue $1m or less and increase capital gains taxes.
The vast majority don’t. The bottom half don’t pay any federal taxes, and in fact get more back in their refund than they paid in. The rest barely pay at all. 90% of federal income comes from the top few percent.
Local income taxes, sales taxes, lack of wage increases, rent increasing, are all the bigger issues that screw the lower class.
In 1953 the top margin tax rate was 92% for income over $400,000. That’s about $4,000,000 today adjusting for inflation. In 1953 we had a strong middle class. Today we do not. Maybe stop spouting Republican lies that have led us to the highest wealth inequality in US history.
Where do you live? In the U.S. federal taxes hit everyone. People get tax returns because they paid to much in taxes up front.
“The bottom” half of Americans all pay federal taxes. The percentage they pay is exactly the same as what those in the top 1% pay in their tax brackets. If someone makes 1 million dollars a year, the first 24,000 they made is taxed exactly the same way that someone who only made 24,000 that year.
That amount would be $2,648 dollars.
Hilarious to read - get more back in their refund than they paid in. Please tell me how that works exactly. I would love to use my tax filing as an income source. Fcking idiotic!
Some credits are refundable, notably the earned income credit. A specific niche of people who get paid, have a family, yet are too low income to pay taxes, can actually get money by filing
To avoid the debt getting too large, let’s stop funding the agency that brings in the most income.
It’s because the rich are being taxed. They have to do something about it
It’s because the rich are being
taxedaudited. They have to do something about itRight Ty for the correction
Realize the new tactic, trump admin will have the group of secondary goons fighting in public over multiple concepts, they’ll wait to see where public sentiment falls (or more likely how the money feels), and then trump will jump on the bandwagon and “punish” the face of the “losing” side as if he was for the “winning” side all along.
In the meantime, heritage foundation directed gop will use every second of the distraction to quietly pass bad law.
Examples:
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they just quietly defunded the department that tracks and reports on foreign propaganda efforts after musk just attacked it publicly link
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And they just gutted $20b from the IRS that could be used to audit millionaires and billionaires - the IRS famously brings in more money for every dollar funded into the service link
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As if by design…
It’s funny because the IRS was instrumental in a 300 pervert roundup by tracking Bitcoin transactions, some of them government workers. I wonder why they’d want to cut that.
lol if you think Republicans want to protect government workers
They just want to protect perverts
Also their financial advisors and investors have found a much easier way to hide money through crypto, so they can’t have the IRS being “inefficient” by going after unpaid taxes of the wealthy
The party super concerned about the debt is also the one who wants to defund their only source of income. Brilliant.
They feign concern about the national debt. For my entire lifetime they’ve done nothing but run up the debt.
They feign concern about the national debt.
Exactly. Government debt promotes wealth concentration: instead of paying tax, the rich lend their money, earning interest on it. They do not advocate for less government spending to “balance the books”, but to (a) make people more reliant on their employers and thus supress wages (“labour cost”) and (b) weaken the state agencies that check their power. I’m convinced every Republican threat of a government shutdown is a bluff.
But don’t worry. They’ll still have enough resources to go after ordinary people.
