Ted Cruz wants you to be able to "do your taxes on a postcard" and then....

[Viva_Daddy]

send it to an IRS that no longer exists. Now that's a neat trick...on gullible Americans.

[n2doc]

1. The tech exists for the IRS to do your taxes for you

and send you the result for double-checking. But HR Block and the other tax prep industries don't want that to happen. Guess who Rafael will side with if he gains more power?

[spanone]

3. but if ted eliminates the irs who do we send our taxes to?

[pinboy3niner]

18. Me!

PM me and I'll send you my address.

[spanone]

28. i will send it to you.

[Nye Bevan]

4. The vast majority of folks should never have to file a tax return.

But of course you are correct about the vested interests opposing this.

[n2doc]

8. here's an article on it

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/04/filing-taxes?fsrc=scn/rd_ec/it_shouldnt_be_so_hard

Other countries can do it, but not the USA.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

11. thanks for the link, n2doc. eom.

[liberal N proud]

2. Sample of Ted Cruz tax return

Line 1: Last Name ________________________________
Line 2: First Name ________________________________
Line 3: Income previous year _____________
Taxes owed: (See Line 3)

Send full amount to Uncle Sam.

[Takket]

5. on a postcard?

So he wants a flat tax? Where we all pay the same % which obviously crushes the poor and middle class while not causing the rich to even break a sweat?

[strawberries]

16. The flat tax

takes away write offs. When you take away write offs and you make 250K a year you technically would pay more. At least that is the way I understand it. The "postcard" comment was used in a metaphoric way as to show how simple it would be if we had a flat tax.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. It's inherently regressive because the less you earn the more of your income you spend...

[strawberries]

22. well in that flat tax were 10%

and you make 30K, you get to spend 27K, but you did pay 3K in taxes. If you make 200K and you pay 10% then you would have paid 20K in taxes. They the 1% find all kinds of write offs to try and not pay all the taxes they should. In theory it sounds good to me, but I suspect the reality of it all would not work.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. The flat tax would have to be set at a lot higher rate than 10% to fund the government./NT

[Johonny]

6. And since he eliminates the post office, who sends that postcard?

Given almost all his target audience likely uses either a computer or an accountant to with a computer, to do their taxes, why would any one of them want or need a form so simple it fits on a postcard. This rhetoric is so pre-information age it sounds moronic to anyone under 90... so pretty much you know Ted's target audience.

[Orsino]

7. No, he doesn't.

Ted Cruz doesn't give a fuck about you.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. ^Ted Cruz doesn't give a fuck about anyone but himself^

truth.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

9. well, I would like the forms/laws simplified but, how does a nation collect taxes on its citizens

w/out the IRS? Does he propose a new agency or

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. If there were no deductions and one rate for everybody it would presumably be much smaller...

It's also inherently regressive because the poor spend much more of their income than the rich.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. Still doesn't mean that the IRS doesn't need to clean up its act. all these fucking loopholes

for the effin' rich. tax shelters and schemes and forms so fucking convoluted not even CPAs can keep up.

Smoke and mirrors are intentional.

fuck the dumb. Clean up the mess.

[JHB]

14. It's not the IRS that needs to clean those up.

Those loopholes are there because people in Congress put them there.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

15. then Congress needs to clean it up. Still, The IRS needs cleaning. I don't give a fuck if

the garbage service does it.

We need smart, ethical people in all branches of government from both sides of the fence.

This gridlock has Got To Stop.

[jeff47]

20. Yes, the IRS needs to stop the gridlock in Congress.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

24. cute.

Do you see any brains when you roll your eyes to the back of your head like that?

[jeff47]

26. I'm not the one who claimed the IRS needs cleaning to stop gridlock in Congress (nt)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

31. but, you are the One Trying to twist my words. whatever. Peace Out.

[HockeyMom]

27. Exactly my first impression

+1

[JHB]

17. Bait and Switch. They say that to elimiante brackets, but...

...the real difficulty is navigating whether deductions apply, or what kind of income this or that should count as.

Brackets are the easy part. There have been as many as 56, and from WW2 through Reagan there were over 20. All in era where computers were either mechanical adding machines or were huge things that only corporations could afford.

These days you can make a tee shirt with enough computing power to do a simple bracket calculation.

Hell, you can even make a postcard-sized computer that could do it and still have rooms for games.

"Do your taxes on a postcard" is a red cape that gets waved to get a predictable reaction. And remember what happens to the bulls who react.

[jeff47]

21. 1040EZ is one page.

And IIRC it has everything you need for most taxpayers.

Taxes only become complicated when you want to exploit every loophole inserted by lobbyists.

[strawberries]

25. exactly

which is why I favor a flat tax. No write offs

[jeff47]

29. Except a flat tax has other large problems.

A single tax rate won't work. You either won't raise enough money, or it will be such a great burden on the poor that they starve.

Which is why libertarians love flat taxes. As Mr. Scrooge said, need to "eliminate the surplus population".

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. Pft.

So the tens of millions of people who are too poor to pay taxes now suddenly get hit first with taxes they never had to pay before, while the rich people suddenly are paying less as well, and the overall taxes collected suddenly can't pay for the services the poor folks who just got hit with new taxes depend on.

Yeah, flat taxes are great