🚀 go-pugleaf

>     It's taking me a while to decipher your comment, but what I THINK
>     you are saying is that tax reform will be make tax collection so much 
>     cheaper that it will eliminate the deficit!  Is this the sort of
>     logic that people use when they vote for Ronald Reagan?  Why don't

1. Tax reform can make tax collection considerably cheaper -- maybe not
enough to eliminate the deficit, but certainly to make some progress.
First of all, the current tax system is so complicated that it is not
practical to check every tax return -- the most they can do is check the
arithmetic.  Reduce the number of special tax credits and deductions,
and it's practical to audit more tax returns because it takes less time
to check the supporting paperwork BECAUSE THERE'S LESS PAPERWORK.

2. If marginal tax rates decline, the incentive to engage in questionable
tax avoidance schemes (legal and illegal) declines.  Why take a chance on
getting audited if you only save $500?  If you save $1400, it makes the
risk of being caught and paying penalties more acceptable. 

3. Similarly true for people not reporting income -- reducing the 
marginal tax rate reduces the advantage of not reporting income.  Also,
spreading the brackets farther apart (or even taxing all income at the
same rate) takes away reason to take questionable deductions so that 
you can get below a particular tax rate.  (I know: I spent an hour once
adding up the state utility tax on my electricity bills to get seven
dollars more deduction to drop below a taxable income level to save
more than $7 in taxes.)

>     we just adopt a "free-market" tax collection system, and count on
>     the honesty of the american people?  Think of how cheap it would
>     be to collect everybody's money if it were completely voluntary!
> 
>     Tom Gross
>     Apollo Computer, Inc.   
>     Chelmsford, MA

It would save a lot of money all right -- we would find out how much
government people really want -- and I assure you it would be a lot
less.  (Of course, special interest groups would suffer horribly without
access to the public purse.)

Clayton E. Cramer

An editorial, "Don't Tempt the IRS Into Bounty Hunting", by David Keating
(July 8th) in the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to this discussion.

Briefly, it states that the Senate's tax-reform bill provides for the removal
of the IRS budget from the appropriations process. Instead the IRS budget would
be bassed on a commission of the penalties and interest it collects from 
taxpayers, thereby creating an incentive to assess penalties. A cap on the 
commissions would be imposed to limit spending on what the IRS collects.
--------------
Dan Winkowski @ SUNY Buffalo Computer Science (716-636-2193)
UUCP:	..![bbncca,decvax,dual,rocksanne,watmath]!sunybcs!lazarus
CSNET:	lazarus@Buffalo.CSNET     ARPA:	lazarus%buffalo@CSNET-RELAY
[=]
Today we live in the future,
Tomorrow we'll live for the moment,
But, pray we never live in the past.

In article <2eacf085.2a75@apollo.uucp> tbg@apollo.uucp (Tom Gross) writes:
>
>
>    ... the IRS has a budget of 
>    $6 Million, the other "big ticket item" for the treasury department
>    is something called "interest on the public debt" which for 
>    1984 was about $154 Million.
>
>    Tom Gross


   I find it rather hard to belive that the IRS budget is only 
   6 million.  6 million will fund a medium size computer development
   project for a year, but not the entire IRS.


		     Ian Kaplan
	     USENET: {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!ian
	     ARPA:   sdcc6!loral!ian@UCSD

In article <345@sunybcs.UUCP> lazarus@gort.UUCP (Daniel G. Winkowski) writes:
>
>An editorial, "Don't Tempt the IRS Into Bounty Hunting", by David Keating
>(July 8th) in the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to this discussion.
>
>Briefly, it states that the Senate's tax-reform bill provides for the removal
>of the IRS budget from the appropriations process. Instead the IRS budget would
>be bassed on a commission of the penalties and interest it collects from 
>taxpayers, thereby creating an incentive to assess penalties. A cap on the 
>commissions would be imposed to limit spending on what the IRS collects.
>--------------

This is very scary. Imagine the IRS does the same to its agents - your
salary is a percentage of your take. It may make it into a pyramid scheme
with hundreds of over-zealous agents bugging your phones or use medieval
methods of torture. Somebody should be doing some heavyweight lobbying
to stop these guys.



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