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1. Stephen Michael Kellat (alpacaherder@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 01:00:17 UTC Stephen Michael Kellat

   BBC News - Young, mega-rich - and demanding to pay more tax https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48804905

   These crazy people have apparently not seen the web form on Pay.Gov for "Gifts To Reduce The Public Debt" where they can explicitly pay more tax just as they wish: https://pay.gov/public/form/start/23779454

   • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 01:10:07 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     in reply to
     @alpacaherder I'm not in their group (neither by age nor by financial resources), but I agree that taxes should go up, since we've failed to bring spending down.
   • Stephen Michael Kellat (alpacaherder@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 02:36:52 UTC Stephen Michael Kellat

     in reply to

     • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     @lnxw48a1 Overruling NFIB v. Sebelius is going to be needed before spending is ever going to go down. That nasty little decision helps cement turning the IRS into a schizophrenic agency. Is it a tax collection agency or a welfare agency? Thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, as amended, it magically has to be both at the same time.

     Essentially all these spending programs come down to the ability to tax and spend. 1/

   • Stephen Michael Kellat (alpacaherder@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 02:39:11 UTC Stephen Michael Kellat

     in reply to

     • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     @lnxw48a1 Most of the 2020 Democratic Primary candidates are proposing to dump more social welfare programs on IRS to administer without increasing the operating funding for the Service. Larger refundable tax credits, Medicare-for-All, and more all have a very large price. Even if we moved to confiscatory levels of taxation the Service would not be able to collect enough money to pay for all of them.

     2/

   • Stephen Michael Kellat (alpacaherder@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 02:41:53 UTC Stephen Michael Kellat

     in reply to

     • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     @lnxw48a1 Right now the bulk of federal revenue comes from the Individual Income Tax. The division that handles that is currently bordering on operational collapse. None of the 20 Democrat nomination hopefuls seem to have noticed that the 35 day shutdown caused a quarter of the critical processing and adjustments staff to resign while retirements are accelerating. While the Service is trying to hire to backfill attrition it is running out of potential candidates.

     3/

   • Stephen Michael Kellat (alpacaherder@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 02:45:10 UTC Stephen Michael Kellat

     in reply to

     • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     @lnxw48a1 Frankly we'll see the General Fund start to get uncomfortably low in the next 18 months if these personnel losses aren't made up. If we hit another shutdown at the end of FY2019 the Service may suffer further catastrophic personnel losses. There is an FTE floor under which several functions would have to be dropped such as Customer Service so as to keep things afloat. The Service doesn't have much cushion left above that floor.

     4/

   • Stephen Michael Kellat (alpacaherder@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 02:49:58 UTC Stephen Michael Kellat

     in reply to

     • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     @lnxw48a1 We have a looming debt ceiling crisis, possible reinstatement of budget monies sequestration, and no enacted budget for FY2020 as otherwise expected in the timelines from the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. With everybody busily trying to get their party's nomination to run for President, the folks in DC are a bit distracted. The crew bent on attacking POTUS at any cost is also ignoring their role in governing, too.

     5/

   • Stephen Michael Kellat (alpacaherder@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 03:04:32 UTC Stephen Michael Kellat

     in reply to

     • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     @lnxw48a1 In the end, people keep thinking of the IRS as the Fairy Godmother Department. There are practical limits as to how much tax can be extracted from the US population. The politicians have to stop metaphorically writing checks with their bloviating that Treasury can't back. We may wind up before this current term is over in quite an interesting financial crisis due to the Treasury staff finally just giving up out of frustration with management and the populace. Buy popcorn...

     6/

   • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 03:26:55 UTC LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     in reply to
     @alpacaherder Yeah, well the problem is that "we the people" think that taxpayer-paid services are free. What we need to learn is that expanding services and regulations expands costs, which comes out of our wallets. That way, we can decide which services we would rather pay for directly or through state / local governments or non-profits. And we can decide which regulations cost more than we're willing to pay.
   • Stephen Michael Kellat (alpacaherder@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 01-Jul-2019 12:21:07 UTC Stephen Michael Kellat

     in reply to

     • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     @lnxw48a1 And that's a fundamental point where I think we've lost the country. Foreign powers don't even need to push that hard since civics education is so lacking. With people like AOC push "Modern Monetary Theory" which essentially proposes that there is a "Magic Money Tree" where things are essentially free even the elected leadership is not the most sane right now.