Law is complicated for many reasons. Private people (here referred to as the personally taxed) don’t have the means, both financial and time, sometimes also the ability to understand the language used in lawmaking, which isn’t made to be easily understood, to keep up with the law. Normally people aren’t really expected to, if you’re a “good” person (morality being subjective and cultural, of course), you’re unlikely to break a law and get punished for it (not diving into edge cases of people forced by their circumstances). But then you’re forced to comply with tax law. If it’s automated, you can get unrightfully made to pay more without your knowledge. If it’s not, you get forced into a game staged against you. People shouldn’t be taxed. Tax should be solely handled by the companies, because they have the means to hire people dedicated to taxes. I feel like this is very important and tax is frequently brought up in many ways, but I don’t see people speaking of this and I’d love to!
Disclaimer: I file for tax literally refreshing for it to be available and help other people with their tax. It’s precisely why I think personal taxation is wrong. I know too many people who paid way too much in tax and didn’t know and cannot claim it, because it’s been too long since.
Income tax abolition would be sick as hell, imagine snapping your fingers and making everyone’s paycheck bigger. You could replace it 1:1 with taxes on capital gains and stock speculation and it would do a lot to level the financial playing field between the rich and the poor (who would still be paying the lion’s share of sales taxes and other govt fees, something else to look into).
It would also just like simplify things for people. It’s hard to tell how much I’m really improving my situation getting another $2/hr when it’s like, oh, now those dollars get taxed more. And my rent is still gonna go up, and the cost of my food, etc. Yay
I want a $2 pay increase to mean you’re actually taking all that home and not require some fucking calculus to figure out what it actually means for you
(talking to the IRS or the bank): I make 45K
(doing my actual budgeting): I make 35K
yeah it sucks