@f00l Hey now. What’s wrong with corporations and other wealthy individuals expressing their First Amendment rights to free speech in the form of money and giving it to other people sharing the same common interests?
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Dollars are created equal, that they (when massed together in the hands of a single individual or organization) are endowed by their Possessor/Controller with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Influence, Control of Narrative, Situation, Media Spin, and Law, and the Pursuit of Profit….”
“The nice thing is you can apparently buy a congressman for only $16,000. I thought they were more than that.”
No, they are just a bunch of cheap whores, both Republicans and Democrats. https://www.amazon.com/Parliament-Whores-Humorist-Attempts-Government/dp/0871134551/
It would be funnier if it weren’t so dang true.
It amazes me that our republic has lasted this long.
I have been and will continue to boycott the “free” online tax services.
They are free in exactly the same way that Google is – so they can make a buck off of you, archive all your data (financial, at that), and make you agree that it is not their fault if your data is breached by outside actors.
I do sometimes use them to set up my tax return, but I never complete it online, and never give them my accurate id info – it helps me consider some tax options.
And until the IRS and our idiots in Congress do their own in-house version of online filing, I will gleefully have them wade through my paperwork at their cost, just as I have to do for them. Just as the cited article states, the IRS has the info they ask us to provide.
Also, how many congress people do their own taxes, do you suppose?
@Mothersnakes@phendrick And the Republican strategy of starving the IRS funding means starving the government and the ability of the IRS to ensure tax cheats aren’t robbing the treasury and all of us blind. That’s the true aim of the bankrupting Trump Tax Cuts. And then they just happen to have their corporate patron/sponsors/masters at the ready to “do a better job” after sabotaging the very agency that literally funds the government.
That may be true if you have one job and work for a large corporation. But if you own your own business, get your money from rental income, stock dividends, capital gains, or many other ways (such as Amazon giveaway contests), they may have more difficulty knowing how much you earned.
How would the IRS know how much I paid for maintenance, and lawn and pool services on my rental properties so they can deduct that from my earnings?
Increasing complexity of everything means that weathly/powerful/influential persons - and persons with access to considerable resources - are able to game the system to their advantage.
And are able to influence the system to work toward their own personal interests, whether at the expense or others - or not.
This happens whether these persons are fair, honest, and honorable in approach - or not.
Increasing complexity of everything means that weathly/powerful/influential companies/organizations - and companies/organizations with access to considerable resources - are able to game the system to their advantage.
And are able to influence the system to work toward their own business/organizational/political/legal interests, whether at the expense or others - or not.
This happens whether these companies/organization are fair, honest, and honorable in approach - or not.
How many of us read the long legal notices that comes now with everything?
No one? Who has time?
If we as individuals wish that - in a given consumer or business relationship in any industry strongly dominated by very large companies - we might want, for instance:
not to agree to corporate dominated binding arbitration;
or not to agrees to other universal or nearly universal requirements that with in favor of the company;
do we have any choice?
Are there even options?
Do we have any idea what laws and regulations are being written and approved?
Any idea what commercial and organizational interests influence or even write said legislation?
Do we have any idea who is collecting our data and what they are doing with it?
Or how to find out?
Etc etc etc.
No individual or small group of individuals even have the time to try to research the stuff that touches their own lives on a personal level, day to day.
Companies and larger organizations do, at least within their own spheres.
And they have the funds to lobby heavily and, thru wealthy individuals and thru other legal means, to contribute heavily to political causes.
Intuit and HR Block are simply doing what every powerful organization/corporation does now.
They buy or attempt to buy laws written esp to benefit them.
They buy or attempt to buy politicians committed to being favorable to their interests.
Many/most megacorps (who have resources) figure out ways to take more and more from customers and employees. Much of this is implemented in a “trickle” fashion:
Take a little more. An extra fee. An new requirement
Then take a little bit more.
Etc.
Sometimes there is no trickle. (re price of insulin, research into which was heavily subsidized by public funds.)
Some of the long term consequences re real opportunity, and re the health of the middle class
given the gaming of and increasing complexity of every portion of every social and commercial interaction, and given the complex and very expensive gaming of politics to the benefit of commercial interests -
are not that hard to predict.
Some of the long term effects of the competitive viability of the US vs other emerging powers such as China aren’t that hard to predict, either.
The way things are going here, China likely will be the dominant world technical, innovative, financial, and military power rather sooner than I would hope.
I’ve pirated TurboTax every year I’ve filed taxes since I was required to file taxes. I’ve never regretted it, and now I doubly don’t regret stealing from those bastards.
If you have lots of potential “clients”, perhaps you don’t have to hit each individual client up for so very much?
🥺
Modern campaign finance is very close to, or identical to, legal bribery.
@f00l Hey now. What’s wrong with corporations and other wealthy individuals expressing their First Amendment rights to free speech in the form of money and giving it to other people sharing the same common interests?
/giphy Citizens United
you’re an all-star
@mike808
And bought-and-paid-for legislators.
Such a great package of bennies!
“The nice thing is you can apparently buy a congressman for only $16,000. I thought they were more than that.”
No, they are just a bunch of cheap whores, both Republicans and Democrats.
https://www.amazon.com/Parliament-Whores-Humorist-Attempts-Government/dp/0871134551/
It would be funnier if it weren’t so dang true.
It amazes me that our republic has lasted this long.
@phendrick Rome lasted a while before the fall.
If you really like reading, Pricenomics has a long and detailed story up about how California rolled out a pilot program to automate state taxes… and Intuit fought it and killed it: https://priceonomics.com/the-stanford-professor-who-fought-the-tax-lobby/
If you’re a podcast person, I highly suggest the NPR episode on the topic: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/episode-760-tax-hero
I have been and will continue to boycott the “free” online tax services.
They are free in exactly the same way that Google is – so they can make a buck off of you, archive all your data (financial, at that), and make you agree that it is not their fault if your data is breached by outside actors.
I do sometimes use them to set up my tax return, but I never complete it online, and never give them my accurate id info – it helps me consider some tax options.
And until the IRS and our idiots in Congress do their own in-house version of online filing, I will gleefully have them wade through my paperwork at their cost, just as I have to do for them. Just as the cited article states, the IRS has the info they ask us to provide.
Also, how many congress people do their own taxes, do you suppose?
@phendrick I still mail mine in. Hasn’t failed me yet.
@phendrick I’m afraid that " at their cost " is actually at my/our cost.
@Mothersnakes @phendrick And the Republican strategy of starving the IRS funding means starving the government and the ability of the IRS to ensure tax cheats aren’t robbing the treasury and all of us blind. That’s the true aim of the bankrupting Trump Tax Cuts. And then they just happen to have their corporate patron/sponsors/masters at the ready to “do a better job” after sabotaging the very agency that literally funds the government.
@phendrick
That may be true if you have one job and work for a large corporation. But if you own your own business, get your money from rental income, stock dividends, capital gains, or many other ways (such as Amazon giveaway contests), they may have more difficulty knowing how much you earned.
How would the IRS know how much I paid for maintenance, and lawn and pool services on my rental properties so they can deduct that from my earnings?
@Mothersnakes Well, yes, we pay for it; but at least it does take away from their budget.
Increasing complexity of everything means that weathly/powerful/influential persons - and persons with access to considerable resources - are able to game the system to their advantage.
And are able to influence the system to work toward their own personal interests, whether at the expense or others - or not.
This happens whether these persons are fair, honest, and honorable in approach - or not.
Increasing complexity of everything means that weathly/powerful/influential companies/organizations - and companies/organizations with access to considerable resources - are able to game the system to their advantage.
And are able to influence the system to work toward their own business/organizational/political/legal interests, whether at the expense or others - or not.
This happens whether these companies/organization are fair, honest, and honorable in approach - or not.
How many of us read the long legal notices that comes now with everything?
No one? Who has time?
If we as individuals wish that - in a given consumer or business relationship in any industry strongly dominated by very large companies - we might want, for instance:
not to agree to corporate dominated binding arbitration;
or not to agrees to other universal or nearly universal requirements that with in favor of the company;
do we have any choice?
Are there even options?
Do we have any idea what laws and regulations are being written and approved?
Any idea what commercial and organizational interests influence or even write said legislation?
Do we have any idea who is collecting our data and what they are doing with it?
Or how to find out?
Etc etc etc.
No individual or small group of individuals even have the time to try to research the stuff that touches their own lives on a personal level, day to day.
Companies and larger organizations do, at least within their own spheres.
And they have the funds to lobby heavily and, thru wealthy individuals and thru other legal means, to contribute heavily to political causes.
Intuit and HR Block are simply doing what every powerful organization/corporation does now.
They buy or attempt to buy laws written esp to benefit them.
They buy or attempt to buy politicians committed to being favorable to their interests.
Many/most megacorps (who have resources) figure out ways to take more and more from customers and employees. Much of this is implemented in a “trickle” fashion:
Take a little more. An extra fee. An new requirement
Then take a little bit more.
Etc.
Sometimes there is no trickle. (re price of insulin, research into which was heavily subsidized by public funds.)
Some of the long term consequences re real opportunity, and re the health of the middle class
are not that hard to predict.
Some of the long term effects of the competitive viability of the US vs other emerging powers such as China aren’t that hard to predict, either.
The way things are going here, China likely will be the dominant world technical, innovative, financial, and military power rather sooner than I would hope.
@f00l Well said…
I made a mistake reading all of this. Now my day is ruined.
I’ve pirated TurboTax every year I’ve filed taxes since I was required to file taxes. I’ve never regretted it, and now I doubly don’t regret stealing from those bastards.
Now I’ll get nother letter from the IRS asking why I still file paper.