Ted Cruz would want to abolish the IRS.

[First]

Well, the Republican field is looking to be just as wacky, if not moreso, than the 2012 field, so criticizing them is like fishing with dynamite.

But hey, at least the field has some actual governors this year, which is a definite step up from pizza CEO.

 

[First]

fuck yea, kill the IRS and collect taxes like the rest of the world. our tax laws are beyond complicated.

Well sure, except that the rest of the developed first world has much higher taxes than the U.S. By a lot.

 

[OutHouse]

Well sure, except that the rest of the developed first world has much higher taxes than the U.S. By a lot.

what does that have to do with anything? also are you counting all the taxes we pay? Federal, State, Local? we pay a crapload in taxes dude.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Well sure, except that the rest of the developed first world has much higher taxes than the U.S. By a lot.

And how's their economies doing compared to ours?

 

[First]

what does that have to do with anything? also are you counting all the taxes we pay? Federal, State, Local? we pay a crapload in taxes dude.

We don't pay anywhere near what other first world countries pay, are you kidding? In CA, a high tax state, my net state taxes (including property) plus federal net taxes don't even sniff 40% of my total income, and I'm earning over 6 figures. It's not difficult to keep your tax rate down in the U.S., especially if you own property. Most first world countries pay 40%-50% of their taxes regardless of their location.

 

[First]

And how's their economies doing compared to ours?

Very well, especially the Scandinavian countries.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

And how's their economies doing compared to ours?

Why is the economy the most important metric to consider with regards to taxes? If the taxes are being spent on things the citizens actually want, isn't that more important than how well the economy is doing? Why don't we consider the happiness of the populations living in these oppressive high-tax regimes? Well, someone did... and golly, the Scandinavians seem to enjoy having the life taxed out of them. Maybe no one has explained to them the value of a strong economy. America came in 17th, behind Panama and Mexico... but at least we have a strong economy for our investment class.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Why is the economy the most important metric to consider with regards to taxes? If the taxes are being spent on things the citizens actually want, isn't that more important than how well the economy is doing? Why don't we consider the happiness of the populations living in these oppressive high-tax regimes? Well, someone did... and golly, the Scandinavians seem to enjoy having the life taxed out of them. Maybe no one has explained to them the value of a strong economy. America came in 17th, behind Panama and Mexico... but at least we have a strong economy for our investment class.

Maybe you should move there. If Denmark, Finland and Sweden were US States, they would rank 10th, 5th, and 7th among our poorest states based on per capita GDP. They all have much lower incomes along with some of the highest costs of living in Europe. Happiness? Suicide rates for Finland: 5th in the world, Denmark: 11th in the world, Sweden: 12th in the world, Norway: 13th in the world, and US 18th in the world. Maybe you should move there if that's your idea of utopia.

 

[First]

Maybe you should move there. If Denmark, Finland and Sweden were US States, they would rank 10th, 5th, and 7th among our poorest states based on per capita GDP. They all have much lower incomes along with some of the highest costs of living in Europe. Happiness? Suicide rates for Finland: 5th in the world, Denmark: 11th in the world, Sweden: 12th in the world, Norway: 13th in the world, and US 18th in the world. Maybe you should move there if that's your idea of utopia.

Are we quibbling between 18th and 11th or 12th place now on suicide rates? If Denmark/Finland/Sweden were US states....they'd have access to natural resources that almost assuredly would make those rankings higher, akin to what oil and gas has done for Texas or climate/agriculture has done for CA. Surely climate and natural resources like that has nothing to do with tax policy.

Really, your supporting facts are so weak you're actually making the case for the opposite point of view.

 

[thraashman]

Well, the Republican field is looking to be just as wacky, if not moreso, than the 2012 field, so criticizing them is like fishing with dynamite.

But hey, at least the field has some actual governors this year, which is a definite step up from pizza CEO.

We have a Disney cartoon villain who looks like Grampa Munster and might be the most consistently wrong politician in American history, a former surgeon that has apparently suffered from some form of severe brain damage himself in recent years, a man who's modeled his life after the movie Gone With the Wind and the book Chicken Little, something frothy, the third part of a trilogy which looks like it'd be as good as the third Matrix movie. It's looking to be interesting.

 

[Jhhnn]

And how's their economies doing compared to ours?

As well as can be expected under fiscal austerity.

We could have done equally well had Repubs been given their way.

Cut! Cut! Cut!- Remember?

 

[thraashman]

Maybe you should move there. If Denmark, Finland and Sweden were US States, they would rank 10th, 5th, and 7th among our poorest states based on per capita GDP. They all have much lower incomes along with some of the highest costs of living in Europe. Happiness? Suicide rates for Finland: 5th in the world, Denmark: 11th in the world, Sweden: 12th in the world, Norway: 13th in the world, and US 18th in the world. Maybe you should move there if that's your idea of utopia.

But I find myself wondering where those suicide rates would rank with the same economic numbers, but if they countries were located in the tropics. I'd kill myself after a few years of living in Scandinavian weather.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

As well as can be expected under fiscal austerity.

We could have done equally well had Repubs been given their way.

Cut! Cut! Cut!- Remember?

Most economists agree that government spending is less productive for economic growth than leaving the money in the private sector.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

But I find myself wondering where those suicide rates would rank with the same economic numbers, but if they countries were located in the tropics. I'd kill myself after a few years of living in Scandinavian weather.

I used those numbers to dispel the myth that people are happier in Scandinavian countries. When you look at suicide rates in the US there doesn't seem to be a correlation with temperature.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6345a10.htm
QuickStats: Age-Adjusted* Suicide† Rates, by State§ — United States, 2012
Weekly
November 14, 2014 / 63(45);1041-1041

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Maybe you should move there. If Denmark, Finland and Sweden were US States, they would rank 10th, 5th, and 7th among our poorest states based on per capita GDP. They all have much lower incomes along with some of the highest costs of living in Europe. Happiness? Suicide rates for Finland: 5th in the world, Denmark: 11th in the world, Sweden: 12th in the world, Norway: 13th in the world, and US 18th in the world. Maybe you should move there if that's your idea of utopia.

No, I'm pretty happy in America. I just think it's odd that the people who are quickest to rave about how America is the best country in the world are the same people who always think taxes should be zero. "Yeah, I love it here... I just don't want to pay for it." What a remarkably selfish attitude.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I used those numbers to dispel the myth that people are happier in Scandinavian countries. When you look at suicide rates in the US there doesn't seem to be a correlation with temperature.

QuickStats: Age-Adjusted* Suicide† Rates, by State§ — United States, 2012
Weekly
November 14, 2014 / 63(45);1041-1041

No, there seems to be a correlation with population density. The top of the list is dominated by vast, empty states like Montana, Alaska, Wyoming and Nevada. The bottom? The densely packed Northeast. I better move to NYC before I kill myself!

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

No, I'm pretty happy in America. I just think it's odd that the people who are quickest to rave about how America is the best country in the world are the same people who always think taxes should be zero. "Yeah, I love it here... I just don't want to pay for it." What a remarkably selfish attitude.

I never said that America is the best country in the world or that I believe our taxes should be zero...so I have no idea what you're talking about or why you directed that comment towards me. It appears that the your strawman conservative stereotype is strong with you.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

No, there seems to be a correlation with population density. The top of the list is dominated by vast, empty states like Montana, Alaska, Wyoming and Nevada. The bottom? The densely packed Northeast. I better move to NYC before I kill myself!

It seems that we agree. Here's an article I just found that supports this correlation.

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/07/unsettling-link-between-sprawl-and-suicide/6197/

 

[gradoman]

And anyone that took Cruz's statement literally is a simple minded idiot. The overwhelming majority of people understood exactly what Cruz was saying. It's unrealistic to expect Republicans to dumb down everything they say so lefty/proggies can understand it. There's no need for it.

He could have said reform, change, simplify -- he said, “Number two, abolish the IRS, take all 125,000 IRS agents and put them on our southern border,”

 

[dyna]

No, I'm pretty happy in America. I just think it's odd that the people who are quickest to rave about how America is the best country in the world are the same people who always think taxes should be zero. "Yeah, I love it here... I just don't want to pay for it." What a remarkably selfish attitude.

We are slowly moving away from the principals that allowed us to out innovate and have a higher quality of life than the rest of the world. Its obvious that over time countries gravitate to a socialistic policy. Which equates to more taxes, less freedoms, and less room to do whatever you want. Politicians don't know how to adapt, they only like to add, add, add. Adaption requires old policies to go away and new ones to replace them with a net zero effect.

 

[StrangerGuy]

And how's their economies doing compared to ours?

And the U.S relative ROI for the average individual for taxes is shit compared to Europe?

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Ted Cruz is a very intelligent man with a thorough grasp of constitutional and administrative law. For that reason, I find it incredibly fatiguing and maddening when he says stupid things that he knows are stupid. This is one of them. He is a shameless panderer and shit-stirrer and will, thank God, never be President.

 

[werepossum]

We could go back to funding the federal government using import tariffs I suppose. All those companies that sent production overseas would be in a pucker.

Works for me.

Harass law abiding tax payers by hiding behind a concrete wall of bureaucracy and incompetence until their prey gives up or hires a lawyer. That's my experience, anyway.

I never believed what I thought was pure hyperbole by others until my wife and I went through it firsthand. It was absolutely mind boggling, stunning, flabbergasting, you name it. It takes blood, sweat, and tears to be as mindnumblingly stupid as that organization is. And truckloads of paint chips catered in for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Mine too. I've never been audited, but my father's store was hit for $15k. The tax lawyer flat out told him he could win, but it would cost much more than $15k in legal fees because the IRS gets every extension it wants, every time, so you and your lawyer drive to Nashville only to sit for hours, watch the IRS be granted an extension, and drive home again. Rinse and repeat until exhaustion.

"Abolish the IRS" is the same argument as abolishing Congress and replacing it with "Parliament" that functions identically to the evil system you just removed. You have to have an agency for collecting taxes from citizens and organizations; renaming it is mindless pandering.

Not at all, if one reads it as "Abolish the IRS as it is currently constituted". That's no different from hearing someone call for the legalization of pot while understanding this doesn't mean one could open up a pot stand in a local elementary school.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Not at all, if one reads it as "Abolish the IRS as it is currently constituted". That's no different from hearing someone call for the legalization of pot while understanding this doesn't mean one could open up a pot stand in a local elementary school.

Then you aren't really talking about "abolishing" the IRS, you're talking about "reforming" the IRS. But that doesn't play as well with the base who is so vehemently anti-tax that they legitimately think "YEAH, FUCK THE IRS" is excellent public policy. It's shameless pandering.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I had a tax question last month and called the IRS...I tried about every possible permutation in their voice menu system as I needed to talk to a real person. No luck and it's obvious that they don't give a damn. Fuck this shit...we need tax reform and we need it now.