Quote:
Originally Posted by afchic
Is anyone going to fault someone for taking all the legal deductions they can?
What pisses me off that there is almost 50% of this country that doesn't pay any taxes at all.
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As to the first, not I. tonyz summed that up nicely citing Judge Hand.
As to the second ma'am, this statistic (~50%) is tossed about alot. (Sometimes it erroneously includes people who overpaid and get a refund or who make so little that - under current tax code - their tax liability is 0. Those the people?) I'm kinda curious about this 50% thing that gets bandied about. If it is people who have zero income, but who consume public services, what to do about them? At its core, it's not lamentable that they had no income ergo paid no taxes - it's that they still consume resources. This sometimes spawns, "no tax paid, no vote" platforms.
And absent record-keeping in behavior that eschews that, how does the Govt know the number of people simply trading goods for services, when the 'good' rendered in return for the service is cash?
The 'system' is largely at the mercy of individual honesty; it doesn't play catch-up very well.