aurelius wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 4:56 pm
Point 1) you describe modernization as waste.
No I did not, sir.
I said it will be wasted before they ever get around to modernizing. Most of the modernizing will never actually happen.
Point 3) This disagrees with every analysis I have read. Yes, the IRS will 'gain' a lot more by auditing the corporations and wealthy few than they will spend.
I don't dispute that the additional revenue to the government is some positive multiple of the dollars spent auditing.
The analyses that you have read probably went something like this:
"The IRS currently raises about $2.50 in additional revenue per $1 spent auditing and contesting returns. But when they audit Rich People, that ratio is something like $6 to $10 for every $1 spent auditing. So add $80b in budget to audit big rich guys and bob's your uncle, a trillion in new revenue, just out of thin air!"
And I have three points:
1) why the extra 80 billion? Just shift your current strategy with current spending and triple revenue. If it works as good as you say, come back and we'll talk about more money.
2) as I already said, a paucity of the $80b will actually end up going to new audits at the end of the day, so this will raise nowhere NEAR the most optimistic sums
3) Even if you could get the trillion dollars, that new revenue is not Free Money. Just because it is coming from people who 'should' have paid it before, it is still a trillion dollars that the government now has and the private sector now doesn't. It's a trillion dollars that is now in the treasury and not being spent on factories, research and development, buildings, and yes some jets and yachts too. The point is, this whole notion of "we're going to catch tax cheats and reduce the deficit without raising taxes" misses the fact that catching tax cheats is, by definition, RAISING TAXES - it's just raising taxes on the least sympathetic group of people. But the basic macroeconomic impacts of a trillion dollars in additional tax collections don't just cease to apply the because those collections are coming from people who ought to have paid them in the first place.
I'm not advocating for billionaire tax cheats or for letting billionaires get away with tax cheating I'm just saying there is no free lunch here. And since this is the potus 2024 thread, I would circle back to my point that the differences between the parties and thus POTUS choices on this issue are mostly for show, in terms of impact to my own life.
