Andrew Yang Policy on FILE INCOME TAXES

[Sherman A1]

At the beginning of each year, Americans dread the coming of tax season. The specter of needing to figure out the complex rules of the tax code hangs over each of us for the first third of the year, and most of us rush during April to come in under the deadline.

75% of Americans receive refunds. For those Americans, they’ve been (essentially) giving the US Government an interest-free loan through most of the year. They’d be better off having access to that money at the time they earn it. For the other 25% of Americans, needing to find the money to pay their tax balance adds unnecessary stress to their lives.

After taxes are filed, many Americans then spend weeks dreading an audit, hoping that the IRS doesn’t randomly select them. That process itself can add cost to the tax process, as most people don’t have the required expertise to deal with the IRS’s auditors.

This doesn’t have to be the case. The IRS has almost all the information they need to calculate your taxes within a fair degree of accuracy. They can do this automatically, guaranteeing that you hold on to more of your money throughout the year and will never need to spend money on expensive tax-preparation services or audit-protection insurance.

"Right now most of us dread paying taxes for good reason. None of us has time to figure out where the receipts are and what we owe, and we’re constantly stressed that we’re screwing things up or leaving money on the table. Turning us into a nation of tax experts is a ridiculous waste of citizen time and energy. The IRS should be able to tell us how much we owe and automatically file our taxes for us. Every time we do something that we think is tax-relevant, we should just forward it to a particular email address or account and it gets added in. Taxes are a perfect candidate for automation and artificial intelligence because there are clear rules to follow. Let's use technology to simplify all of our lives and focus on more important things."

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/filing-income-taxes/

[oldsoftie]

1. Sorry, but he's wrong: "The IRS has almost all the info they need to calculate your taxes...."

Only if your income comes from sources that provide W2s or 1099s.
There are MILLIONS of people making 100s of billions or even trillions of dollars who are "stated income" earners. Many of those people are high income earners.
This is why we need a sales tax. EVERYone pays. And its a staple of the funding for programs in the EU. Programs we all like. But then we stop short of also following them on the funding

[Sherman A1]

2. He is supporting a VAT tax

and the program mentioned in this policy is an opt-in so it would not be required of anyone. The goal is to simplify the process for those who can and choose to do so. Hence I do not believe that he is wrong on this particular issue.

[oldsoftie]

3. Then as far as i know, he's the ONLY current candidate who supports a VAT.

Its the only way to tax the HUGE amount of hidden income out there, whether people like it or not. If we want to be realistic about paying for programs, we need to be realistic about how to raise the money

[Sherman A1]

4. I agree

here is a link to my post in the Yang Group on this policy proposal.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/130460