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glberns t1_ixmfrg2 wrote

Call me crazy, but if a government doesn't have the resources to collect a tax they shouldn't collect the tax.

Local income taxes are so dumb because local governments don't have the resources to collect them. So they hire these shady, private companies to do it for them.

Just fund local governments with sales and property taxes like the rest of the country.

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bikingwithscissors t1_ixmijl3 wrote

It never made any sense to me to have private companies contracted for inherently public services. It's a complete abuse of public trust.

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TheUltimateSalesman t1_ixmjdmd wrote

Generally, they sell the debts. And debt buyers love them because they can garnish wages.

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Insterstellar t1_ixmk0sl wrote

If a company gets most of its income from the government it is defacto a government agency. It differs from a normal agency in that there are more avenues for corruption. For example, it can put the money it gets from the government into the hands of shareholders / owners, or hire outgoing politicians / government officials into high ranking roles in exchange for shady deals.

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Jayman95 t1_ixmoj1a wrote

Privatization of government duties is a key aspect of neoliberalism(Dani Rodrik, economist at Harvard has written much on how there’s no such thing as a free market and liberalism always required a strong state and abuse of it to function, see “The Globalization Paradox”). The government absolutely has the ability to collect taxes, but when you’ve got a system entirely based on individualism and market competition, people are going to go into contracting to blow more tax money to enrich themselves instead of just abolishing private collections etc. and strengthening the IRS. Also, a strong IRS could and would go after tax dodgers and the wealthy more generally if they had the funding and resources. The system is just trying to form a technocratic feudal system (I mean for fucks sake just look at renting) and instead of making meaningful progress to combat this system and look for better alternatives you get an armada of people online ready to defend things because “that’s just the way it is;” “supply and demand are you a moron?” Like no, I’m just not brainwashed to support neoliberal capitalism 100%

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Gojira085 t1_ixn3jhs wrote

None of this makes sense. The amount of people who owe money is staggering. The IRS would have to employ an immense amount of people to do just that let alone chasing tax dodgers and the like. No government agency will ever realistically get that amount of money as there are more issues that a government faces past "collecting taxes". It has nothing to do with neo-liberalism. It has to do with numbers. They can't even hire enough people to just answer the phones. Increasing funding is not always gonna solve a solution when people don't even want to work for said agency in the first place. Throwing money at it is literally the neo-liberal solution to everything

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Jayman95 t1_ixn55wh wrote

As always everyone misses the point. It’s not just about money or throwing money which is not actually entirely neoliberal. After all neoliberalism is just as much a socio political theory as it is economic; the reason why people were more pro a union 70 years ago was because it made sense in a Keynesian framework. The issue is, private sectors usurp government authority. No one wants to work for the IRS because why make 70k as an accountant when you can make 200k for a company? And besides, you’re under the assumption that income tax is the only viable method of income for a state; clearly untrue since income taxes never even came into fruition until the 20th century. You can’t view the world the way you know it and not broaden understandings. Things can function in multiple ways but again we’re fed propaganda about how it is a MUST the irs must collect taxes entirely off the working class instead of reforming the tax code. It’s just as absurd to assume the government couldn’t when they clearly did decades ago just because the tax code has been fucked so hard to shift the burden onto the middle class. Taxation and income goes well beyond income tax. And really this Begs the question; if so many people owe taxes that the system can’t work in an efficient way, why should we retain it?

The political field of America isn’t changing because people love the system. It’s changing because it’s failing. People aren’t lazy; the systems inefficient

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doyouknowyourname t1_ixolz17 wrote

Well said! I must tell you, I really appreciated this reply. I know I have nothing to do with this, but you just said that so beautifully that it has to be acknowledged.

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ButtBlock t1_ixn1m7m wrote

When I lived in NYC there was just a 5 line section on the state income tax return form to calculate and add local income tax. The whole idea that some fucking company like Berkheimer gets a piece of the pie for no reason is really disgusting. I don’t know why PA is so obsessed with federating things soooo much with taxation.

For example, we have a nanny who we pay in PA. I have to pay: federal income tax, state income tax, local income tax (for both my taxes and our nanny’s withholding), local services tax, US and PA unemployment taxes, residency tax, school tax, real estate tax. And all of these taxes require me to have a separate account, often duplicate accounts at one provider.

It’s just fucking stupid. And Berkheimer already tried to hit me up for massive penalties for not filing a local income tax return prior to when we hired our nanny. It’s like, bro, my sole proprietorship wasn’t even registered with you idiots prior to 2021 but now you want money for 2020.

The only reason Berkheimer et cetera exist is because someone is politically connected and making a lot of money off of it. For example, when I had to pay my “residency” tax, it was 10 USD flat fee, but there was an unavoidable 3 USD “service charge.” Major bullshit my dudes! Need reform to put these companies where they belong, defunct and no where near PA taxpayers.

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Confident_End_3848 t1_ixmki5z wrote

I think the state designates which tax collection service municipalities use. When I lived in MD, there was no local tax. The state collected for state and local.

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