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bikingwithscissors t1_ixmijl3 wrote

Reply to comment by glberns in Keystone Collections trying to screw me for taxes I don't even owe by AdamFeigs

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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