This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
New Frontiers in Algorithmic Racism - Tax Edition
The New York Times has an article out on the IRS algorithmically targeting black Americans at higher rates than other racial groups. The claim is that there's something in the algorithm that inappropriately biases it against black Americans. Summarized in the opening paragraphs:
OK, so what exactly is causing them to get audited more if it's not individual bias, the machines are blinded to the race of the individual, and the rules are the same for everyone? Apparently some of it comes down to targeting EITC filings:
Unless I'm missing something, the article does not explicitly state what the relevant factors are that result in this targeting are. In what I see as typical NYT style, it does leave a breadcrumb that might be suggestive if you're ignoring the narrative quotes embedded in the article:
To me, this reads like the most likely explanation for black taxpayers being audited more frequently is that they report their income incorrectly in easy-to-detect ways. Since the IRS already has W-2 data for filers, it's probably not very hard for them to notice when someone reports their income wrong. There isn't really any elaboration that I find after this, so I'm unclear on how much this accounts for auditing disparities. The implication of the article and the quotes from "equity" advocates imply to me that we should figure out a way to make sure that white Americans are audited at least as much as black Americans, regardless of who is misreporting their income more frequently.
As cynical as it sounds, I'm beginning to hear the term "algorithmic bias" as nothing more than a form of projection - algorithm systems frequently detect something real about the world, people with racially motivated politics don't like that outcome, and they seek to shift the algorithm towards a bias in favor of their preferred group. If a program that is optimized for detecting incorrect tax filings works as intended to detect them, but turns up more black Americans than white Americans, the suggestion appears to be to change the weighting until it evens out the races, regardless of the impact on the efficiency of detecting lost revenue. The "algorithmic bias", from my reading of this would be injecting a deliberate racial preference to counter the program noticing actual disparities. I am reminded of the racial resentment scale, in which people who say that "blacks have gotten less than they deserve" are not racially resentful, while those who think things like "Irish, Italian, and Jewish ethnicities overcame prejudice and worked their way up, Blacks should do the same without any special favors" are racially resentful.
Anyway, I'll be curious to see if the study is released more publicly and details what exactly is causing the disparity.
Another case of racializing a real problem thus turning it partisan. Police brutality manifests in ways that non BLM- supporters could see and even in ways that BLM would find difficult to explain (the recent incident 5 Black cops beating up a Black guy), but the topic which could previously unify disparate interests, now bitterly divides.
From my, non-American, understanding there is a corrupt relationship between TurboTax and US lawmakers which leads to this proprietery software being basicly required to file taxes. Now the topic of filing taxes is at risk of suffering the same fate where instead of the goal being to make it more intuitive and less likely likely for laymen to make mistakes, racism is blamed and nothing which solves the problem is done.
Well, no, there’s lots of alternatives to TurboTax and you could in theory do it manually if you’ve been appropriately trained(average training time is 3-6 mo, so not something most people would learn to do for themselves). It’s definitely true that tax prep companies lobby the govt heavily to avoid the tax code getting simpler, but the tax code’s complexity also works in favor of the poor(who receive large cash payments every year because of that complexity), families with children(ditto), and the wealthy(who manage to substantially reduce their taxes by taking advantage of that complexity).
More options
Context Copy link
Eh. IRS Free File allows anyone with an adjusted gross income under $73000 to use tax software for free.
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, here's the latest Propublica article on the topic with back links to their earlier reporting: https://www.propublica.org/article/what-to-know-about-turbotax-before-you-file-taxes
Like other replies, I also do my own taxes. But I'm under no illusion this is a realistic option for most people.
One issue is that the IRS very threatening about any mistakes bringing very serious consequences, including jail time. In practice, they do tend to be understanding and work with people to correct mistakes. But many people don't know that... and that might not be the experience poorer people have. Tax prep companies provide legal guarantees that mistakes are their problem not yours.
There's no reason (other than lobbying by the makers of TurboTax) for the IRS to not send you everything they know, which should cover your entire tax situation if you just have W-2 jobs, investments through a brokerage firm, and a mortgage, all of which are already reported to the IRS and if you omit or typo any of the information that was sent to both you and the IRS, then you're in trouble. In practice, this "trouble" usually means the IRS contacts you saying you made a typo, they fixed it, and here's your recomputed tax amount, but you did have to sign saying they're well within their rights to throw you in jail instead.
More options
Context Copy link
It's not that bad filing on paper unless you have a busines with a large number of transactions and your transaction record is a physical ledger book or something that will require a lot of calculations at year end, or you have some very odd investments (certain types of partnerships create some rather challenging tax scenarios).
Try getting company restricted stock; the brokerages are required by law to report the basis value wrong and then send a correction statement, which you have to arduously match up yourself to fix.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There are multiple software companies. It is reasonably cheap.
More options
Context Copy link
This is not true for what it's worth. I've actually filed taxes purely by hand before. The government puts out a freely available booklet that walks you through each step of the process, and all the inputs come from the tax forms businesses are required to give you (e.g. the W2 form which reports your pay and how much tax was withheld from it). There are more complicated tax scenarios, but if your only income comes from working a regular job (which is most people) it's actually really easy to do your taxes by hand.
That said, tax software is nice and it is easier. But way too many people in the US treat filing taxes as some arcane process they could never understand, when the truth is they've just been deceived by the hype.
They type of person who plays D&D might be slightly more capable than the median person when it comes to navigating a paperwork process or cross-referencing data. Many folks even ones who by all indication should be able to handle certain types of mental tasks when confronted with a problem shutdown and refuse to process to the point that someone else literally reading an error message to them but because the information channel is not from a stubborn impersonal piece of paper or computer lets them move forward. It's like the quote in Dune about learning to learn being something of a superpower for time sensing space Jesus.
I work in anti wire-fraud, prevention, detection, and recovery after the fact. I've worked with multiple doctors that I am confident couldn't complete a 1040ez if their life depended on it. Yes, I know their own finances are to complex for the ez form and using an accountant is probably a good thing for them. My point is most people are only competent at a small number of things they do a lot and this is very seldom one of them. On a related note doctors make fantastic scam marks. They think they are smart, they often really aren't ,they have money to take, and personality types that make them resistant to reporting it or getting help until they've lost A LOT of money.
Is MDs medical doctors or managing directors in this context?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Maybe back before they got rid of THAC0.
I'm kidding.
Wait, no I'm not.
Sometimes I think of the type of person who claims they "aren't a good test taker", but they believe themselves otherwise intelligent. I wonder if we are witnessing an extremely sophisticated "Clever Hans" effect. Or that they are cold reading their way through intellectual discussions. Then when alone in the room with a form and a pencil, none of their faculties that they've been told count as intelligence can be deployed.
THAC0 is an easy mode hack. Non linear-formula-based results tables are the lindy option true to the wargaming roots of the game. But today even miniature wargaming rule sets are forgoing tables in favor of simple stat value add/subtract dice roll formulae.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don't disagree, but that's very much a character flaw of those people rather than the system actually being difficult to work with. It's very easy if you actually read the instructions and follow them instead of shutting down in some kind of learned helplessness mode.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
True, but somewhat exaggerated in my view. When filing without business and investment income, it's pretty easy to file taxes without going through any proprietary software. The industry is also fairly competitive rather than monopolistic. The fact that the American tax code is so complicated it's difficult for an individual with a house, business, investments, kids, and more to do without professional assistance is (in my view) a bad thing due to the deadweight loss, but it really shouldn't have much impact on low-income filers, who tend to have straightforward W-2 income to report and pay on.
I'm sure the complicated nature of the American tax filing system is exaggerated, but the comparison here would be something like the Finnish tax system, where the "filing process" for many typical employees at the tax filing date would be... doing nothing at all, since almost everything has already been calculated on your behalf in the system, or at most checking the government's site to confirm everything is correct.
If I was doing the same thing I do now as an employee, the only thing I'd need to add would be the household services tax deductions for hiring a cleaner and using renovation services a couple of times - the standard housing credit deductions, child deductions etc. would already be on file. Since I'm a sole proprietor my tax stuff is somewhat more complicated, but my accountant takes care of it and her standard hours for doing all my accounting are one hour per month, one extra hour if there's some particular thing to take care of and one hour annually for annual tax stuff, so it's fairly limited on that end, too, and (AFAIK) since all my business and invoicing etc. happens online all the tax stuff can be done online, too, without a need for any physical receipts or filings.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link