an aside on taxation

athene1miranda 3:20 pm
mm
btw by 'recent double tax returns' do you mean the IRS attempt to keep track of foreign assets held by American expats?
because that is SO recent i'm not even sure what's going on yet

Psycho Epic 3:21 pm
yes, this
and yeah, I admit I haven't been tracking it very closely but I can definitely see its "last straw" potential for an expat who is about as patriotic as I am (read: not)

athene1miranda 3:23 pm
mm. it's something it makes sense for them to do but at the same time they surely KNOW that all their targets are going to run screaming now unless it's vastly inconvenient for them to do so

Psycho Epic 3:23 pm
to me, it just screams "lol let's penalize you for not staying in Amurrica~"

athene1miranda 3:25 pm
it's just beancounting, really, but at everyone else's inconvenience.
obviously they WANT to know how much US citizens (both living in the US and otherwise) have stashed away in Switzerland, but the IRS are used to doing EVERYTHING by means of putting huge, intrusive bureaucratic burdens on Americans
i am only hazily aware of how other tax systems work (even the British one - i just...never noticed it much?) but i am pretty sure that none of them are even REMOTELY as intrusive as the American IRS

athene1miranda 3:27 pm
and you wonder why americans are so hostile to taxation?

Psycho Epic 3:27 pm
yeah, I think it's the intrusiveness that's bound to raise the red flags AS IT SHOULD

athene1miranda 3:27 pm
It is not about the money, I'm pretty sure. we all KNOW they pay less taxes than most people who are much less whiny about the topic. But the whole system is so intrusive
it's partly because taxation and benefits are so intertwined over here

athene1miranda 3:29 pm
so the tax system will, for example, ask who your babysitter is and how much mortgage interest you paid last year and which church you go to in order to calculate benefits

Psycho Epic 3:29 pm
...o_O

athene1miranda 3:30 pm
yuuuuup. the whole thing needs scrubbed to get the spooks out of it before Americans will ever become willing to react to taxation like rational adults.

athene1miranda 3:33 pm
so while in a normal system 'how much money are you hiding offshore to avoid paying tax on the interest' is a rational question, the US are choosing to ask it in the form of a clusterfuck bureacratic burden on every single citizen living overseas

Psycho Epic 3:34 pm
...it's not what you ask, but how you ask it and why.

athene1miranda 3:34 pm
infuckingdeed