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0 pointsimgabe9y ago0 comments

I'm as cynical as the next person, but seriously, how successful could they be approaching legislators with the idea "Make the tax code even more needlessly complicated to support our business"? Short of outright bribery I don't see any benefit to a politician for supporting something like that.

There are a lot of complications in the tax code because with 300 million people there are a lot of special cases to account for. Adding additional complexity just for the sake of complexity seems like a non-starter.

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briandear9y ago

Actually Milton Friedman gave a speech on that very topic -- the tax code is intentionally complicated because it provides political power.

WillyOnWheels9y ago

Milton Friedman partly invented automatic withholding of SSI taxes.

Conservatives want taxes to be as painful as possible, to highlight the fact that the tax exists.

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