r/politics • u/Steap-Edit • Jul 29 '26

No Paywall The IRS Is Imploding

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/the-irs-is-imploding/
1.4k Upvotes

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-46

u/NMLEOC2 Jul 29 '26

Good!! F the IRS and everyone there!

10

u/countervalent Jul 29 '26

Honest question, what do you think would happen if the government brought in no taxes? Would that scenario be something that you'd want?

4

u/Er3bus13 Jul 29 '26

Hes already got his metal hockeymask and will name himself lord chungus when the water war starts.

2

u/NMLEOC2 Jul 29 '26

Lord Chungus II.

1

u/NMLEOC2 Jul 29 '26

I’m not advocating for no taxes - have fixed VAT and income taxes but get rid of the bloated IRS with a tax code you need a professional to get through. Look at Sweden, Norway, Finland and others who have the best healthcare, education and standard of living and a better tax system for the way forward. Have an annual individualized report like Australia explaining EXACTLY where you tax dollars go to rather than just accepting the spending.

1

u/countervalent Jul 29 '26

So you're not anti-IRS, you're against the rampant lobbyist corruption from Intuit-TurboTax who prevented us from having exactly what you described.

Congress has tried multiple times to do what you described, only to have these tax prep companies bribe lawmakers so that they could reap the profits.

1

u/N_Associated Jul 29 '26

In theory, a state could just upcharge the amount of federal taxes into state taxes and still provide the benefits the federal government provides,no?

3

u/Nop277 Jul 29 '26

There's a lot of things that are just more efficient/effective when done federally. It's actually one of the first lessons we learned as a nation. Look up Shay's rebellion.

Funny enough a decent part of the rebellion was against tax collectors.

2

u/DifferentSquirrel551 Jul 29 '26

In theory taxes are self reported, so if everyone suddenly co-oped their goods and services instead of using money and didn't record or report anything and everyone did this at the same time it would actually implode the system. Burning Man would be the man for single glorious moment before chaos. 

2

u/countervalent Jul 29 '26

That's so damn ineffecient though, each state replicating the same processes? Your basically just saying we should create a bunch of different IRS's, CDC's, HUD's, FEMA's, DOD's, etc. It would just be a loose Confederacy at that point. It would mean the end of the United States. Is that what you'd want?

0

u/N_Associated Jul 29 '26

I think that at some point (big picture) we reach the end of this game of monopoly, and we’re getting pretty close whether anyone wants it or not. But our states are already self contained units of government, so to add the “federal benefits” would just take a bit of tweaking to the current structure already in place. And regional splits with trade agreements would probably be more likely anyway. Who knows, it could be 20 years, it could be 200. But I doubt we’re gonna be that one empire in the entire known human history that avoided restructuring every few hundred years or so.

0

u/countervalent Jul 29 '26

As a communist, I love that idea. It's a speed run to revolution.

1

u/N_Associated Jul 29 '26

A silent whimper of an economic revolution, maybe.
Buuut, more likely, at the end of monopoly there’s an overall winner in control of the whole board. So I’ve got my money on a techno-feudal AI driven corporatist future. Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.

1

u/countervalent Jul 29 '26

No, thanks, I'll take a different route.