For real, most of the comments are about the scalpers but this is the only thing that stood out to me. The IRS has consistently shown they would rather net the little fish that can’t fight back than take down the whales. Another example of being beyond the law in this country if you have money.
Cyberflunk@lemmy.world 1 year ago
But fuck fixing taxes to make billionaires and churches pay taxes… eat the people as they say.
somedaysoon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
archiotterpup@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, it’s cheaper than the big fish and the GOP has continuously underfunded the IRS. Their whole 2024 strategy is to make it look like the extra IRS agents from the Inflation Reduction Act are going after small folks instead of the big fish. Without those agents, lawyers, and staff the rich will always win with bigger guns.
guacupado@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Is it actually cheaper than the big fish though? You could have four people devote a full year to a single multi millionaire and you’d probably still net more than their annual pay. Hell even if you just matched it it’d be worth.
wagoner@infosec.pub 1 year ago
The little fish can’t afford a high priced lawyer. A big fish has several and can pay to keep the it’s busy fighting for years.
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
It is much cheaper. IIRC, the IRS went after Microsoft because they “sold” the Windows IP rights to a small CD/DVD printing factory in Mexico that MS used to print some installation discs, saving an absurd amount of money in taxes due to avoiding US taxes on the IP.
The IRS spent millions of dollars attempting to get MS to pay up. MS damaged the careers of the people in the government that gave the IRS the resources to go after MS, and cost the IRS an outrageous sum in legal fees.
Craziest part of it all: MS managed to get the laws the IRS was going after them on changed. Through political donations and lobbying, MS spent considerably more than the IRS was going after them for, to ensure the law was changed in MS’s favor.
I’m probably getting a lot of details wrong but there are news articles about it you can look up. The IRS hasn’t been given the resources to attempt any common sense obvious big wins since.
solstice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s super easy to implement, comply, and enforce this. Like almost automated levels of easy. It’s significantly more complex and requires tons of resources and expertise to go after the whales as you say. Resources they just don’t have. Resources that might be wasted if/when it turns out the taxpayer is fully compliant within reason.
It’s not about double standards, it’s purely logistics and resources - at least on the IRS side. Congress is responsible for their funding, or lack thereof, and it doesn’t take long to figure out who’s responsible for the lack of it. So I’d encourage you to focus your ire on the response political party, not the IRS itself.
somedaysoon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Passing the buck in my opinion.
solstice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Right, well, anyway, the IRS budget just got a huge increase under the Biden administration new budget. They’re finally hiring a ton of new agents and updating their ancient tech etc. The R party fought tooth and nail against this and there’s an active smear campaign to make the average person afraid they’re coming after you. They manage to reduce the budget increase which is going to reduce their ability to go after the whales, as you were griping about in your original post.
solstice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
All that happened here is they lowered the reporting threshold to cast a wider net and force people to reported income they otherwise could have just not mentioned. It’s not quite like flipping a switch but it’s relatively easy to comply with, and relatively easy to enforce. “Fixing taxes” is significantly more complicated, to say the least.
Gargantu8@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Whataboutism
hansl@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you resell tickets for 600$ in profit, you’re not “the people”, you’re a scalper and I have no sympathy for you. This is a good rule.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s just capitalists capitalizing. The IRS just wants a cut, not to stop it.
Natanael@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
IRS isn’t in the business of stopping transactions (unless it’s money laundering) anyway
LukeMedia@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Agreed. Obviously, the tax code should be better enforced against wealthy people, but you can support one action without it meaning you don’t support another.
SARGEx117@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And as long as they ACTUALLY do both, then it doesn’t matter.
But they don’t.
So it does.
Ajen@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
On the other hand, if it’s worth your time to scalp tickets then you aren’t part of the upper class.
cjsolx@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m not well-versed on the subject, but is ticket scalping not a large-scale business at this point? Like, yeah individual ticket holders can be opportunistic, but don’t bots buy tickets by the thousands as soon as they go on sale?
Ajen@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Most of those “businesses” are run by just one person, or maybe a few friends. And how much money do you really think they could be making?
Sir_Simon_Spamalot@lemmy.world 1 year ago
With that logic, we can say scalpers are class traitors, then!