Comment on If you resold Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets, the IRS is watching — A new rule from the IRS is punishing those who resold tickets for more than $600 in profit with a tax penalty

• 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.

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  • 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.

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    • 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.

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    • 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.

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• 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.

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  • somedaysoon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Passing the buck in my opinion.

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    • 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.

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      • somedaysoon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I don’t see any evidence that they would target the whales given proper funding. Your entire argument hinges on that, and it has no basis.

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