Tax in NYT

choi

My comment:
(a) Individuals in Massachusetts will have to file income tax return to federal government (IRS) and the Commonwealth (Department of Treasury (DOR)), generally, on or before Apr 15 of each year.
(b) Tax Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Day
(federal income tax)

Quote: "Tax Day occasionally falls on Patriots' Day, a civic holiday in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and state of Maine."

Patriot's Day is observed in the two states on the third Monday of April; Maine seceded from Massachusetts in 1820.
(c) When is a Return Due[?] DOR, Massachusetts, undated.
http://www.mass.gov/dor/individu ... s-a-return-due.html
(d) The following three essays appear in Sunday Review, a section published every Sunday. The unified title for the three articles is "Happy Taxes!"  The section has one dialogue to boot.

choi

(1) Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, Forget Tax Havens. Is There a Tax Heaven? NYT, Apr 14, 2013.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/1 ... ens-not-havens.html

Quote:

"Like facing death, contemplating taxes focuses us on what we stand to lose, rather than what we stand to gain. But while some people mitigate the pain of thinking about death by imagining the pleasure of a heavenly afterlife, does anyone have a trick for decreasing the pain of paying taxes?

"There is a particular irony to the fact that Americans hate paying their taxes: Americans love helping the less fortunate. Year after year, the United States ranks among the top 10 countries worldwide in the percentage of citizens who donate to charity, perform volunteer work and impulsively help strangers. Our research suggests that giving money to others makes people happy, especially when they can see the difference their dollars are making.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest of the text,
(b) However, do view the graphic.
(c) I will caution you that the annual Gallup happiness survey measues "positive emotions"--not about nationals' attitude toward tax specifically. The latest release will give you an idea what the survey is about.

Jon Clifton, Latin Americans Most Positive in the World; Singaporeans are the least positive worldwide. Gallup Worldwide, Dec 19, 2012.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/15925 ... sitive-world.aspx#1
(d)
(i) Shigehiro Oishi, Ulrich Schimmack and Ed Diener, Progressive Taxation and the Subjective Well-Being of Nations. Psychological Science, 23: 86-92 (2012)
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/1/86.abstract
(ii) The press release from the journal:
http://www.psychologicalscience. ... people-happier.html

two consecutive paragraphs:

"The degree of progressivity was measured by the difference between the highest and lowest tax rates, corrected for such confounding factors as family size, social security taxes paid, and tax benefits received by individuals.

"The results: On average, residents of the nations with the most progressive taxation evaluated their own lives as closer to 'the best possible.' They also reported having more satisfying experiences and fewer discomfiting ones than respondents living in nations with less progressive taxes.

(iii) I do not have the benefit of reading the article itself. But judging from the NYT graphic, "more progressive" means the super rich in that nation pay higher tax, having been placed in a bracket with higher income tax rate than a nation "less progressive."  Having been conservative (think Republicans) on fiscal matters, I am convinced that income tax rates for the rich should be lowered.

choi

(2) Cass R Sunstein, Simplying the System Would Save Billions of Hours. Tax authorities could allow automatic tax returns. California is already trying that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/opinion/sunday/happy-taxes.html

Quote:

(a) "HOW many millions of hours do you think Americans spend on government paperwork every year?

"The answer is staggering. It is measured not in the millions of hours, but in the billions — 9.14 of them, to be exact. Suppose that we value one hour at $20 (a conservative estimate). If so, the government imposes an annual reporting cost of more than $180 billion on the American people.

That figure is more than 20 times last year’s budget of the Environmental Protection Agency, more than seven times that of the Department of Agriculture, and more than six times that of the Department of State.

(b) "Some economists, including Austan Goolsbee, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, have proposed a more ambitious plan: Tax authorities should allow automatic tax returns. They would use the information they already have to send eligible taxpayers fully filled out returns, asking for only a signature and the correction of any errors. California is already using such an approach with a program called Ready Return.

My comment:
(a) There is noneed to read the rest.
(b) Quotation (b) is all there is to explain the subtitle.

choi

(3) Linda Sugin, The Furtive Tax; Payroll taxes need to be flushed out into the open to expose their regressive effect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/1 ... returns-anyone.html

Quote:

(a) "Payroll taxes produce 40 percent of total federal revenue

(b) "Because people with high incomes earn a much greater percentage of their total income from investments — and, crucially, because much of that investment income is wealth accumulation that has not been liquidated — tax law favors the rich far more than most people realize. The money that has been gained on investments that have appreciated but have not yet been sold is not taxed and may permanently escape tax under current law.

"At $70,000 total income, the worker pays almost $20,000 in federal taxes, roughly half in payroll tax and half in income tax. The investor with $70,000 in capital gains pays less than a fifth of that.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) Diana Van Blaricom, Payroll Taxes; Basic information for employers. About.com, undated.
http://taxes.about.com/od/payroll/qt/payroll_basics.htm

For the same employee, both that employee and her employer pays (different amount of) payroll tax.
(c) Payroll Tax Cut to Boost Take-Home Pay for Most Workers; New withholding details now available on IRS.gov. IRS, Dec 17, 2010
http://www.irs.gov/uac/Payroll-T ... vailable-on-IRS.gov
("Millions of workers will see their take-home pay rise during 2011 because the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 provides a two percentage point payroll tax cut for employees, reducing their Social Security tax withholding rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent of wages paid. This reduced Social Security withholding will have no effect on the employee’s future Social Security benefits")

choi

(4) Sunday Dialogue: Lifestyle and Taxes; Writers discuss incentives to marry, procreate and buy a home.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/1 ... tyle-and-taxes.html
(a) Tim Edwards, Letter to editor.

(b) Patrick Wheeler, (a reader reacts--online--to letter that was posted online online).

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the original piece
Lawrence A Zelenak, When We Loved Form 1040. NYT, Apr 1, 2013 (op-ed)
, which prompted Mr Edwards to write.
(b) Basically Mr Edwards complains that because he is single, a renter, with no children, "I do not benefit from married tax rates, multiple dependency exemptions, child tax credits or housing-related deductions, my effective tax rate is often 10 percentage points higher than that of most of my married friends with identical incomes."
(c) While it is interesting to learn replies of other readers, Mr Wheeler's is particularly interesting.