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Government
The Government Shows Little Respect For Our Tax Dollar
2020-04-19
[BruceWilds] Hard-working Americans that pay taxes should be more than angry over how little respect the politicians in Washington have for their tax dollars. An article that appeared on MarketWatch details what people that receive an undeserved 1,200 dollar stimulus checks under the CARES Act should do. The answer appears just over halfway down on the page in answer to the following question;

Question: I believe that my adult son received a $1,200 EIP, via automatic deposit to his checking account, that he was not entitled to because he is my tax-return dependent. Will the IRS go into his checking account and debit it to get the money back?

Answer: No. The statutory language in the CARES Act that set the whole EIP scheme in motion says that anybody who gets more money than they are actually entitled to can keep the excess. I endorse that concept: any money that gets into people’s hands is fair game.

In the above case, it appears the fella received the money in error but I have heard, and I'm also under the impression the same issue exists in the case where a check is sent to somebody that is deceased. The article explains the Feds are using our beloved Internal Revenue Service to distribute these so-called Economic Impact Payments (EIPs). The IRS is not currently processing 2019 returns because the agency is swamped with all the new COVID-19-related tasks it has been given.

The article also states the IRS’s data processing systems were notoriously inadequate even before getting overwhelmed with all these new tasks. Apparently to those in our government, 1,200 dollars isn't worth the time it takes to do the administrative job of reclaiming it. From what I understand we are talking about checks that total several billions of dollars. This type of waste is just another example of why people don't like paying taxes.
Posted by:Clem

#13  ...well.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2020-04-19 15:49  

#12  But it's not the smart money. It's the herd money. But, wait, innt that herd thing sposed to be good?
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-04-19 13:35  

#11  Good point. That is where the bulk of retail investment $ are today.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-04-19 13:33  

#10  IF one were to buy an ETF...
Posted by: Clem   2020-04-19 13:22  

#9  If you buy an ETF it probably has government debt as a component. Bundling, you know...
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-04-19 13:19  

#8  I can't believe anybody would purchase any government debt, be it here, Europe, Asia, in the first place.
Posted by: Clem   2020-04-19 11:00  

#7  Imagine t bill holders coming forward to ask "what do we have to do to not be on the shit list?"
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-04-19 11:00  

#6  Further, telling the rest of the world we are going to proactively shrink the global money supply will get some people's attention.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-04-19 10:59  

#5  Lets please remember that lots of t bills held in third world countries were bought on rapine and slave labor. No need to treat those holders like Thurston Howell IV.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-04-19 10:55  

#4  ^ I agree. We can selectively give certain treasury bill holders a good and thorough scalping while simultaneously making future treasury bill purchases a difficult to obtain privilege. It will be necessary to stop spending money willy-nilly as Washington does now, but that's actually possible too.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-04-19 10:52  

#3  The only upside (if you could call it that) of the past 20 years of debt expansion is that soon we won't even be able to pretend we are ever planning on paying it back, and we can start cancelling the debts owed to us strategically (if you think this sounds like a bad idea because it would worry investors, I submit that crippling the nation by paying 80% of the national budget into the debt every year would be far worse, and refusing to pay debts owned by investors in specific countries wouldn't hurt the US that badly).

But the whole scheme has been continuous, unsustainable nonsense. At least paying everybody cash I can support. It is our money, after all. It is just that they are also paying hundreds of billions of dollars to so many other, more dubious, sources (and subsidizing unemployment, which is a completely garbage idea).
Posted by: Vernal Hatrick   2020-04-19 09:17  

#2  Kind of like "heads I win, tails you lose".
Posted by: Clem   2020-04-19 08:07  

#1  How confusing. If you spend more money than you take in, then the expenditure above the intake can't be defined as taxes. When Congress authorized this, all the Fed/Treasury did was to 'create' new money that had no tax backing. Later they'll classify it as 'inflation'. In the old days it was known as debasing the currency.

Now if the government takes 10% of your income, that is taxes in one form or another. If the government 'creates' (aka prints a boat load of money without backing) that devalues what you hold by 10% that is referred to as monetary policy.

(do I need to put a /sarc on that?)
Posted by: Procopius2k   2020-04-19 07:13  

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