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There's consensus on climate change which I'm not an expert in so I defer to the opinion of the global scientific community. And there's consensus among doctors and scientists worldwide on vaccines masks etc. That instantly makes it a lot easier to determine which individual or party to vote for.
Tax is really complicated and technical and most people (including the ~90% of accountants who don't work in tax) don't understand it at all. It would be cool if people would be more quiet about their opinions on it since they don't understand the first thing about it.
Sidebar: imagine arguing with a doctor about medicine, a biologist about evolution, a lawyer about law. Never ceases to amaze me how many people have the hubris and audacity to argue with an SME about a technical subject in their own field 🙄
There are experts on both sides of climate change. And the ones on the "it's a hoax" side would obviously beat you in a debate about it. Those ones are likely bought and paid for, but seeing as how you have literally no way of confirming that, by deferring to one side over the other you're making a personal evaluation of the information presented to you as a non-expert. You know, like ordinary people do when they have opinions on things.
You don't need to understand the entire US tax code to have an opinion on tax incentives. Much like you don't have to be an airline pilot to know that a plane crashing isn't a good thing.
No need for debate with the .1% if there's consensus among the other 99.9%. I've never been in space or measured the earth or anything and I'm not Eratosthenes so I can't really prove the earth is a sphere. I defer to the experts who know such things. I bet a sufficiently skilled flat earth debater would "win" a debate with me. Doesn't matter though because I would just walk away saying they're a fucking moron.
Most tax threads are like flat earthers arguing cosmologists.
So if somebody asks you if you'd like to be hit in the head by a brick, you'd presumably answer "I don't know". Unless you happen to have read a study performed by experts on the exact impact to cranial integrity of various sizes of brick?
Or are you a normal person who can synthesise opinions based on existing (but not exhaustive) data?
Does 2 and 2 make 4, or can we not be sure until I first cite some leading light in the pure mathematics space who can back my assertion up? Do I also have to provide the proportion (and on a side note, I'm not really sure how you decide which proportion is "correct", since this problem is entirely recursive) of other mathematicians who agree with them so that you can make a rational judgement on whether to ignore them or not? What's the threshold where you just throw your hands up in the air and proudly claim ignorance?
Similarly, people usually don't have to understand every line of the 2023 US Tax Code to understand that giving people tax deductions for doing a thing incentivizes that thing.
I think you're the one who got hit on the head with a brick if you think that's a good analogy!
This Reddit thread is a great recent example among countless: https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/16aoen5/calls_to_tax_the_superrich_grow_as_economic/
I agree in principle but all the comments in there demonstrate lack of fundamental understanding of all things business/accounting/tax related. We cross post comments from these threads over to r/accounting and tax all the time to laugh at morons who don't know what they're talking about.
It's a good idea to not go around vehemently talking shit expressing strong opinions about technical subjects you know nothing about. I don't know why this is a controversial subject but here we are.
Are you saying the science of skull structure isn't a highly technical subject? Sounds like you don't get to have an opinion on whether taking one to the face is a good thing or not.
versus
Are you saying the US tax code isn't a highly technical subject? Sounds like you don't get to have an opinion on whether tax cuts incentivize a behavior or not.
It works as an analogy because the below is exactly as clever a thing to say as the above.
Phrenology is a known pseudoscience debunked by plenty of people smarter than me. I don't need to have an opinion on it because I can and do reasonably rely on the opinions of the experts who debunked it.
The better analogy would be if I sat here arguing FOR phrenology, when I'm not an expert in it, against a neurologist who is presumably far more qualified.
This is a really simple concept and it is dismaying that you still don't understand.
Just so I'm clear, your position is that tax deductions for a behavior don't incentivize that behavior? Making an entity pay less money to do a thing doesn't make them more likely to do that thing? That's your position?
Just answer the damn question, what do you want?? And remember this is all in response to my initial sarcastic comment that this cartoon will lead to level headed reasonable discussion about tax.
The top level comment put it well: this comic is about propaganda not taxes.
what do you want??
Literally even the slightest hint that you're against lobbying in education that results in corporate propaganda being fed to children.
Unfortunately, seeing no issue with tax incentives for that exact thing is a mutually exclusive position to hold.