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beoShaffer comments on 2015 Repository Reruns - Boring Advice Repository - Less Wrong Discussion

13 Post author: TrE 08 January 2015 06:00PM

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Comment author: beoShaffer 10 January 2015 03:58:58PM 0 points [-]

80/20 tax law for your country. Unless your a tax lawyer you aren't going to have the need or ability to learn it in detail, but simple changes can often save several thousand dollars a year. In particular tax deductible savings accounts and charitable giving deductions are your friends.

Comment author: listic 11 January 2015 08:57:39PM *  1 point [-]

80/20 tax law for your country

80/20 tax law.. what? Do you use '80/20' as a verb here?

Comment author: philh 11 January 2015 09:12:55PM 1 point [-]

It's referring to the Pareto principle, "80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes". To 80/20 tax law would be to learn the 20% of tax law that gives you 80% of the benefits of knowing tax law.

Comment author: listic 11 January 2015 10:00:18PM 1 point [-]

I know of Pareto principle, just haven't figured out that 'to 80/20' means 'to learn tax law 20%'. Makes sense in general; the only obvious problem I see here is: how do I know how much of the tax law is 20%? (seriously, at least a rough approximation?)

Comment author: lmm 11 January 2015 08:34:57AM 1 point [-]

s/for your country/if you live in the US/. American tax law has a lot of complexity that makes this good advice; other countries largely don't have the things you mention.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 11 January 2015 06:34:16PM 0 points [-]

"80/20" are defined in relative terms, so it still makes sense if the overall complexity of your tax system is smaller.

Comment author: lmm 12 January 2015 08:42:51AM 0 points [-]

Only if the money saved / effort expended ratio is similar, and I don't think it is. The original post was "simple changes can often save several thousand dollars a year"; that's distinctly not true in (many) non-US countries.