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Talk:Income tax in the United States/GA1

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Reviewer: Cryptic C62 (talk · contribs) 01:39, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Hello there! It is quite an ambitious undertaking to work on an article of this size, complexity, and importance. I will do my best to give it the detailed scrutiny that it deserves. Thanks for the diligent effort thus far!

  • "Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits. An alternative tax applies at the federal and some state levels." Is the second sentence related to the first (and the rest of the paragraph)? If so, I don't understand the connection.
  • "Income is broadly defined." This is not a particularly illuminating sentence. I would consider expanding it to something like "Income is broadly defined, and includes blop, bleep, and framgelian."
  • "capital losses reduce taxable income to the extent of gains" I don't understand what this means.
  • "(plus, in certain cases, $3,000 or $1,500 of ordinary income)" This might be too much detail for the lead. The rest of the lead does not use any specific figures, which I think is the way to go. This makes it less vulnerable to inflation or changes in tax code. *cough cough Ted Cruz*
  • I would suggest renaming Basics to Definitions.

I'll continue to add comments as I progress through the article. There's only so much of this stuff I can take in one sitting. :D Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:39, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Cryptic C62! Your assistance is much appreciated. Rather than comment on the first 3 points, let me comment that the lead generally has only 1 sentence per topic; thus, the individual sentences are related only in that they introduce the broader topic of Income tax in the United States. I agree with your 4th comment (too much detail). The "Basics" level 1 heading encompasses all of the topic, not just definitions. For example, see the sub items "Capital gains" and "Tax returns". I think "definitions" is too limiting. Looking forward to your comments. Let's consider modifications to the lead after considering the balance of the article, then let's focus hard on the lead to make sure it's a meaningful introduction to what many attorneys refer to as the hardest area of the law. Oldtaxguy (talk) 18:52, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That certainly works for me. Let's take a look at the article's references. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:44, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

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  • It's obvious that a vast trove of good sources have been used to build this article. However, there's a lot of content for which it is unclear which (if any) of the sources back it up. Examples include Business deductions and Alternative minimum tax. A good rule of thumb is that every paragraph should end with at least one reference.
  • Many of the citations do not provide enough context for the reader. One example is currently Ref 30 "26 USC 263", or Ref 59 "348 U.S. at 429". This might be familiar for tax professionals, but Average Joe is unlikely to know what this means. I see that the article already makes use of the {{cite web}} template for some references. I would suggest using this throughout to ensure comprehensiveness and consistency in the references.
  • It is inadvisable to use "Id." in the references of Wikipedia articles. Ref 60 uses "Id." to point to Ref 59. If someone else introduces new content and new references between 59 and 60, then the pointer becomes broken. One alternative which may work well for this article is {{rp}}, which I can happily explain further if need be.
Thanks for more comments. I'll take them in the order you listed them.
- Citations appear throughout the article. Where two or more sentences state different aspects of one citation, usually the first sentence has the citation. Having a citation at the end of the paragraph has the advantage of consistency, but has the disadvantage of having earlier sentences appear uncited. Duplicating the citations certainly is an option, but may add a very significant number of duplicative references.
Note: This entire article is a summary, all in one place, of dozens of other WP articles, each with a link. Many of the sections and subsections of this article have a reference to a Main article (e.g., Business deductions refers to the article Tax deduction). These other articles themselves usually expand significantly on the topic and have many more citations (20 on Business expenses, part of Tax deduction, 17 in Standard deduction, an in-line link, etc.).
When a single reference supports multiple consecutive sentences, the consensus is that the inline citation should be placed at the end of all of those sentences, not the end of the first sentence. While this is not required by WP:INLINECITE, it certainly helps to maintain consistency across articles to avoid confusion.
As for the summarization of multiple sub-articles, here is a helpful pair of questions to ask: if the sub-article has a relevant reference, why should the burden be on the reader to dig through the sub-article to find it? On the other hand, if the sub-article does not have a relevant reference (yet), why would it be acceptable to omit the reference here as well? In short, there is no reason to omit citations in a summary section. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:56, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The relevant sub-articles have literally hundreds of references. Should we add that many here, or worse, expand this summary article to include all the references the sub-articles could have if your suggestion is followed? As an example, the Business deductions subsection of this article, if expanded as you suggest, would have at least an additional 14 references, assuming we reference only USC sections. Further, if fully expanded, again just using USC references, there probably should be 50-70 total just for this subsection. Full expansion would, at best, be a massive effort, and at worst create an article so long as to be unusable by the average reader. Oldtaxguy (talk) 20:27, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not suggesting expanding all of the sections, nor am I suggesting incorporating all of the references from each of the sub-articles. All that is required is to provide sourcing for the statements made in the summary sections. Example: The Penalties summary section is currently 7 sentences long. Its sub-article currently has 33 references. At the absolute maximum, the summary section would require using 7 of those 33 references, assuming every sentence came from a different source. My guess is that in reality, it would only need 3. Not a major undertaking. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 15:34, 13 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Below is a quick shot at the "Penalties" section, taking a minimalist approach that adds only 11 references and 2k characters to this formerly 120 word, 740 character section of the article. Please note that this section, like many other sections of this article, has the potential for huge numbers of citations (in excess of 70 for this short bit). Note also that the IRS Penalties article is not well cited (the group just didn't get that far). Finally, I'm at a loss on how to put a cite on the 2nd sentence, "These penalties vary based on the type of failure." Here's the quick version:

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Penalties
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Taxpayers who fail to file returns or file them file late,[1] or to file returns that are wrong,[2] may be subject to penalties. These penalties vary based on the type of failure. Some penalties are computed like interest,[3] some are fixed amounts,[4] and some are based on other measures.[5] Penalties for filing or paying late are generally based on the amount of tax that should have been paid and the degree of lateness.[6] Penalties for failures related to certain forms are fixed amounts, and vary by form from very small to huge.[7]

Intentional failures,[8] including tax fraud, may result in criminal penalties.[9] These penalties may include jail time or forfeiture of property.[10] Criminal penalties are assessed in coordination with the United States Department of Justice.[11]

  1. ^ See, e.g., 26 USC 6651, 26 USC 6652.
  2. ^ See, e.g. 26 USC 6662.
  3. ^ See, e.g. 26 USC 6654 and 26 USC 6656.
  4. ^ See, e.g. 26 USC 6679.
  5. ^ See, e.g. 26 USC 6698.
  6. ^ See, e.g. 26 USC 6651.
  7. ^ Compare, e.g. 26 USC 68 to 26 USC 6707.
  8. ^ See, e.g. 26 USC 7203.
  9. ^ See, e.g. 26 USC 7207.
  10. ^ 26 USC 7301 through 7328.
  11. ^ Department of Justice Tax Division.

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Is this what we really need to do to get to Good Article?  ! Oldtaxguy (talk) 18:57, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I know that it may be a pain in the ass, but yes. Item 2 on the good article criteria list is "verifiable", which says "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable." I think you could substantially reduce the work load by incorporating more secondary sources that summarize related claims. In the example you provided, the first three sentences have 5 citations. I would be very surprised if there were not a reliable secondary source that could cover all three. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 13:22, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Then I will carefully consider whether I wish to continue, and will advise in 1-2 weeks. Oldtaxguy (talk) 16:33, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sure thing. If you do decide you'd rather re-nominate at a later date, go ahead and shoot me a message when you're ready, and I'll start reviewing it right away. No sense in having the article languish in the GAN queue a second time. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:16, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I resign. Oldtaxguy (talk) 22:09, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- In citing USC (the United States Code), it certainly would be a good idea to expand the first citation with a parenthetical reference. The USC web link is the [OFFICIAL version of U.S. law, updated almost daily by Congress. I'm very disinclined to use the WP template for web citations, since only one of the parameters applies, the URL. Please keep in mind that this is an article about law, and by its nature should have references to the law itself. Upon clicking the USC link, the reader gets a pop up window of the full official version of the particular section of the law, including statutory history and substantial other information.
Note: it has been discussed at length whether it is appropriate to cite the law in a law article, since the law itself is original material rather than second party coverage. The biggest problem is that most reliable sources on the law, other than those quoting the law or cases without commentary, require a fee to access. Thus, relying on second party coverage would effectively prevent readers from viewing reliable citations. The public press (e.g., NY Times, Wall Street Journal) have repeatedly proven themselves unreliable when covering what the law means, and even in reporting court cases saying what the law means. This is not a problem unique to tax.
Fair enough. Struck. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:56, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- The citations to U.S. Supreme Court cases are entirely within the History section, and the multiple citations to the same case are within the same subsection. I think the better approach may be to simply delete the citations after the first. Your additional thoughts?
I went ahead and implemented the {{rp}} template throughout the History section. I think it's pretty handy in this case, but feel free to discuss further or revert. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:56, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please comment on whether the History, Sources, and Controversies sections are appropriate in length, coverage, style, and bias. These were once subject to discussion, without much consensus. Also, please similarly comment on Note 1 on Puerto Rico tax. Oldtaxguy (talk) 02:46, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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