Quote:
Originally Posted by old-fart
Also, critical information required to make meaningful decisions can be gleaned from other sources than the long form invasive census. Tax forms for example provide a wealth of information. The big G knows where I work, what I make, how many kids I have, their names, ages, birthdates, when I got married, where (and if) my wife works, what she makes or doesn't, what I give to charity and which charities, what my portfolio is and on and on. That's one place they already have a wealth of information.
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You would not make for a very good statistician.
We cannot use tax forms as there is a decent percentage of people that do not file their income tax forms. Either they make less than the personal exemption or are owed money and thus don't need to file. For this reason we cannot use tax filings for the purposes of the census. Show me one first world country on the planet that mines their tax filings in lieu of a census. It cannot be done. Or at least not giving anything near the accuracy required. However, I get the impression that those against the census are not really all that interested in having accurate data and giving it to the agencies and businesses that require it.