8 ms·

For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of the necessary information to calculate tax liability through W-2, 1099, and other filings from third pa

by ghouse 3y ago

For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of the necessary information to calculate tax liability through W-2, 1099, and other filings from third parties. A pragmatic approach might be to use this information, populate a tax form, send out for signature confirming accuracy and completeness. The balance of the tax payers could continue to use Intuit, H&R Block and others to handle their circumstances. There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative.

matdehaast 3y ago
This is literally how it works in South Africa. It’s called auto assessment. You get sent a form to confirm all correct and click submit online. 99% it has all the correct information
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
Yep. The asinine requirement that we regurgitate what has already been reported to the government offends and steals from every U.S. taxpayer.
nightski 3y ago
For those people it’s pretty automatic as it is, even free.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Yeah, there should be a filled-in form option (where you can make changes) but the reality is that if you have a W-2 with maybe a 1099 or two (with no cost basis complications) and standard deduction, it's really not that complicated today.
xienze 3y ago
> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative. I’m guessing you’re making a thinly-veiled reference to Republicans being the ones holding this up. Congress has had Democrat control many times over the decades, they could have pushed this through any time. Perhaps both parties share blame here.
- wizerdrobe 3y ago
  [flagged]
- ghouse 3y ago
  I think the Democrats (Intuit headquarters in California) are primarily to blame here, but they find odd common ground with a portion of the Republican party who want to run up the debt by cutting revenue (while increasing spending).
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
    Primarily to blame? One side is in near universal opposition to the idea and the other is ineffective/uninterested at pushing it through.
  - tstrimple 3y ago
    You think wrong. https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-optimistic-about-irs-plans-to-offer-free-tax-filing-services-2023-8?amp https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-optimistic-about-i... > And while Porter, Beyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and others have expressed interest in the free direct-file pilot program, congressional Republicans are speaking out against it. > In May, the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee published a press release disapproving of the IRS' direction to move forward and create the pilot program after its chairman accused the Biden Administration of "cooking the books" in its study that ultimately recommended such a program be implemented. > "IRS control of tax preparation is the latest step in Democrats' ongoing efforts to supercharge the agency to go after working-class families, after giving the agency $80 billion to increase audits on taxpayers making less than $75,000," said Rep. Jason Smith. "Americans will be powerless when the IRS completely controls the tax filing process from start to finish."
    - xienze 3y ago
      Again, at anyone point in the last several decades when Democrats had control they could have pushed it through. Your quotes don’t change that reality.
Waterluvian 3y ago
In Canada I push a button in my tax app to populate everything from the government database. I then add the things they don’t know about like donations, make some choices about my RRSPs, and then file. Maybe ten minutes? One year I totally screwed up and they fixed it for me, giving me a considerably larger return than I filed. So I’m really happy that auto button exists now.
- anothermoron 3y ago
  [dead]
- Insanity 3y ago
  Which tax app is that?
- maccard 3y ago
  In the UK it happens automatically for the vast majority of people. You don't even need to think about it.
  - gerdesj 3y ago
    PAYE (Pay As You Earn) is automatic for all employees. Anything more complicated involves a P11D ie "benefits". Self assessment nowadays gets all P60 details pre filled in. I run a closed company with two other directors and 20 odd employees. My tax affairs are pretty simple - I don't do anything fancy. It takes me abut 30-60 mins to fill in the HMRC SA questionnaire online. I get a tax calc at the end and I cough up my tax. Dealing with shares etc is pretty straightforward because there is statutory reporting - ie each year you get a standard form declaring all relevant amounts and what to do. Taxation in the UK is pretty easy to deal with unless you want to take the piss, in which case you don't have a leg to stand on. I've been on the receiving end of a HMRC audit and I don't recommend it. Bizarrely I came out better off when they found some additional things I could claim for, which more than offset my cock up that caused the audit, including the fine! That was for a former small business I ran (pre IR35) and I had an accountant, that I promptly fired for obvious reasons.
MathMonkeyMan 3y ago
> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative. I'm primed to believe this because I'm a registered Democrat raised in that kind of household. Is it true, though? The logic makes sense, but how could we really determine whether a tax-bashing neoconservative actively protects labyrinthine tax practices in order to justify adjacent political ends? I'm more likely to conclude that it doesn't happen.
- orev 3y ago
  You should do some reading about Grover Norquist, his organization Americans for Tax Reform, and the Taxpayer Protection Pledge that most Republican politicians are pressured to sign. I think you’ll find that your assumptions about what political operatives are willing to do are wrong. A very large part of the current craziness has been enabled by people so incredulous that nobody would “stoop to such a level” that they ignore the topic completely, only to find out when it’s too late that they do, in fact, stoop down to that level and the damage has already been done.
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    Ahhh the good old republican pact. This is true. Norquist wrote a manifesto that all republicans had to swear to like it was the Bible or he was the godfather (pre-trumpism). They purposefully screw up or otherwise entangle tax codes to the point where frustration lends folks to be sympathetic to their calling. It’s a classic case of pay no attention to my right hand. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/137800715/the-man-behind-the-gops-tax-pledge https://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/137800715/the-man-behind-the-...
    - thelastgallon 3y ago
      The right way to do this is to remove tax withholding by employer. If people really have to write a check every month to IRS, they'll start questioning more. For quite a few people on HN, the taxes they pay would be more than all other expenses combined.
tshaddox 3y ago
> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative. And yet we have paycheck withholding, which seems to be a relatively complex system and is also the thing that makes actually paying your taxes easy.
- Guvante 3y ago
  That isn't what paycheck withholding is at all. Paycheck withholding guarantees you pay your taxes. Can't forget to file if you already paid all your taxes ahead of time.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Also, it shifts the responsibility for the mechanics of income tax payment from individuals to businesses. Which... I can see an argument for. Especially when coupled with regular payments vs end-of-year. It's silly for everyone to individually have to think about "How do I get these dollars to the IRS?" all during the year.
    - Guvante 3y ago
      Paycheck withholding is good. It just isn't designed to makes things easier. That is a happenstance (if you don't do withholding you submit quarterly estimate payments which while annoying isn't much harder than tax season) It is designed to minimize the IRSs job by focusing on businesses rather than individuals for the bulk of taxes.
  - googlryas 3y ago
    The US system is pay as you go, so it is just paying taxes on time, not ahead of time. Tax day is just the date when all your accounts are supposed to be settled up for the year.
    - Guvante 3y ago
zemnmez 3y ago
in the uk, most pay tax by an even simpler method, Pay as You Earn (PAYE). the taxes are all filed by the employer, and the online website allows taxpayers to add anything else
twoodfin 3y ago
You don’t file a form with the IRS when you get married, have a child, divorce, pay for daycare, spend an unusual amount of income on healthcare, enroll at a local community college, leave your job, switch to selling pottery on eBay, buy a house, inherit money from the death of a relative, … We could have IRS forms and the IRS maintaining an expansive database to cover all tax-relevant events and amounts, but that hardly seems desirable. Federal income taxes are complex. Everyone will trip over that complexity multiple times in their lives, Federally-provided “easy file” or not. EDIT: Just look at the qualifying criteria for the EITC, simultaneously one of the most important tax credits that many eligible low-income filers miss, and a massive source of tax fraud. https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-income-tax-credit/who-qualifies-for-the-earned-income-tax-credit-eitc https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-in... How in the world does the IRS figure out automatically if you’re eligible?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  All of this can be provided to the IRS through a crud interface in your IRS account and it’s entirely desirable to make paying taxes as easy and cost efficient as possible. Automate what can be automated, make what cannot straightforward.
  - twoodfin 3y ago
    The claim was: For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of the necessary information to calculate tax liability through W-2, 1099, and other filings from third parties. They do not. And I think most Americans would recoil at the idea of giving them what they would need to compute liability under the bulk of current law. So we’re really talking about a “public option” for tax filing software. The Treasury Department is giving it a try, we’ll see how it goes.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      My comment was specifically to rebut this weak claim you put forth: > We could have IRS forms and the IRS maintaining an expansive database to cover all tax-relevant events and amounts, but that hardly seems desirable. If it’s tax relevant, why would they not be collecting and then storing a record of it for the relevant period of time? That is their responsibility: to store, process, and maintain this tax-relevant information in order to compute taxes or refunds due.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. Is this why the current president hired 80000 new IRS agents instead of making a simple system that presents this electronically for confirmation?
- underlipton 3y ago
  No, but there is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because placating tax prep companies aligns with their campaign fundraising strategy. I assume that our president was one of them when he was a senator, and continues to be friends with legislators who are included in that contingent.
- azernik 3y ago
  Yes. It is literally illegal for him to make that simple system without Congressional approval.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Yes, but it's legal with Congressional approval. Has he been proposing it, and Congress have rejected?
    - azernik 3y ago
      Yes. The article itself is about lobbying against a law the President is proposing (and pushing through commissioned studies, hired experts, &c) See eg this polemic from House Republicans blaming him for it: https://waysandmeans.house.gov/report-on-direct-e-file-program-confirms-biden-administration-always-intended-to-make-the-irs-americas-tax-preparer-filer-and-auditor/ https://waysandmeans.house.gov/report-on-direct-e-file-progr... And here's some straight reporting on the executive branch trying to implement it in roundabout ways, plus efforts on this bill: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/irs-free-tax-filing-pilot/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/irs-free-tax-filing-...
- 3y ago
Beached 3y ago
how do does the federal government calculate all your deductions? do they have every transaction you make every year on file?
rufus_foreman 3y ago
>> For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of the necessary information to calculate tax liability A couple years ago, the US government owed me a bunch of money for taxes, I overpaid, it took the government many months to refund that money, and during that period, the US government could not tell me a single thing about where my money was, or what was the status of my return, or where my money was. Not a single thing, after many hours on the phone, hours and hours, not a single piece of information. And from your comment, I gather that you want these people to have more power over me, rather than less. My answer is simple, no.
xhkkffbf 3y ago
While it is true that many people have simple taxes, the philosophical shift is huge. It's just much better for the US citizen to be able to tell the government what he or she owes and then put the onus on the government to seek redress. In some countries, the government sends out a tax bill as if it's a fait accompli and the poor citizens just have to take it. I realize there are some people who just want to frame this as Intuit is just a bunch of greedy people, but they're providing a service just like others. HR Block does offer some competition and it's often possible to get a free version of their software. I've seen some of my neighbors get the free option. It's real. I like the option to control my taxes. It's worth the extra work.
- doikor 3y ago
  > In some countries, the government sends out a tax bill as if it's a fait accompli and the poor citizens just have to take it. I highly doubt this happens in any working democracy. What the government does in those countries is just send the tax form pre-filled allowing the tax payer to make any corrections as they wish. You are just as much in control of your taxes in such a system as the US one but it just has a lot less work for most. In an authoritarian/etc system you end up paying whatever the government says you have to pay no matter how the system works. Really if you are living in a country where you can’t dispute your taxes when you think the government made a mistake you are living in a failed democracy or authoritarian/dictator system.
- morpheuskafka 3y ago
  That's why the IRS is proposing an automatic preparation option, not "the government sending you a bill." The legal distinction between what their program initially suggests and what you file remains, and is deeply baked into the tax code.
- mecha_ghidorah 3y ago
  >In some countries, the government sends out a tax bill as if it's a fait accompli and the poor citizens just have to take it. In Australia at least we get a pre-filled form, but we still need to validate and submit it. If there is a discrepancy we can correct it then. The government isn't just "sending a bill", and because of pay as you go taxes happening via the employer most people are more likely to get money back than they are to owe more - for example if you get a pay rise you are taxed on each pay cheuque as if you were getting that pay rate for the whole financial year, but often people have part of the year at the old lower pay rate and so might get some back.
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
>There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative. Had me up until here. This is what I'd dismiss as a conspiracy theory.
- tzs 3y ago
  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Opposition_to_free_automatic_tax_return_filing_and_other_efforts_to_make_tax_filing_easier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Oppos...
babyshake 3y ago
Perhaps this is just in my imagination, but it seems that there is an element to the byzantine tax process where it's desirable on the part of the government for people to feel that they have likely made some mistakes at some points with taxes, and this produces the feeling that the government has "kompromat" and therefore they should be careful and make sure to not do anything to get any unwanted attention. Of course, there is an analogy to be made with religion and the Catholic Church in particular.
lemper 3y ago
I actually love it when republican politicians are actually and actively fucking over their own constituents while pocketing some money. truly an American dream through and through. sucks to be their constituents though, not that I'm sorry.
refurb 3y ago
The issue is that US tax code is based on a lot of information the IRS doesn't have access to - disability, number of child, marriage status, etc. And then the other issues is that the information the IRS has comes from 3rd parties like your employer, your financial institutions, colleges, etc. That information can have errors in it, so you need to review everything and make sure it's correct anyways. This happened to me when I worked in a country that automatically filled out your tax return - I pulled together all the information just like I would in the US to make sure it was correct. And guess what? My employer made an error that would have cost me several thousand more in taxes! So the benefit is really pre-filling a form with numbers. Otherwise the work is very similar to just doing your taxes on your own anyways.
sershe 3y ago
I'm surprised they don't go for an alternative idea, since the govt has all the data. Make filing taxes online easy based on the info they have, but then require everyone to scroll thru e.g. a "tax invoice" that would break down the taxes proportionally based on the latest budget, with congress controlling the yearly highlights. "You paid $X for war in Iraq", "You paid $X to advance gender equality in Peru", "You paid $X to build a bridge to nowhere", "You paid $X for loan forgiveness for people studying underwater basket weaving". That might get people's attention... would you rather cancel Hulu or underwater basket weaving?
- frankish 3y ago
  A step further: I've seen someone suggest before that we should be able to choose the percentages of what our taxes fund. Been in love with that idea ever since.
idontwantthis 3y ago
Tax season should be like Christmas. Most of the time you get a check from the government! It should make people happy!
sigwinch28 3y ago
In the U.K. a lot of people do not have much interaction with HMRC (the tax authority) beyond knowing their National Insurance number, knowing their tax code, and seeing tax deductions on their payslips. https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/how-you-pay-income-tax https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/how-you-pay-income-tax Even when they do, it can be done online, or by post, or by phone. Anecdote: I rang HMRC and within 60 minutes all of my questions were answered.

by ghouse 3y ago

matdehaast 3y ago

This is literally how it works in South Africa. It’s called auto assessment. You get sent a form to confirm all correct and click submit online. 99% it has all the correct information

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

Yep. The asinine requirement that we regurgitate what has already been reported to the government offends and steals from every U.S. taxpayer.

nightski 3y ago

For those people it’s pretty automatic as it is, even free.

ghaff 3y ago
Yeah, there should be a filled-in form option (where you can make changes) but the reality is that if you have a W-2 with maybe a 1099 or two (with no cost basis complications) and standard deduction, it's really not that complicated today.

xienze 3y ago

> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative. I’m guessing you’re making a thinly-veiled reference to Republicans being the ones holding this up. Congress has had Democrat control many times over the decades, they could have pushed this through any time. Perhaps both parties share blame here.

wizerdrobe 3y ago
[flagged]
ghouse 3y ago
I think the Democrats (Intuit headquarters in California) are primarily to blame here, but they find odd common ground with a portion of the Republican party who want to run up the debt by cutting revenue (while increasing spending).
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  Primarily to blame? One side is in near universal opposition to the idea and the other is ineffective/uninterested at pushing it through.
- tstrimple 3y ago
  You think wrong. https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-optimistic-about-irs-plans-to-offer-free-tax-filing-services-2023-8?amp https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-optimistic-about-i... > And while Porter, Beyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and others have expressed interest in the free direct-file pilot program, congressional Republicans are speaking out against it. > In May, the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee published a press release disapproving of the IRS' direction to move forward and create the pilot program after its chairman accused the Biden Administration of "cooking the books" in its study that ultimately recommended such a program be implemented. > "IRS control of tax preparation is the latest step in Democrats' ongoing efforts to supercharge the agency to go after working-class families, after giving the agency $80 billion to increase audits on taxpayers making less than $75,000," said Rep. Jason Smith. "Americans will be powerless when the IRS completely controls the tax filing process from start to finish."
  - xienze 3y ago
    Again, at anyone point in the last several decades when Democrats had control they could have pushed it through. Your quotes don’t change that reality.

Waterluvian 3y ago

In Canada I push a button in my tax app to populate everything from the government database. I then add the things they don’t know about like donations, make some choices about my RRSPs, and then file. Maybe ten minutes? One year I totally screwed up and they fixed it for me, giving me a considerably larger return than I filed. So I’m really happy that auto button exists now.

anothermoron 3y ago
[dead]
Insanity 3y ago
Which tax app is that?
maccard 3y ago
In the UK it happens automatically for the vast majority of people. You don't even need to think about it.
- gerdesj 3y ago
  PAYE (Pay As You Earn) is automatic for all employees. Anything more complicated involves a P11D ie "benefits". Self assessment nowadays gets all P60 details pre filled in. I run a closed company with two other directors and 20 odd employees. My tax affairs are pretty simple - I don't do anything fancy. It takes me abut 30-60 mins to fill in the HMRC SA questionnaire online. I get a tax calc at the end and I cough up my tax. Dealing with shares etc is pretty straightforward because there is statutory reporting - ie each year you get a standard form declaring all relevant amounts and what to do. Taxation in the UK is pretty easy to deal with unless you want to take the piss, in which case you don't have a leg to stand on. I've been on the receiving end of a HMRC audit and I don't recommend it. Bizarrely I came out better off when they found some additional things I could claim for, which more than offset my cock up that caused the audit, including the fine! That was for a former small business I ran (pre IR35) and I had an accountant, that I promptly fired for obvious reasons.

MathMonkeyMan 3y ago

> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative. I'm primed to believe this because I'm a registered Democrat raised in that kind of household. Is it true, though? The logic makes sense, but how could we really determine whether a tax-bashing neoconservative actively protects labyrinthine tax practices in order to justify adjacent political ends? I'm more likely to conclude that it doesn't happen.

orev 3y ago
You should do some reading about Grover Norquist, his organization Americans for Tax Reform, and the Taxpayer Protection Pledge that most Republican politicians are pressured to sign. I think you’ll find that your assumptions about what political operatives are willing to do are wrong. A very large part of the current craziness has been enabled by people so incredulous that nobody would “stoop to such a level” that they ignore the topic completely, only to find out when it’s too late that they do, in fact, stoop down to that level and the damage has already been done.
- gabereiser 3y ago
  Ahhh the good old republican pact. This is true. Norquist wrote a manifesto that all republicans had to swear to like it was the Bible or he was the godfather (pre-trumpism). They purposefully screw up or otherwise entangle tax codes to the point where frustration lends folks to be sympathetic to their calling. It’s a classic case of pay no attention to my right hand. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/137800715/the-man-behind-the-gops-tax-pledge https://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/137800715/the-man-behind-the-...
  - thelastgallon 3y ago
    The right way to do this is to remove tax withholding by employer. If people really have to write a check every month to IRS, they'll start questioning more. For quite a few people on HN, the taxes they pay would be more than all other expenses combined.

tshaddox 3y ago

> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. The more painful tax preparation is, the more sympathy they find with this narrative. And yet we have paycheck withholding, which seems to be a relatively complex system and is also the thing that makes actually paying your taxes easy.

Guvante 3y ago
That isn't what paycheck withholding is at all. Paycheck withholding guarantees you pay your taxes. Can't forget to file if you already paid all your taxes ahead of time.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Also, it shifts the responsibility for the mechanics of income tax payment from individuals to businesses. Which... I can see an argument for. Especially when coupled with regular payments vs end-of-year. It's silly for everyone to individually have to think about "How do I get these dollars to the IRS?" all during the year.
  - Guvante 3y ago
    Paycheck withholding is good. It just isn't designed to makes things easier. That is a happenstance (if you don't do withholding you submit quarterly estimate payments which while annoying isn't much harder than tax season) It is designed to minimize the IRSs job by focusing on businesses rather than individuals for the bulk of taxes.
- googlryas 3y ago
  The US system is pay as you go, so it is just paying taxes on time, not ahead of time. Tax day is just the date when all your accounts are supposed to be settled up for the year.
  - Guvante 3y ago

zemnmez 3y ago

in the uk, most pay tax by an even simpler method, Pay as You Earn (PAYE). the taxes are all filed by the employer, and the online website allows taxpayers to add anything else

twoodfin 3y ago

You don’t file a form with the IRS when you get married, have a child, divorce, pay for daycare, spend an unusual amount of income on healthcare, enroll at a local community college, leave your job, switch to selling pottery on eBay, buy a house, inherit money from the death of a relative, … We could have IRS forms and the IRS maintaining an expansive database to cover all tax-relevant events and amounts, but that hardly seems desirable. Federal income taxes are complex. Everyone will trip over that complexity multiple times in their lives, Federally-provided “easy file” or not. EDIT: Just look at the qualifying criteria for the EITC, simultaneously one of the most important tax credits that many eligible low-income filers miss, and a massive source of tax fraud. https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-income-tax-credit/who-qualifies-for-the-earned-income-tax-credit-eitc https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-in... How in the world does the IRS figure out automatically if you’re eligible?

toomuchtodo 3y ago
All of this can be provided to the IRS through a crud interface in your IRS account and it’s entirely desirable to make paying taxes as easy and cost efficient as possible. Automate what can be automated, make what cannot straightforward.
- twoodfin 3y ago
  The claim was: For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of the necessary information to calculate tax liability through W-2, 1099, and other filings from third parties. They do not. And I think most Americans would recoil at the idea of giving them what they would need to compute liability under the bulk of current law. So we’re really talking about a “public option” for tax filing software. The Treasury Department is giving it a try, we’ll see how it goes.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    My comment was specifically to rebut this weak claim you put forth: > We could have IRS forms and the IRS maintaining an expansive database to cover all tax-relevant events and amounts, but that hardly seems desirable. If it’s tax relevant, why would they not be collecting and then storing a record of it for the relevant period of time? That is their responsibility: to store, process, and maintain this tax-relevant information in order to compute taxes or refunds due.

robertlagrant 3y ago

> There is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because it aligns with their narrative that taxes are bad. Is this why the current president hired 80000 new IRS agents instead of making a simple system that presents this electronically for confirmation?

underlipton 3y ago
No, but there is a contingent of Congress that does not want to make tax preparation easier because placating tax prep companies aligns with their campaign fundraising strategy. I assume that our president was one of them when he was a senator, and continues to be friends with legislators who are included in that contingent.
azernik 3y ago
Yes. It is literally illegal for him to make that simple system without Congressional approval.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Yes, but it's legal with Congressional approval. Has he been proposing it, and Congress have rejected?
  - azernik 3y ago
    Yes. The article itself is about lobbying against a law the President is proposing (and pushing through commissioned studies, hired experts, &c) See eg this polemic from House Republicans blaming him for it: https://waysandmeans.house.gov/report-on-direct-e-file-program-confirms-biden-administration-always-intended-to-make-the-irs-americas-tax-preparer-filer-and-auditor/ https://waysandmeans.house.gov/report-on-direct-e-file-progr... And here's some straight reporting on the executive branch trying to implement it in roundabout ways, plus efforts on this bill: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/irs-free-tax-filing-pilot/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/irs-free-tax-filing-...
3y ago

Beached 3y ago

how do does the federal government calculate all your deductions? do they have every transaction you make every year on file?

rufus_foreman 3y ago

>> For most tax payers in the US, the government has all of the necessary information to calculate tax liability A couple years ago, the US government owed me a bunch of money for taxes, I overpaid, it took the government many months to refund that money, and during that period, the US government could not tell me a single thing about where my money was, or what was the status of my return, or where my money was. Not a single thing, after many hours on the phone, hours and hours, not a single piece of information. And from your comment, I gather that you want these people to have more power over me, rather than less. My answer is simple, no.

xhkkffbf 3y ago

While it is true that many people have simple taxes, the philosophical shift is huge. It's just much better for the US citizen to be able to tell the government what he or she owes and then put the onus on the government to seek redress. In some countries, the government sends out a tax bill as if it's a fait accompli and the poor citizens just have to take it. I realize there are some people who just want to frame this as Intuit is just a bunch of greedy people, but they're providing a service just like others. HR Block does offer some competition and it's often possible to get a free version of their software. I've seen some of my neighbors get the free option. It's real. I like the option to control my taxes. It's worth the extra work.

doikor 3y ago
> In some countries, the government sends out a tax bill as if it's a fait accompli and the poor citizens just have to take it. I highly doubt this happens in any working democracy. What the government does in those countries is just send the tax form pre-filled allowing the tax payer to make any corrections as they wish. You are just as much in control of your taxes in such a system as the US one but it just has a lot less work for most. In an authoritarian/etc system you end up paying whatever the government says you have to pay no matter how the system works. Really if you are living in a country where you can’t dispute your taxes when you think the government made a mistake you are living in a failed democracy or authoritarian/dictator system.
morpheuskafka 3y ago
That's why the IRS is proposing an automatic preparation option, not "the government sending you a bill." The legal distinction between what their program initially suggests and what you file remains, and is deeply baked into the tax code.
mecha_ghidorah 3y ago
>In some countries, the government sends out a tax bill as if it's a fait accompli and the poor citizens just have to take it. In Australia at least we get a pre-filled form, but we still need to validate and submit it. If there is a discrepancy we can correct it then. The government isn't just "sending a bill", and because of pay as you go taxes happening via the employer most people are more likely to get money back than they are to owe more - for example if you get a pay rise you are taxed on each pay cheuque as if you were getting that pay rate for the whole financial year, but often people have part of the year at the old lower pay rate and so might get some back.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

tzs 3y ago
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Opposition_to_free_automatic_tax_return_filing_and_other_efforts_to_make_tax_filing_easier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Oppos...

babyshake 3y ago

Perhaps this is just in my imagination, but it seems that there is an element to the byzantine tax process where it's desirable on the part of the government for people to feel that they have likely made some mistakes at some points with taxes, and this produces the feeling that the government has "kompromat" and therefore they should be careful and make sure to not do anything to get any unwanted attention. Of course, there is an analogy to be made with religion and the Catholic Church in particular.

lemper 3y ago

I actually love it when republican politicians are actually and actively fucking over their own constituents while pocketing some money. truly an American dream through and through. sucks to be their constituents though, not that I'm sorry.

refurb 3y ago

The issue is that US tax code is based on a lot of information the IRS doesn't have access to - disability, number of child, marriage status, etc. And then the other issues is that the information the IRS has comes from 3rd parties like your employer, your financial institutions, colleges, etc. That information can have errors in it, so you need to review everything and make sure it's correct anyways. This happened to me when I worked in a country that automatically filled out your tax return - I pulled together all the information just like I would in the US to make sure it was correct. And guess what? My employer made an error that would have cost me several thousand more in taxes! So the benefit is really pre-filling a form with numbers. Otherwise the work is very similar to just doing your taxes on your own anyways.

sershe 3y ago

I'm surprised they don't go for an alternative idea, since the govt has all the data. Make filing taxes online easy based on the info they have, but then require everyone to scroll thru e.g. a "tax invoice" that would break down the taxes proportionally based on the latest budget, with congress controlling the yearly highlights. "You paid $X for war in Iraq", "You paid $X to advance gender equality in Peru", "You paid $X to build a bridge to nowhere", "You paid $X for loan forgiveness for people studying underwater basket weaving". That might get people's attention... would you rather cancel Hulu or underwater basket weaving?

frankish 3y ago
A step further: I've seen someone suggest before that we should be able to choose the percentages of what our taxes fund. Been in love with that idea ever since.

idontwantthis 3y ago

Tax season should be like Christmas. Most of the time you get a check from the government! It should make people happy!

sigwinch28 3y ago

In the U.K. a lot of people do not have much interaction with HMRC (the tax authority) beyond knowing their National Insurance number, knowing their tax code, and seeing tax deductions on their payslips. https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/how-you-pay-income-tax https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/how-you-pay-income-tax Even when they do, it can be done online, or by post, or by phone. Anecdote: I rang HMRC and within 60 minutes all of my questions were answered.