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There's another bad-faith actor in this fight to make you burn your time preparing tedious tax bullshit for your personal taxes. It's Grover Norquist: https://

There's another bad-faith actor in this fight to make you burn your time preparing tedious tax bullshit for your personal taxes. It's Grover Norquist: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/grover-norquist/grover-norquist-taxes_b_3005698.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/grover-norquist/grover-norqui... To give these folks something they don't deserve (an assumption of good faith, non-cynicism, benefit of the doubt, etc): they think "letting" the IRS do folks' taxes will lead to more taxes and poor, defenseless taxpayers simply won't have the courage to challenge a "bill" from the IRS. Simple fix: let folks contest whatever final "pay this number and you're done" amount they get invoiced for & sear that into federal law. But you probably won't ever hear Grover and all the other looney tunes ever mention that. They don't want easy, hassle-free IRS filing. It's an opportunity for people to be pissed (who wants to pay money for the government) There's also talk about your taxes fitting on a postcard and that, as usual from the scumbags nominally in charge of our country, is bullshit too because it just conceals a ton of paperwork (source: https://www.accountingtoday.com/opinion/the-postcard-tax-return-a-simple-solution https://www.accountingtoday.com/opinion/the-postcard-tax-ret...)

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
The IRS is working off of incomplete information about your income and eligibility for deductions. There is no way they can fill out a form under the current tax regime.
- everdev 8y ago
  If you have a W-2 and no other income/expenses they can get pretty close. The idea of simple taxes almost always includes the ability to still do them in detail if you'd like. The idea is that the government would send you a bill (or a refund) and you can pay it (or accept it) and be done or reject it and do your own taxes like you currently do.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    30% of people choose to itemize, mainly people who own real property. And out of those who don’t, many still can claim credits for child care expenses, health care expenses, and education expenses. If the default bill sent by the IRS wouldn’t include all those things, then the result would be exactly what the Norquists of the world fear: a de facto tax increase. Note also that the H&R Block/Intuit software are free for 70% households. The remaining households are the higher income ones that would most likely itemize anyway.
    - tdb7893 8y ago
      Most of the large deductions the government already knows about. If all taxes were was itemizing the deductions they missed that would be great.
    - xivzgrev 8y ago
      This is going to go way down this year with higher standard deduction.
    - kerng 8y ago
      If you think you pay to much, file your own return. For majority of people it's just a waste of time, and I think IRS would nail the numbers pretty accurately for at least 60-80% of folks.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        I think your assumption just isn’t true. About 20% of filers use the mortgage interest deduction, which the IRS has no idea about. Then there is a ton of other stuff. For example, the IRS doesn’t even automatically know how many dependents you have. If you get divorced and one parent gets custody, the IRS has no idea. There is no federal tracking of who lives with who. The IRS also has no idea whether it should apply married rates or single rates. Again, there is no tracking of marriages at the federal level. If you only have W-2 income, are single, have no children, and aren’t eligible for any education credits, then the IRS can probably do a good job estimating your taxes. But that probably describes 20% of folks. If the IRS sent a bill to the other 80% without those deductions, it would be an overestimate. And sure, those folks could file their own returns, but many would not. That would result in a de facto tax increase, which is exactly what Norquist doesn’t want.
  - pfisch 8y ago
    How would you even know if it is right? This is such an obvious fox guarding the henhouse situation. The government would have a clear incentive to not offer you the deductions you are eligible for, and taxes are complex, so it would be easy to hide the deductions. It would only be a matter of time before the perverse incentives of the government would take over the process. The main result of this would be the government stealing from poor and middle class people who should've spent less than $100 on a 3rd party tax preparer that is incentivized to act in the interest of the taxee.
    - Duckeh 8y ago
      The whole idea of the government stealing from people makes no sense to me. You live in a democracy, the people choose their government and it does what it's elected to do. If the government starts actively stealing money from its people, the problem isn't the way in which you file your taxes. The problem is that the government brought by your democracy isn't working as intended. For what it's worth, in the Netherlands it takes most people 5 to 10 minutes to flip through an app that has all your tax info filled in already. If you need to add anything that isn't already filled in, you get every chance to do so. It doesn't stop you from getting an accountant to do it for you either, if you'd prefer. > How would you even know if it is right? Because it's still the same tax system you had before they made it easier by filling it out for you already. It doesn't get automatically filed, you still have to check it yourself and approve it.
      - pfisch 8y ago
        It doesn't make any sense to compare the Netherlands to the US on any metric. The Netherlands doesn't have the population or gdp of just Texas or California by themselves. The sheer magnitude of the difference between the US and the Netherlands is crazy, and it is like comparing a house to a town. Communism works on a small scale, the bigger the scale, the less you can just trust everyone is doing the right thing. The bureaucracy of the IRS has every incentive to maximize tax revenue, and that is what they will eventually do.
        8y ago
- astura 8y ago
  They can for the majority of Americans. Congress also has the ability to mandate more reporting, and more reporting from more agencies would pretty much have to be part of a 'simple tax return' bill. The point never was "they do prefect tax returns for everyone." Everyone knows this isn't feasible. The point is, they'll simply send you (web) forms prefilled with the information they already have, you go in and add information they don't have if something is missing. So even if they have incomplete information, you'll still benefit greatly. If youre feeling really upset about the whole concept, you can tbrow away everything they prefilled out and download a blank form and do it yourself from scratch and that would be perfectly fine too.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  It works fine in many other countries (UK, Norway, etc.).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jjeaff 8y ago
I agree with Norquist. You make things too easy, and people will just let it happen. As someone who owns a business and has to make quarterly tax payments, paying taxes is painful. I know how much it costs me every time I write a check and I am very reticent to vote for any politician that thinks we should raise those taxes. On the flip side, I have many friends whose taxes are just pulled out every paycheck. And at the end of the year, they get a tax refund. They act like the government is giving them money! Many don't even seem to realize that all they are getting is a repayment for an interest free loan they have been giving to one of the largest and wealthiest organization/government in the world. I understand and agree that taxes are important, but if we make it too easy, we make people complacent and the next thing you know, we will wake up with a 75% tax rate. This is the same reason I disagree with adding the tax in on product prices. People in other countries that do this don't realize how much of the price is going towards taxes - and to keep a government in check, information is key.
- skh 8y ago
  The scenarios you suggest happening if taxes are easy to file don’t have to be the consequence. It’s a possible consequence but overall I don’t think it would happen the way you suggest. I think it highly unlikely that it would lead to what you fear.
- koyote 8y ago
  Many western countries have very simple or near-automatic tax systems and I would argue that the tax you pay is actually much more visible to residents of such countries. In the UK, for example, most employees do not have to file a tax return. The HMRC files it for them and sends them a letter every tax year with their calculation. It even comes with a nice chart to see how much tax you've paid and where it went to (https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02871/taxtable1_2871685b.jpg https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02871/ta...). The tax brackets are also very straightfoward and everyone knows which bracket they are in. The same is true with tax on product prices. Everyone knows the tax rate on items because it's a simple number and there's a lot of public discussion whenever politicians decide on reducing/increasing it. If you ask anyone in the UK (or any other country other than the US with VAT) what the current VAT rate is, they will be able to tell you. Good luck getting an answer to such a question from someone in the US; you just pay what the cashier tells you to as VAT depends on so many factors.
heyjudy 8y ago
IIRC: In Norway, the government computes your taxes for you and you can approve of their work by text messaging. In the US, taxes are complexified to hide welfare for the rich[0] and put a burden on the non-rich people that they must fill out complicated tax forms correctly "or else." 0: This isn't idle rhetoric: That's what campaign financing buys: favorable treatment and tax law chicanery. Does anyone think it's right billionaires should pay less taxes than their secretaries?
- kwhitefoot 8y ago
  > In Norway, the government computes your taxes for you and you can approve of their work by text messaging. If you agree with the numbers you don't do anything at all.
  - Jolter 8y ago
    In Sweden you have to reply if you agree as well, because otherwise they could never convict someone of tax fraud if the pre-computed data is missing some of your income, for example. (Well, maybe they could convict you, but it would be hard to defend that morally when they didn't even force you to acknowledge the numbers.)
    - stolsvik 8y ago
      Why would that be true? Law: "Thou shalt inform the government about finances that affect tax, or else be heavily fined or put in prison when we find out." No need to have this information duty tied up to the tax return.
- indigochill 8y ago
  The Icelandic government also pre-computes taxes. It takes me maybe five minutes to do taxes in Iceland and I don't even speak Icelandic. Multiply that several times to do my US taxes and add some extra fees on top because I use tax prep software. The really funny bit is I never owe anything in the US since I solely live and operate in Iceland so all that's covered by my Icelandic taxes, but as a US citizen I'm required to file regardless.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

The IRS is working off of incomplete information about your income and eligibility for deductions. There is no way they can fill out a form under the current tax regime.

everdev 8y ago
If you have a W-2 and no other income/expenses they can get pretty close. The idea of simple taxes almost always includes the ability to still do them in detail if you'd like. The idea is that the government would send you a bill (or a refund) and you can pay it (or accept it) and be done or reject it and do your own taxes like you currently do.
- rayiner 8y ago
  30% of people choose to itemize, mainly people who own real property. And out of those who don’t, many still can claim credits for child care expenses, health care expenses, and education expenses. If the default bill sent by the IRS wouldn’t include all those things, then the result would be exactly what the Norquists of the world fear: a de facto tax increase. Note also that the H&R Block/Intuit software are free for 70% households. The remaining households are the higher income ones that would most likely itemize anyway.
  - tdb7893 8y ago
    Most of the large deductions the government already knows about. If all taxes were was itemizing the deductions they missed that would be great.
  - xivzgrev 8y ago
    This is going to go way down this year with higher standard deduction.
  - kerng 8y ago
    If you think you pay to much, file your own return. For majority of people it's just a waste of time, and I think IRS would nail the numbers pretty accurately for at least 60-80% of folks.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      I think your assumption just isn’t true. About 20% of filers use the mortgage interest deduction, which the IRS has no idea about. Then there is a ton of other stuff. For example, the IRS doesn’t even automatically know how many dependents you have. If you get divorced and one parent gets custody, the IRS has no idea. There is no federal tracking of who lives with who. The IRS also has no idea whether it should apply married rates or single rates. Again, there is no tracking of marriages at the federal level. If you only have W-2 income, are single, have no children, and aren’t eligible for any education credits, then the IRS can probably do a good job estimating your taxes. But that probably describes 20% of folks. If the IRS sent a bill to the other 80% without those deductions, it would be an overestimate. And sure, those folks could file their own returns, but many would not. That would result in a de facto tax increase, which is exactly what Norquist doesn’t want.
- pfisch 8y ago
  How would you even know if it is right? This is such an obvious fox guarding the henhouse situation. The government would have a clear incentive to not offer you the deductions you are eligible for, and taxes are complex, so it would be easy to hide the deductions. It would only be a matter of time before the perverse incentives of the government would take over the process. The main result of this would be the government stealing from poor and middle class people who should've spent less than $100 on a 3rd party tax preparer that is incentivized to act in the interest of the taxee.
  - Duckeh 8y ago
    The whole idea of the government stealing from people makes no sense to me. You live in a democracy, the people choose their government and it does what it's elected to do. If the government starts actively stealing money from its people, the problem isn't the way in which you file your taxes. The problem is that the government brought by your democracy isn't working as intended. For what it's worth, in the Netherlands it takes most people 5 to 10 minutes to flip through an app that has all your tax info filled in already. If you need to add anything that isn't already filled in, you get every chance to do so. It doesn't stop you from getting an accountant to do it for you either, if you'd prefer. > How would you even know if it is right? Because it's still the same tax system you had before they made it easier by filling it out for you already. It doesn't get automatically filed, you still have to check it yourself and approve it.
    - pfisch 8y ago
      It doesn't make any sense to compare the Netherlands to the US on any metric. The Netherlands doesn't have the population or gdp of just Texas or California by themselves. The sheer magnitude of the difference between the US and the Netherlands is crazy, and it is like comparing a house to a town. Communism works on a small scale, the bigger the scale, the less you can just trust everyone is doing the right thing. The bureaucracy of the IRS has every incentive to maximize tax revenue, and that is what they will eventually do.
      - 8y ago
astura 8y ago
They can for the majority of Americans. Congress also has the ability to mandate more reporting, and more reporting from more agencies would pretty much have to be part of a 'simple tax return' bill. The point never was "they do prefect tax returns for everyone." Everyone knows this isn't feasible. The point is, they'll simply send you (web) forms prefilled with the information they already have, you go in and add information they don't have if something is missing. So even if they have incomplete information, you'll still benefit greatly. If youre feeling really upset about the whole concept, you can tbrow away everything they prefilled out and download a blank form and do it yourself from scratch and that would be perfectly fine too.
IshKebab 8y ago
It works fine in many other countries (UK, Norway, etc.).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jjeaff 8y ago

I agree with Norquist. You make things too easy, and people will just let it happen. As someone who owns a business and has to make quarterly tax payments, paying taxes is painful. I know how much it costs me every time I write a check and I am very reticent to vote for any politician that thinks we should raise those taxes. On the flip side, I have many friends whose taxes are just pulled out every paycheck. And at the end of the year, they get a tax refund. They act like the government is giving them money! Many don't even seem to realize that all they are getting is a repayment for an interest free loan they have been giving to one of the largest and wealthiest organization/government in the world. I understand and agree that taxes are important, but if we make it too easy, we make people complacent and the next thing you know, we will wake up with a 75% tax rate. This is the same reason I disagree with adding the tax in on product prices. People in other countries that do this don't realize how much of the price is going towards taxes - and to keep a government in check, information is key.

skh 8y ago
The scenarios you suggest happening if taxes are easy to file don’t have to be the consequence. It’s a possible consequence but overall I don’t think it would happen the way you suggest. I think it highly unlikely that it would lead to what you fear.
koyote 8y ago
Many western countries have very simple or near-automatic tax systems and I would argue that the tax you pay is actually much more visible to residents of such countries. In the UK, for example, most employees do not have to file a tax return. The HMRC files it for them and sends them a letter every tax year with their calculation. It even comes with a nice chart to see how much tax you've paid and where it went to (https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02871/taxtable1_2871685b.jpg https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02871/ta...). The tax brackets are also very straightfoward and everyone knows which bracket they are in. The same is true with tax on product prices. Everyone knows the tax rate on items because it's a simple number and there's a lot of public discussion whenever politicians decide on reducing/increasing it. If you ask anyone in the UK (or any other country other than the US with VAT) what the current VAT rate is, they will be able to tell you. Good luck getting an answer to such a question from someone in the US; you just pay what the cashier tells you to as VAT depends on so many factors.

heyjudy 8y ago

IIRC: In Norway, the government computes your taxes for you and you can approve of their work by text messaging. In the US, taxes are complexified to hide welfare for the rich[0] and put a burden on the non-rich people that they must fill out complicated tax forms correctly "or else." 0: This isn't idle rhetoric: That's what campaign financing buys: favorable treatment and tax law chicanery. Does anyone think it's right billionaires should pay less taxes than their secretaries?

kwhitefoot 8y ago
> In Norway, the government computes your taxes for you and you can approve of their work by text messaging. If you agree with the numbers you don't do anything at all.
- Jolter 8y ago
  In Sweden you have to reply if you agree as well, because otherwise they could never convict someone of tax fraud if the pre-computed data is missing some of your income, for example. (Well, maybe they could convict you, but it would be hard to defend that morally when they didn't even force you to acknowledge the numbers.)
  - stolsvik 8y ago
    Why would that be true? Law: "Thou shalt inform the government about finances that affect tax, or else be heavily fined or put in prison when we find out." No need to have this information duty tied up to the tax return.
indigochill 8y ago
The Icelandic government also pre-computes taxes. It takes me maybe five minutes to do taxes in Iceland and I don't even speak Icelandic. Multiply that several times to do my US taxes and add some extra fees on top because I use tax prep software. The really funny bit is I never owe anything in the US since I solely live and operate in Iceland so all that's covered by my Icelandic taxes, but as a US citizen I'm required to file regardless.