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I have never looked into why the US hasn't moved towards government prepared taxes like many other countries. I just want to say fuck Intuit! Wasting thousand

I have never looked into why the US hasn't moved towards government prepared taxes like many other countries. I just want to say fuck Intuit! Wasting thousands of hours of time for corporate profit. Absolutely disgusting.

maxxxxx 8y ago
There are also anti-tax activists who want to make tax filing as onerous as possible so people hate taxes.
- philipov 8y ago
  I would like to popularize a term for this kind of behavior: Political Terrorism.
  - jlawson 8y ago
    All terrorism is political. Also, I tire of the constant politically motivated attempts to inflate the usage of words to try to attach awful connotations to relatively innocuous things. Please stop.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      What other term would you use for holding the country hostage through flagarant, unapologetic cronyism and regulatory capture? Edit: None of these replies really captures of the gravity of the situation IMHO.
      - otterley 8y ago
        Corruption.
      - gumby 8y ago
        abuse
      - int_19h 8y ago
        Plutocratic oligarchy.
      - tedunangst 8y ago
        Economic water boarding, obviously.
      - lallysingh 8y ago
        Government
      - ada1981 8y ago
        #MAGA!
- derefr 8y ago
  You'd think, if they were powerful enough to affect tax law, they'd lobby for getting taxes included in prices, the way they are in most of Europe. That'd make a lot of people hate taxes—especially the people who have to constantly re-tag merchandise.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    I'm European. What this does is that it hides the tax and people complain about price increases when the tax increases. Every single EU libertarian would prefer the US way. BTW what the heck are you doing with your tax rates that you'd have to constantly re-tag? That's completely a non-problem over here.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      Yeah if merchandise is sitting on a retail shelf long enough that the tax changes multiple times before it's sold, you need to rethink your stocking choices.
    - enraged_camel 8y ago
      I don’t see why we can’t have both. Have one price that is the grand total, and in a smaller font, display how much of that grand total is the tax. That way people know how much the thing will cost upfront, and also know the tax amount.
      - TomMarius 8y ago
        In the USA, I have no idea. In the EU, politicians don't want that because that'd surely lead to a revolution, especially in the east.
    - joppy 8y ago
      Sales tax in the USA differs across states, and even across counties. So it could change fairly regularly.
      - 8y ago
- failrate 8y ago
  Goddamn Grover Norquist.
- sbuttgereit 8y ago
  I'm largely in the anti-tax camp and I don't want that. Perhaps I'm just not in that martyrdom mindset enough to want such a thing... but even so it would be more of a gimmick than an argument. I don't like these kinds of stupid made up controversies when they come from people and groups I oppose and like them even less from my side of whatever political point is at stake. As others have mentioned, I do think there should be transparency. So, for example, the employer portions of payroll taxes (in the U.S.) is not usually visible to the employee on who's behalf it is paid; an employee doesn't see the full weight of taxes that ultimately derives from their labor... that to me is hiding, in a fashion, what my real gross pay is and what amount of my earnings is being taken.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    > I'm largely in the anti-tax camp and I don't want that. I’m in the pro tax camp and I kind of like it. I enjoy paying my taxes, but I don’t think the government should take half of peoples’ paychecks without people having to think consciously about it every year.
    - Hello71 8y ago
      Who exactly pays an average income tax rate of 50% in the United States? You'd have to be making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, at which point you don't get it as a check, you get it as a wire transfer from your investment bank, because with the exception of certain athletes, nobody makes that much money in salary.
      - sbuttgereit 8y ago
        If you're only looking at federal income taxes, sure. But now add in state income taxes, local taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, special fees and assessments, and other mandatory charges and that bar starts to move down the great chain of being rather rapidly. I assure you, I'm not making hundreds of millions of dollars and I'm pretty sure that I'm in that 50% range of dollars consumed by government takings per dollar earned.
ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
That majority of people could fill out the 1040EZ in 10 minutes and call it done. There's no way for the government to know what your work expenses were, what you donated to charity, and so on and so forth through many of the deductions. If you don't want to maximize your return, you can be done in less than 15 minutes. Even making more than 100k, with stocks through multiple brokers, a 401k, interest from multiple accounts, a house, student loans, and probably a few others I forgot to mention, it took me an hour and a half to do my taxes and cost me under $20 on freetaxusa (whatever the price for the state taxes they charged was low enough where I didn't care to figure it out on my own). The tax code is one of those boogeymen items that everyone attacks, but in reality isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
- hawaiianbrah 8y ago
  Okay, sure. But wouldn’t it be great if for some portion of the population, they really don’t have to do a thing (because they think the government got it right)? Isn’t that better than everyone having to spend at least 10-15 minutes?
  - ghostofmycat 8y ago
    How much taxpayer money will be spent compiling taxes for all working adults in the U.S.? I'm guessing this is more work than it's worth. I don't think filling out a simple form once a year is that much to ask, even if it takes as long as a few hours to do. Edit: Not sure why I have negative points here, I was just saying that the process of implementing a system to actually get people their taxes and accommodating all the edge cases and ensuring everything is perfect enough that people literally don't have to do anything is probably not worth it compared to doing a check of submissions against the IRS own findings. Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong, I'm all ears and not super knowledgeable on the system (obviously) EDIT2: Also, not implying that it can't be done, just that it's not worth it to the IRS to do something like that. Seems like otherwise it already would have been done?
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
m463 8y ago
You know, there was one line in there that gave me pause: > Intuit argues that allowing the IRS to act as a tax preparer could result in taxpayers paying more money. Self-serving Intuit aside, I can't help but think this would be true. It would just continue what was started with automatic withholding, where the general population is psychologically disconnected with how much they actually pay in taxes. They got used to not having their money and being able to beg some of it back makes them happy when they get some. Too bad people thought Ron Paul was crazy when he talked about abolishing personal income ta.
Mikeb85 8y ago
Canada here... The government pretty much already does your taxes here, and will 'readjust' your taxes if they feel you made a mistake. I've never understood why they still make you go through the process. Such a waste of time.
- upofadown 8y ago
  Even more ridiculous is that you can do any corrections online. So you can pretty much send the Canadian tax agency any gibberish and then fill in any claims or deductions online later after they have fixed it. You just can't initially fill in anything so as to protect the business of the commercial tax preparation agencies.

maxxxxx 8y ago

There are also anti-tax activists who want to make tax filing as onerous as possible so people hate taxes.

philipov 8y ago
I would like to popularize a term for this kind of behavior: Political Terrorism.
- jlawson 8y ago
  All terrorism is political. Also, I tire of the constant politically motivated attempts to inflate the usage of words to try to attach awful connotations to relatively innocuous things. Please stop.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    What other term would you use for holding the country hostage through flagarant, unapologetic cronyism and regulatory capture? Edit: None of these replies really captures of the gravity of the situation IMHO.
    - otterley 8y ago
      Corruption.
    - gumby 8y ago
      abuse
    - int_19h 8y ago
      Plutocratic oligarchy.
    - tedunangst 8y ago
      Economic water boarding, obviously.
    - lallysingh 8y ago
      Government
    - ada1981 8y ago
      #MAGA!
derefr 8y ago
You'd think, if they were powerful enough to affect tax law, they'd lobby for getting taxes included in prices, the way they are in most of Europe. That'd make a lot of people hate taxes—especially the people who have to constantly re-tag merchandise.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  I'm European. What this does is that it hides the tax and people complain about price increases when the tax increases. Every single EU libertarian would prefer the US way. BTW what the heck are you doing with your tax rates that you'd have to constantly re-tag? That's completely a non-problem over here.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    Yeah if merchandise is sitting on a retail shelf long enough that the tax changes multiple times before it's sold, you need to rethink your stocking choices.
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    I don’t see why we can’t have both. Have one price that is the grand total, and in a smaller font, display how much of that grand total is the tax. That way people know how much the thing will cost upfront, and also know the tax amount.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      In the USA, I have no idea. In the EU, politicians don't want that because that'd surely lead to a revolution, especially in the east.
  - joppy 8y ago
    Sales tax in the USA differs across states, and even across counties. So it could change fairly regularly.
    - 8y ago
failrate 8y ago
Goddamn Grover Norquist.
sbuttgereit 8y ago
I'm largely in the anti-tax camp and I don't want that. Perhaps I'm just not in that martyrdom mindset enough to want such a thing... but even so it would be more of a gimmick than an argument. I don't like these kinds of stupid made up controversies when they come from people and groups I oppose and like them even less from my side of whatever political point is at stake. As others have mentioned, I do think there should be transparency. So, for example, the employer portions of payroll taxes (in the U.S.) is not usually visible to the employee on who's behalf it is paid; an employee doesn't see the full weight of taxes that ultimately derives from their labor... that to me is hiding, in a fashion, what my real gross pay is and what amount of my earnings is being taken.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > I'm largely in the anti-tax camp and I don't want that. I’m in the pro tax camp and I kind of like it. I enjoy paying my taxes, but I don’t think the government should take half of peoples’ paychecks without people having to think consciously about it every year.
  - Hello71 8y ago
    Who exactly pays an average income tax rate of 50% in the United States? You'd have to be making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, at which point you don't get it as a check, you get it as a wire transfer from your investment bank, because with the exception of certain athletes, nobody makes that much money in salary.
    - sbuttgereit 8y ago
      If you're only looking at federal income taxes, sure. But now add in state income taxes, local taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, special fees and assessments, and other mandatory charges and that bar starts to move down the great chain of being rather rapidly. I assure you, I'm not making hundreds of millions of dollars and I'm pretty sure that I'm in that 50% range of dollars consumed by government takings per dollar earned.

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago

That majority of people could fill out the 1040EZ in 10 minutes and call it done. There's no way for the government to know what your work expenses were, what you donated to charity, and so on and so forth through many of the deductions. If you don't want to maximize your return, you can be done in less than 15 minutes. Even making more than 100k, with stocks through multiple brokers, a 401k, interest from multiple accounts, a house, student loans, and probably a few others I forgot to mention, it took me an hour and a half to do my taxes and cost me under $20 on freetaxusa (whatever the price for the state taxes they charged was low enough where I didn't care to figure it out on my own). The tax code is one of those boogeymen items that everyone attacks, but in reality isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

hawaiianbrah 8y ago
Okay, sure. But wouldn’t it be great if for some portion of the population, they really don’t have to do a thing (because they think the government got it right)? Isn’t that better than everyone having to spend at least 10-15 minutes?
- ghostofmycat 8y ago
  How much taxpayer money will be spent compiling taxes for all working adults in the U.S.? I'm guessing this is more work than it's worth. I don't think filling out a simple form once a year is that much to ask, even if it takes as long as a few hours to do. Edit: Not sure why I have negative points here, I was just saying that the process of implementing a system to actually get people their taxes and accommodating all the edge cases and ensuring everything is perfect enough that people literally don't have to do anything is probably not worth it compared to doing a check of submissions against the IRS own findings. Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong, I'm all ears and not super knowledgeable on the system (obviously) EDIT2: Also, not implying that it can't be done, just that it's not worth it to the IRS to do something like that. Seems like otherwise it already would have been done?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago

m463 8y ago

You know, there was one line in there that gave me pause: > Intuit argues that allowing the IRS to act as a tax preparer could result in taxpayers paying more money. Self-serving Intuit aside, I can't help but think this would be true. It would just continue what was started with automatic withholding, where the general population is psychologically disconnected with how much they actually pay in taxes. They got used to not having their money and being able to beg some of it back makes them happy when they get some. Too bad people thought Ron Paul was crazy when he talked about abolishing personal income ta.

Mikeb85 8y ago

Canada here... The government pretty much already does your taxes here, and will 'readjust' your taxes if they feel you made a mistake. I've never understood why they still make you go through the process. Such a waste of time.

upofadown 8y ago
Even more ridiculous is that you can do any corrections online. So you can pretty much send the Canadian tax agency any gibberish and then fill in any claims or deductions online later after they have fixed it. You just can't initially fill in anything so as to protect the business of the commercial tax preparation agencies.