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Canada more-or-less has this.
by rcfox 8y ago
Canada more-or-less has this.
- craftyguy 8y agoAnd some European countries (Finland I believe, for example).
- rayiner 8y agoMany other European countries do things like require you to register with the government within a week whenever you move to a new place. They track much more information about you.
- craftyguy 8y agoEven in the US you eventually need to basically 'register with the government' (usually in the form of getting your ID/drivers license updated, and notifying USPS of mail service change).
- rayiner 8y agoYou only need to update your drivers license when you change states, not when you change residences. (And if you don’t drive you don’t need to do that either.) And you don’t neee to notify USPS of your mailing address.
- cgriswald 8y agoIn every state, you must notify the DMV of a change in residence, typically within 30 days.
- tptacek 8y agoHave you ever heard of someone getting ticketed for not doing this? I have never once notified the DMV of anything, and have driven for years with old addresses on my license. And, of course, if you don't drive, none of this applies.
- wglb 8y agoI have, but it was in Montana and many years ago. Turns out if you want to appeal your cook county tax, you need a current drivers license
- cgriswald 8y ago> Have you ever heard of someone getting ticketed for not doing this? Yes. > I have never once notified the DMV of anything, and have driven for years with old addresses on my license. You might want to fix that. In some states it's a misdemeanor rather than an infraction. > And, of course, if you don't drive, none of this applies. True, but I was only addressing the inaccurate information, because it could have consequences for people who believe it is true.
- tptacek 8y agoThat's interesting. I'm not sure I see how it could be anything worse than the penalty for driving without your drivers license (which will always get you ticketed, but rarely anything worse). I can always just not present my license at all.
- cgriswald 8y ago> I can always just not present my license at all. Sure, that might work. But a likely scenario is the officer will ask your name and DOB and look you up on his MDT and now you've got three tickets (including whatever you were pulled over for because now it is definitely not going to be a warning) instead of just one. Another scenario is the officer discovers you have your license and are just refusing to show your license. In California, and other states, you've now escalated a simple ticket to a misdemeanor with large fine and possible jail time. Another scenario is you just update your address with the DMV and don't risk compounding your problems during a traffic stop.
- tptacek 8y agoRight, I'm not suggesting you can't get a ticket for it (though that's never happened to me; the police always asked "is this your current address" and I'd say "nope" and give them my actual address and that'd be the end of it --- it is handy that I'm a middle-aged white dude, though). I'm just surprised by the idea you could get worse than a ticket. I don't at all see how you could get in trouble for "refusing" to show your license. You'd just say you didn't realize you had it. (This is relevant to my interests; in Chicago, your DL is also your bond on tickets, and also, when you get a new license, you get a paper temp license day-of, good for several months, and the real license in the mail; I'm holding on to the paper temp and denying possession of the real one if I'm ever pulled over, because getting bonded DL's back is a giant pain.) I'd be interested in knowing whether you could point me to a state that explicitly says not updating your address is a misdemeanor.
- wglb 8y agoChange of address within Illinois is required within ten days after moving. I remember in Montana it was required on the day you started a job and in that case people were getting tickets
- atombender 8y agoMore than 32 countries do this: All of Scandinavia, Finland, Spain, Estonia, Macedonia, Australia, India, the Netherlands, Japan, the U.K. and a bunch of others.
- johnlorry 8y agoBelgium as well. Your employer reports your income to the tax administration, your bank reports your house mortgage for tax deduction and so on. For me it’s pretty much just a bunch of checkboxes check. The hardest part is getting my electronic id to work to log in to the bloody site.
- plinkplonk 8y agoIndia doesn't do this yet, but it is set to be launched in a couple of years.
- atombender 8y agoIn 2020, apparently: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/from-2020-pre-filled-i-t-returns-refunds-in-a-day/articleshow/67565007.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/....
- Freak_NL 8y agoIt's a breeze in the Netherlands. I finished filing my taxes two weeks ago, a day after the pre-filled form became available online on the revenue service's website (works in all modern browsers, on all operating systems). It took five minutes (two incomes, mortgage, bank accounts, all filled in correctly by employers and banks). Most of that time was spent authenticating myself and my partner. Anyone fighting this in the US should make a bunch of videos showing average people from these countries filing their taxes in the blink of an eye.
- tnolet 8y agoFor employed people the Dutch system is indeed awesome. When you run a business, it's still quite archaic.
- pawelk 8y agoA system like this was launched this year in Poland, this year limited to employees and contract workers, but it's planned to expand to self-employed / business owners as well. If one doesn't log in / doesn't do anything, the form will be submitted Apr 30. If you log in you can update the form (e.g. add deductions or declare extra income), or just accept it as is - then it's submitted right away. There were some minor kinks, but in my opinion it was a success. Being self-employed I didn't get to use it, but saw how it works. I filed taxes on-line directly from my book keeping software and it took me ~20min, including getting my wife's pre-filled taxes from the govt service to combine with mine.
- kazinator 8y agoMore or less has what? Here it is copy paste from the CRA website: There are several ways to send your tax return to the CRA. Ultimately, this may be dependent on how you decided to complete your return. - By software (electronically) If you selected a NETFILE certified software, it will communicate directly with the NETFILE application servers and transmit all required information on your behalf directly to the CRA via the web service. - By paper: Mail your completed income tax package to your tax centre. - By phone: Follow the instructions in the invitation letter for File my Return that you received from the CRA. "By software" means using certified software, like Intuit's TurboTax. This is the very racket they seek to protect.
- rcfox 8y agoSo I use simpletax.ca. (It's free, but will ask for a donation after you file.) (Also, I don't work for them.) In it, there's an option to login to the CRA via your bank account (oauth?) and it will populate a bunch of data for you.