3 ms·
I will assume that although we think the 'gov' knows all about our financial affairs, in reality they don't. E.g. receive some inheritance, selling of property
by HenryBemis 8y ago
I will assume that although we think the 'gov' knows all about our financial affairs, in reality they don't. E.g. receive some inheritance, selling of property with profit, started trading forex and you got income from that.
There are many unknowns, perhaps not for you, but for other people. Also you need to file in order to have this 'discussion'/exchange. Perhaps the state erroneously thinks you made 500k and is taxing you accordingly when in reality you made 100k. You then prove the state wrong (whichever way) and you save yourself the tax$ and the pain.
- ShorsHammer 8y agoFor the average wage earner with uncomplicated investments the Australian government knows exactly what I have to pay. I log in and all my income along with divdends are right there pre-filled. There's nothing else to do but sign off on it. Maybe it's different elsewhere but here tax it's simple, all electronic and a free service provided by the tax office for the majority of Australians.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kelnos 8y agoOther countries that have pre-filled tax returns also have this problem. They solve it just as you'd expect: you correct your pre-filled return with the information the tax authority doesn't have. That's still less painful than doing the whole thing from scratch, and the majority of people don't have this situation, so they have very little work to do. Let's remember that just because there are edge cases, that doesn't mean you should abandon hope for making the common case easy. The best user interfaces make the common case easy and the uncommon case possible.