4 ms·

Yup this is Republicans once again acting on behalf of a company instead of their constituents. It's not just federal either California had their Ready Return p

Yup this is Republicans once again acting on behalf of a company instead of their constituents. It's not just federal either California had their Ready Return product a while back. We're the only country that does taxes this way. There's no reason to do it either. The IRS already knows how much you owe. Having the ability the revised statements is important and there should be an allocation table of where your tax money went provided with details available publicly.

jcranmer 7y ago
Honestly, I don't think the free tax filing software companies have enough pull here. There are other constituencies who are against the IRS telling you what you owe: * Special interest groups who have won tax credits/deductions--most of these don't get reported to the IRS, so it makes it easier to kill these off since fewer people will take advantage of them. * The anti-government crowd, who is a) afraid that the IRS could abuse this power to tax people more (if people get used to signing the dotted line, they might not notice if the IRS stops accounting correctly for some reason); b) adamant that people know just how much the government is "stealing" from them in taxes and so form a ready constituent for lower taxes; and c) generally don't like the idea of the government telling them what to do anyways, so the government just sending them a bill is the ultimate anathema. * People who are underreporting certain classes of incomes who might be afraid that there will be a push for broader mandatory reporting to help make taxes even simpler. Given that the political power of the second class I've mentioned is quite vast, they are sufficient to prevent the sensible implementation of the IRS-sends-you-a-bill even if TurboTax and the like were to stop lobbying the government.

4 ms·

Yup this is Republicans once again acting on behalf of a company instead of their constituents. It's not just federal either California had their Ready Return p

by cannonedhamster 7y ago

jcranmer 7y ago
Honestly, I don't think the free tax filing software companies have enough pull here. There are other constituencies who are against the IRS telling you what you owe: * Special interest groups who have won tax credits/deductions--most of these don't get reported to the IRS, so it makes it easier to kill these off since fewer people will take advantage of them. * The anti-government crowd, who is a) afraid that the IRS could abuse this power to tax people more (if people get used to signing the dotted line, they might not notice if the IRS stops accounting correctly for some reason); b) adamant that people know just how much the government is "stealing" from them in taxes and so form a ready constituent for lower taxes; and c) generally don't like the idea of the government telling them what to do anyways, so the government just sending them a bill is the ultimate anathema. * People who are underreporting certain classes of incomes who might be afraid that there will be a push for broader mandatory reporting to help make taxes even simpler. Given that the political power of the second class I've mentioned is quite vast, they are sufficient to prevent the sensible implementation of the IRS-sends-you-a-bill even if TurboTax and the like were to stop lobbying the government.