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You're telling me -- I file estimated taxes quarterly in three states plus federally! Anyway: both Switzerland (your example) and Belgium (my example) have mul

by lvh 7y ago

You're telling me -- I file estimated taxes quarterly in three states plus federally! Anyway: both Switzerland (your example) and Belgium (my example) have multi-layered governments. Belgium's one is particularly complex, with "communities" which are language unions and "regions" that largely overlap but not quite, as well as province-level and city-level taxes. Each of these has their own institutions and most incur taxes. The multi-layered government is far more complex than the US, but this does not result in comparable complexity to my US filing. (I'd also argue it's far more sensitive: secession has been a possible outcome in my lifetime in a way that it really has not been in the US.) Meanwhile: the IRS has simply agreed not to provide free tax filing software. Why is that good for taxpayers?

harryh 7y ago
I suppose I don't really know much about Switzerland[1] or Belgium's tax codes. My working assumption is that the population differences (both are the size of US states) leads to simplicity. But I'm perfectly willing to admit I might be wrong here. I really don't know. I do know that there are weird and frustrating intertwinings of US Federal and State tax codes and I wish I didn't have to deal with that. Kill the SALT deduction! 1. Er, not sure why I brought another small European country into the discussion. I meant to replicate your example but brainfarted.
- lvh 7y ago
  English-language Wikipedia does not have a great article on Belgian taxation complexity, but it has a great article on structural complexity that highlights the weird "almost-entirely-overlaps" structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communities,_regions_and_language_areas_of_Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communities,_regions_and_langu... Mind you that this does not even anything at city level. Imagine if Illinois was mostly part of the Midwest Region (a governmental entity that transcends states but is not federal and also has a tax authority), but not including Chicago. That'd be close. Also the largest party in its government wants the Midwest to secede from the Union.
  - zamfi 7y ago
    > NYS gets an honorable mention for NYC/Yonkers taxes. At least these are collected by a single entity, the NYS tax folks!
    - lvh 7y ago
      Yep, I edited it out because it’s really an example of reduced, not increased complexity.
      - zamfi 7y ago
        Only when they get it right. Years ago, I got an “amended” return from NYS where they claimed I’d lived in Yonkers at the time. Took way too many hours of my time to clear that up.

by lvh 7y ago

harryh 7y ago

I suppose I don't really know much about Switzerland[1] or Belgium's tax codes. My working assumption is that the population differences (both are the size of US states) leads to simplicity. But I'm perfectly willing to admit I might be wrong here. I really don't know. I do know that there are weird and frustrating intertwinings of US Federal and State tax codes and I wish I didn't have to deal with that. Kill the SALT deduction! 1. Er, not sure why I brought another small European country into the discussion. I meant to replicate your example but brainfarted.

lvh 7y ago
English-language Wikipedia does not have a great article on Belgian taxation complexity, but it has a great article on structural complexity that highlights the weird "almost-entirely-overlaps" structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communities,_regions_and_language_areas_of_Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communities,_regions_and_langu... Mind you that this does not even anything at city level. Imagine if Illinois was mostly part of the Midwest Region (a governmental entity that transcends states but is not federal and also has a tax authority), but not including Chicago. That'd be close. Also the largest party in its government wants the Midwest to secede from the Union.
- zamfi 7y ago
  > NYS gets an honorable mention for NYC/Yonkers taxes. At least these are collected by a single entity, the NYS tax folks!
  - lvh 7y ago
    Yep, I edited it out because it’s really an example of reduced, not increased complexity.
    - zamfi 7y ago
      Only when they get it right. Years ago, I got an “amended” return from NYS where they claimed I’d lived in Yonkers at the time. Took way too many hours of my time to clear that up.