4 ms·

In France you can fill your tax form online since 1999 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9d%C3%A9claration_de_revenus https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%

by guerby 6y ago

In France you can fill your tax form online since 1999 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9d%C3%A9claration_de_revenus https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9d%C3%A9claration... In the past years banks and companies give tax related information to the tax authority so for lots of people the online tax form is already 100% filled and correct. For the past year tax filling I just had to add to the web form renting income, tax deducible donations, and that was it.

masklinn 6y ago
I'd assume most european countries have had that for at least a decade e.g. Estonia's e-tax started in 2002, Belgium's tax-on-web in 2003.
mulmen 6y ago
How does France build these systems? Does the government itself have IT development resources or do they contract out to private industry?
- Macha 6y ago
  Can't speak for France, but in Ireland this system has been in place since it was done on paper. Most (all?) IT work for the government is contracted out to private companies.
- guerby 6y ago
  It depends a lot :). For the tax system it was developped with lots of free software, and support purchased to French IT companies. It was hosted on a big (for the time) linux server farm. Here are a few interviews and slides by the director of this project, unfortunately in French (didn't check automated translations, might work): https://www.toolinux.com/article/jean-marie-lapeyre-copernic-la https://www.toolinux.com/article/jean-marie-lapeyre-copernic... http://www.supelec-rennes.fr/sic/JOURNEES/05_10_20/lapeyre.pdf http://www.supelec-rennes.fr/sic/JOURNEES/05_10_20/lapeyre.p... The free software community in France was very happy to see one major ministry doing this kind of projects at the time.
Macha 6y ago
Same idea here in Ireland. Reasons you might need to interact with the income tax system here: 1. You have significant (>€5000) non-employment income. 2. You worked for less than 12 months and are claiming your tax refund. 3. You disagree with the government assessed tax reciept (which is based on what your employer fills in). For 90% of people then, they don't need to interact with it. Their employer reports their income, deducts an appropriate amount of taxes, and sends it to the government. End of process.
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  > Their employer reports their income, deducts an appropriate amount of taxes, and sends it to the government. How does your employer know what "the appropriate amount of taxes" is? In the US I have always had trouble setting this to where I'm not at least 5% off in one direction or the other, and I know more than my employer about what my withholding rate should be.
  - arvindch 6y ago
    It's not set by the employee, rather the employer looks at expected income for the year and withholds accordingly. At the end of the financial year, the Tax dept. does a final calculation and if the amount was too high/low, they send you a notice. Tax deduction at source is a common concept in a lot of countries, incl. dissimilar ones like India and the NL, where I have both worked. Super convenient and frictionless for the vast majority of employees.
    - vonmoltke 6y ago
      > It's not set by the employee, rather the employer looks at expected income for the year and withholds accordingly. At the end of the financial year, the Tax dept. does a final calculation and if the amount was too high/low, they send you a notice. That's my question, how does an employer or taxing authority know what that amount is? My employer doesn't know my withholding status until I tell them via a W-4, and that doesn't take into account how the appropriate amount to withhold may change due to my spouse's income. Is the taxation scheme just different in most European jurisdictions? Edit: corrected a brain fart (see below)
dutchmartin 6y ago
Almost the same for the Netherlands, we could do that from 1996 [1]. [1] https://over-ons.belastingdienst.nl/themas/digitalisering-en-online-interactie/ontwikkeling-van-de-online-aangifte-van-diskette-tot-mijnbelastingdienst/ https://over-ons.belastingdienst.nl/themas/digitalisering-en...
guerby 6y ago
Forgot to say that the french tax authority open sourced the (after FOIA-like pressure - called "CADA" in France) code that computes the tax amount from the tax form entries. It was written in a custom language (with documentation): https://github.com/etalab/calculette-impots-m-source-code https://github.com/etalab/calculette-impots-m-source-code You have each year code in the repo.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  Do you happen to know whether the CADA pressure came from another branch or agency of the French government or whether it was some sort of transparency advocacy group?
  - masklinn 6y ago
    Sorta the latter but not really. It was an econ student (Adrien Fabre) as part of a fiscal simulation project (OpenFisca).
scott_s 6y ago
The IRS is not allowed to do this, by law. Intuit lobbied for that law, which made Intuit (and others?) offer a free version. Of course, Intuit goes to great lengths to guide people away from that free version. edit: save_ferris linked to an excellent story below: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...
Topgamer7 6y ago
Canada has online filing too. And there is a fully free software (StudioTax), that you can use for up to 20 filings. Its not the prettiest, but I have never paid to file my taxes (except to the gov't of course ;-) ).

by guerby 6y ago

masklinn 6y ago

I'd assume most european countries have had that for at least a decade e.g. Estonia's e-tax started in 2002, Belgium's tax-on-web in 2003.

mulmen 6y ago

How does France build these systems? Does the government itself have IT development resources or do they contract out to private industry?

Macha 6y ago
Can't speak for France, but in Ireland this system has been in place since it was done on paper. Most (all?) IT work for the government is contracted out to private companies.
guerby 6y ago
It depends a lot :). For the tax system it was developped with lots of free software, and support purchased to French IT companies. It was hosted on a big (for the time) linux server farm. Here are a few interviews and slides by the director of this project, unfortunately in French (didn't check automated translations, might work): https://www.toolinux.com/article/jean-marie-lapeyre-copernic-la https://www.toolinux.com/article/jean-marie-lapeyre-copernic... http://www.supelec-rennes.fr/sic/JOURNEES/05_10_20/lapeyre.pdf http://www.supelec-rennes.fr/sic/JOURNEES/05_10_20/lapeyre.p... The free software community in France was very happy to see one major ministry doing this kind of projects at the time.

Macha 6y ago

Same idea here in Ireland. Reasons you might need to interact with the income tax system here: 1. You have significant (>€5000) non-employment income. 2. You worked for less than 12 months and are claiming your tax refund. 3. You disagree with the government assessed tax reciept (which is based on what your employer fills in). For 90% of people then, they don't need to interact with it. Their employer reports their income, deducts an appropriate amount of taxes, and sends it to the government. End of process.

vonmoltke 6y ago
> Their employer reports their income, deducts an appropriate amount of taxes, and sends it to the government. How does your employer know what "the appropriate amount of taxes" is? In the US I have always had trouble setting this to where I'm not at least 5% off in one direction or the other, and I know more than my employer about what my withholding rate should be.
- arvindch 6y ago
  It's not set by the employee, rather the employer looks at expected income for the year and withholds accordingly. At the end of the financial year, the Tax dept. does a final calculation and if the amount was too high/low, they send you a notice. Tax deduction at source is a common concept in a lot of countries, incl. dissimilar ones like India and the NL, where I have both worked. Super convenient and frictionless for the vast majority of employees.
  - vonmoltke 6y ago
    > It's not set by the employee, rather the employer looks at expected income for the year and withholds accordingly. At the end of the financial year, the Tax dept. does a final calculation and if the amount was too high/low, they send you a notice. That's my question, how does an employer or taxing authority know what that amount is? My employer doesn't know my withholding status until I tell them via a W-4, and that doesn't take into account how the appropriate amount to withhold may change due to my spouse's income. Is the taxation scheme just different in most European jurisdictions? Edit: corrected a brain fart (see below)

dutchmartin 6y ago

Almost the same for the Netherlands, we could do that from 1996 [1]. [1] https://over-ons.belastingdienst.nl/themas/digitalisering-en-online-interactie/ontwikkeling-van-de-online-aangifte-van-diskette-tot-mijnbelastingdienst/ https://over-ons.belastingdienst.nl/themas/digitalisering-en...

guerby 6y ago

Forgot to say that the french tax authority open sourced the (after FOIA-like pressure - called "CADA" in France) code that computes the tax amount from the tax form entries. It was written in a custom language (with documentation): https://github.com/etalab/calculette-impots-m-source-code https://github.com/etalab/calculette-impots-m-source-code You have each year code in the repo.

elliekelly 6y ago
Do you happen to know whether the CADA pressure came from another branch or agency of the French government or whether it was some sort of transparency advocacy group?
- masklinn 6y ago
  Sorta the latter but not really. It was an econ student (Adrien Fabre) as part of a fiscal simulation project (OpenFisca).

scott_s 6y ago

The IRS is not allowed to do this, by law. Intuit lobbied for that law, which made Intuit (and others?) offer a free version. Of course, Intuit goes to great lengths to guide people away from that free version. edit: save_ferris linked to an excellent story below: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

Topgamer7 6y ago

Canada has online filing too. And there is a fully free software (StudioTax), that you can use for up to 20 filings. Its not the prettiest, but I have never paid to file my taxes (except to the gov't of course ;-) ).