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The way it works where I live is that if the tax office has to refund you some money (or the government wants to give you stimulus money, or whatever) is that b

The way it works where I live is that if the tax office has to refund you some money (or the government wants to give you stimulus money, or whatever) is that by default it gets deposited to the bank account that was last used to pay any tax that was owed. There are always going to be oddities (e.g. a refund needs to be given to a person who has never paid tax, or you have changed bank accounts since then), but the vast majority of the time this will be the right account to send it to, and it's OK to have manual intervention to handle the rest. I'm not sure I understand why the USA can't do this, to solve the first problem listed (paying people directly). I'm not sure it requires government intervention to solve the other problems (instant payments from one person to another are common outside the USA, for example). What other advantages does SSN-as-bank-account have?

2Gkashmiri 6y ago
yeah. in india its the similar thing. if talking about income tax, you have to get your bank account "prevalidated" meaning it has your tax id and your mobile number linked. also, your national identity card needs to be linked to your income tax account as well as that bank account. once you have that, only then the refund is processed. i know people who have had issues with their name spelling and refunds were stuck for months.
Geee 6y ago
Yup, I think everywhere except USA bank accounts are like email addresses. Government just needs to know your bank account number to pay stimulus. Taxes are paid to the government bank account. In Europe it has been this way since 80's. This solves the practical issue of moving money, I don't know about the other points. So called "wire" transfers are possible, but it's not used because it's scary or something?
bradfa 6y ago
I live in the US. I've mailed, through the US Post Office, my federal tax forms for the past few years as I don't pay for software to file my taxes. I have always gotten my tax refunds or other stimulus money directly deposited into my bank account by the IRS without any issues, including the past 2 stimulus payments. I believe every time the government is using ACH transfers to do this. Do most people in the US not do this when they file their taxes? Do businesses not have the ability to do this like people do? I mean, I know a lot of people in the US don't have bank accounts, so the only way for the government to send them money is via a check in the mail. This should (hopefully) be the exception and not the standard procedure.

2Gkashmiri 6y ago

yeah. in india its the similar thing. if talking about income tax, you have to get your bank account "prevalidated" meaning it has your tax id and your mobile number linked. also, your national identity card needs to be linked to your income tax account as well as that bank account. once you have that, only then the refund is processed. i know people who have had issues with their name spelling and refunds were stuck for months.

Geee 6y ago

Yup, I think everywhere except USA bank accounts are like email addresses. Government just needs to know your bank account number to pay stimulus. Taxes are paid to the government bank account. In Europe it has been this way since 80's. This solves the practical issue of moving money, I don't know about the other points. So called "wire" transfers are possible, but it's not used because it's scary or something?

bradfa 6y ago

I live in the US. I've mailed, through the US Post Office, my federal tax forms for the past few years as I don't pay for software to file my taxes. I have always gotten my tax refunds or other stimulus money directly deposited into my bank account by the IRS without any issues, including the past 2 stimulus payments. I believe every time the government is using ACH transfers to do this. Do most people in the US not do this when they file their taxes? Do businesses not have the ability to do this like people do? I mean, I know a lot of people in the US don't have bank accounts, so the only way for the government to send them money is via a check in the mail. This should (hopefully) be the exception and not the standard procedure.