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Are taxes in the US that painful? In the UK I do my tax return every year and it takes me all of about 30 minutes and I only need a few browser tabs open in fro
by nly 5y ago
Are taxes in the US that painful? In the UK I do my tax return every year and it takes me all of about 30 minutes and I only need a few browser tabs open in front of me (typically just my broker and HMRC)
- parkingrift 5y ago> Are taxes in the US that painful? For most people, no. However, as you make your way up the income bracket or acquire investments or property it gets more and more complicated. …and if you mess it up the IRS will be sure to tell you what you’ve done wrong and what you actually owed.
- thehappypm 5y agoYeah it sucks pretty bad. Like my wife’s company does RSU transactions every like month and we need to adjust the cost basis for each one for some reason. This is a Fortune 50 company.
- AitchEmArsey 5y agoThank you citizen! (check username)
- iso1631 5y agoThat's unusual, majority of people in the UK have simple taxes and don't need to fill in any forms. The US is deliberatly difficult because 1) Companies make a fortune selling "solutions" to this, thus spend a lot of money ensuring it continues 2) Americans don't like taxes, so by making it more obvious the government is taking your tax money, and making it painful in the process, to fund their military, it helps cement that idea there's should be a small state The US takes 27% of the GDP in tax, the UK 33%, although personal taxes for normal people tend to be about the same, its just that the US pretty much requires an accountant, or at least some expensive proprietary software, and hours of your time.
- mjevans 5y agoFor that 33% (+6%) you also get universal healthcare (which isn't accounted for in the 27% Americans are paying), so those numbers aren't apples to apples. That would be another thing that would be great for the GAO (U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)) to produce reports about. Where are (my / your) Tax dollars going? How does that compare to other countries, in absolute, per person, GDP and other metrics, etc?
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y agoAmericans chose great army instead of healthcare.
- iso1631 5y agoThe US government still spends more on healthcare as a total amount per person (about $1.4T, or $3,880 per person, just for medicare+medicaid), compared with the UK (about $3,300 per person) The US as a whole in 2019 spent 16% of its GDP on Health, 4% on Military The UK meanwhile spent 10% on Health and 3% on Military
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y agoHave you been to a doctors office in the US? There are more administrators filling out insurance papers than doctors. US spends money on healthcare administration, not on healthcare. The same dollar in the US buys ten times less insulin than a dollar in Canada.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoThey even chose "socialized medicine for the Army" to further drive the point home.
- splintercell 5y agoSoon you will learn what happens when Americans don’t choose a great army.
- espadrine 5y agoIn France, it went all the way to where I don’t do any tax filing; the government does it for me, and sends me a PDF itemizing their tax, and automatically debiting it from my account. There is no CBDC needed for that. (In fact, all the article’s fears about payment prevention and free speech restriction are all possible without CBDC, and already in place in some segments that gained popular support, which minorities and SW have been complaining about across the decades.)