7 ms·

I know that ship has sailed, but I really wish politicians would go back to making promises that have an impact on everyone like abolishing tax fillings. It mi

by belval 5y ago

I know that ship has sailed, but I really wish politicians would go back to making promises that have an impact on everyone like abolishing tax fillings. It might be different in the US, but in Canada I file my taxes using the CRA's data directly. TurboTax even fetches it directly from their website. What's the point? They have my T4, my T2202 (studies) and everything else. Just send me a letter telling me how much money I owe/I am owed and that's it.

crooked-v 5y ago
In the US, the Republican Party has a history of intentionally pushing for cumbersome tax filing as part of encouraging people to hate the idea of taxes in general.
- belval 5y ago
  I don't think it's a Republican thing, the Liberal party and the NPD in Canada are both left-leaning and they have a majority yet they aren't pushing for this. Pretty sure it's just run-of-the-mill lobbying and corruption unfortunately. A typical "think of the jobs!" type of thing.
  - monetus 5y ago
    I wouldn't say its not a republican thing, just also a many other people/groups thing. You're right, just wanted to emphasize that.
  - dwohnitmok 5y ago
    What parent is referring to is not just lack of pushing for it, but active campaigning against automatic filing. Not a "think of the jobs" but "automatic filing is intrinsically bad." See e.g. http://reason.org/files/ba148cd5babdda39f9ebb43b336b01d4.pdf http://reason.org/files/ba148cd5babdda39f9ebb43b336b01d4.pdf
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Republicans and the Liberal party in Canada are both neoliberal when it comes to their economic policies, they mostly only diverge on social issues and social services.
  - slavik81 5y ago
    It kinda already had been addressed. SimpleTax was released as donationware and the CRA introduced NETFILE and Autofill. Filing a return today is way easier than in, say, 2011. Buying TurboTax has been unnecessary for a decade.
  - stainforth 5y ago
    Your counter to is that the politicians in a different country with an entirely different governmental evolution didn't arrive at the same thing?
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  That's why I do my taxes manually and mail them in. I want it to be as painful as possible.
  - abledon 5y ago
    haha, have it done all automatically in SimpleTax, then download the PDFs, run a custom character-to-messy-handwriting transformer on all filled fields, then print out the paper forms and mail them in
  - imtringued 5y ago
    At some point the tax system will be so painful that filing your taxes manually will be considered to be as severe as physical assault.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    nice one, letting the government hold onto your refund for an extra month is really sticking it to the man!
- justin_oaks 5y ago
  I've heard that too. And the idea is disgusting to me. I assume those who genuinely espouse this idea are those who are rich enough to have an accountant do all their taxes for them. Is it really necessary to "encourage" me to dislike taxes? Is not the money leaving my pocket sufficient? I've also heard Republicans claiming that IRS-provided tax bills/refunds is equivalent to a tax. I guess the implication is that the government is going to intentionally charge you more. Having to use TurboTax or someting like it is equivalent to a tax, but it's paid to a corporation instead of the government. If I had to choose between my money going to the government and Intuit, I'd choose the government.
jeffwask 5y ago
Intuit and HR Block spend way too much on US lobbying for that to change. The first step has to be repealing Citizen's United. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
- wnevets 5y ago
  The sad thing is its not even a lot of money if you consider how much profit they make. Politicians are surprisingly cheap
  - jeffwask 5y ago
    True. Large on people scale not corporation scale which is why treating corporations like people is a terrible idea.
    - wnevets 5y ago
      maybe the rest of us should start a gofundme so we can pool together our funds and buy a few politicians.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        This has actually been done rather often in the past, you can start a donor driven PAC that can compete with corporate lobbyists with crowdfunding. It's generally quite a bit cheaper too because while we all love to criticize politicians for only listening to monied interests if they can raise some campaign funds and get brownie points for their voting base they're happy to dramatically spurn the corporate funding they'd otherwise accept with open arms. Honestly though, actually reaching out to your representatives and talking to them is far more effective than most people assume.
        rch 5y ago
        I'm considering starting a 501(c)(4) to advocate for state level legislation, but I wonder if something like a PAC might be more effective.
goosedragons 5y ago
I missed including my T2202 one year and thought I owned a ton. They then sent me a letter saying lol, no we owe you. So pointless. What annoys me now is that if you want a paper booklet you have to request one in advance if you did not use one previously but otherwise there is no free to everyone option to do it. You either request a paper booklet or use 3rd party software.
xtracto 5y ago
In México if you are an average employee earning less than around $50000 usd (I.e. most workers), your employer can "do" your taxes (very simple, they report what they have withheld from you). If you have some amounts you want to regain from losses, etc., you can still do your taxes manually. That means logging into the free MEX IRS platform, which shows all your tax info preffilled. Most likely the stuff you want to input is already there (all invoices in mexico are signed by private/public keys through the IRS system). So you just enter your bank account to get your money back. Or get your reference to pay your taxes. The system is really beautiful.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  What would be required for the US to adopt this solution?
  - lupire 5y ago
    Congress passes a law to amend the Free File program. https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...
    - LinuxBender 5y ago
      Does this system pre-populate the forms with everything the IRS already knows about me and then I just modify the things that are incorrect? Can people upload their tax documents from all the financial institutions in some standard format that automatically figures out what form to use and populates maybe 95% of the fields and marks the empty required fields with yellow? I ask because I have an id.me/IRS login and they do not appear to have this data until I give it to them. This is the system I am looking for. I think it would make the lives of the IRS employees better and would save me time and money.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  UK has PAYG tax, Australia is similar, if you have a job, perhaps some shares it is zero work. No max salary to worry about.
toast0 5y ago
> I know that ship has sailed, but I really wish politicians would go back to making promises that have an impact on everyone like abolishing tax fillings. I'm not a fan of Trump, but the Trump tax changes made it so it doesn't make sense for me to do itemized deductions, because I won't beat the standard deduction unless I have a lot more things to deduct than I normally do, which greatly simplifies my tax filing and record keeping. Since I know I won't be deducting donations, I don't need a receipt when donating them, and that saves paperwork.

by belval 5y ago

crooked-v 5y ago

In the US, the Republican Party has a history of intentionally pushing for cumbersome tax filing as part of encouraging people to hate the idea of taxes in general.

belval 5y ago
I don't think it's a Republican thing, the Liberal party and the NPD in Canada are both left-leaning and they have a majority yet they aren't pushing for this. Pretty sure it's just run-of-the-mill lobbying and corruption unfortunately. A typical "think of the jobs!" type of thing.
- monetus 5y ago
  I wouldn't say its not a republican thing, just also a many other people/groups thing. You're right, just wanted to emphasize that.
- dwohnitmok 5y ago
  What parent is referring to is not just lack of pushing for it, but active campaigning against automatic filing. Not a "think of the jobs" but "automatic filing is intrinsically bad." See e.g. http://reason.org/files/ba148cd5babdda39f9ebb43b336b01d4.pdf http://reason.org/files/ba148cd5babdda39f9ebb43b336b01d4.pdf
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Republicans and the Liberal party in Canada are both neoliberal when it comes to their economic policies, they mostly only diverge on social issues and social services.
- slavik81 5y ago
  It kinda already had been addressed. SimpleTax was released as donationware and the CRA introduced NETFILE and Autofill. Filing a return today is way easier than in, say, 2011. Buying TurboTax has been unnecessary for a decade.
- stainforth 5y ago
  Your counter to is that the politicians in a different country with an entirely different governmental evolution didn't arrive at the same thing?
throwawayboise 5y ago
That's why I do my taxes manually and mail them in. I want it to be as painful as possible.
- abledon 5y ago
  haha, have it done all automatically in SimpleTax, then download the PDFs, run a custom character-to-messy-handwriting transformer on all filled fields, then print out the paper forms and mail them in
- imtringued 5y ago
  At some point the tax system will be so painful that filing your taxes manually will be considered to be as severe as physical assault.
- paulmd 5y ago
  nice one, letting the government hold onto your refund for an extra month is really sticking it to the man!
justin_oaks 5y ago
I've heard that too. And the idea is disgusting to me. I assume those who genuinely espouse this idea are those who are rich enough to have an accountant do all their taxes for them. Is it really necessary to "encourage" me to dislike taxes? Is not the money leaving my pocket sufficient? I've also heard Republicans claiming that IRS-provided tax bills/refunds is equivalent to a tax. I guess the implication is that the government is going to intentionally charge you more. Having to use TurboTax or someting like it is equivalent to a tax, but it's paid to a corporation instead of the government. If I had to choose between my money going to the government and Intuit, I'd choose the government.

jeffwask 5y ago

Intuit and HR Block spend way too much on US lobbying for that to change. The first step has to be repealing Citizen's United. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

wnevets 5y ago
The sad thing is its not even a lot of money if you consider how much profit they make. Politicians are surprisingly cheap
- jeffwask 5y ago
  True. Large on people scale not corporation scale which is why treating corporations like people is a terrible idea.
  - wnevets 5y ago
    maybe the rest of us should start a gofundme so we can pool together our funds and buy a few politicians.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      This has actually been done rather often in the past, you can start a donor driven PAC that can compete with corporate lobbyists with crowdfunding. It's generally quite a bit cheaper too because while we all love to criticize politicians for only listening to monied interests if they can raise some campaign funds and get brownie points for their voting base they're happy to dramatically spurn the corporate funding they'd otherwise accept with open arms. Honestly though, actually reaching out to your representatives and talking to them is far more effective than most people assume.
      - rch 5y ago
        I'm considering starting a 501(c)(4) to advocate for state level legislation, but I wonder if something like a PAC might be more effective.

goosedragons 5y ago

I missed including my T2202 one year and thought I owned a ton. They then sent me a letter saying lol, no we owe you. So pointless. What annoys me now is that if you want a paper booklet you have to request one in advance if you did not use one previously but otherwise there is no free to everyone option to do it. You either request a paper booklet or use 3rd party software.

xtracto 5y ago

In México if you are an average employee earning less than around $50000 usd (I.e. most workers), your employer can "do" your taxes (very simple, they report what they have withheld from you). If you have some amounts you want to regain from losses, etc., you can still do your taxes manually. That means logging into the free MEX IRS platform, which shows all your tax info preffilled. Most likely the stuff you want to input is already there (all invoices in mexico are signed by private/public keys through the IRS system). So you just enter your bank account to get your money back. Or get your reference to pay your taxes. The system is really beautiful.

LinuxBender 5y ago
What would be required for the US to adopt this solution?
- lupire 5y ago
  Congress passes a law to amend the Free File program. https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    Does this system pre-populate the forms with everything the IRS already knows about me and then I just modify the things that are incorrect? Can people upload their tax documents from all the financial institutions in some standard format that automatically figures out what form to use and populates maybe 95% of the fields and marks the empty required fields with yellow? I ask because I have an id.me/IRS login and they do not appear to have this data until I give it to them. This is the system I am looking for. I think it would make the lives of the IRS employees better and would save me time and money.
quickthrower2 5y ago
UK has PAYG tax, Australia is similar, if you have a job, perhaps some shares it is zero work. No max salary to worry about.

toast0 5y ago

> I know that ship has sailed, but I really wish politicians would go back to making promises that have an impact on everyone like abolishing tax fillings. I'm not a fan of Trump, but the Trump tax changes made it so it doesn't make sense for me to do itemized deductions, because I won't beat the standard deduction unless I have a lot more things to deduct than I normally do, which greatly simplifies my tax filing and record keeping. Since I know I won't be deducting donations, I don't need a receipt when donating them, and that saves paperwork.