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There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong. One of

There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong. One of my best friends lives in Tokyo and every time I have to think about taxes I get this little pang of jealousy at how sane and un-infested with rent seeking trashcans (intuit etc.) the Japanese system seems. If you need the government to behave against the best interest of the people in order for your industry to exist maybe your industry shouldn't exist.

dustymcp 4y ago
This is how it works where i live, they do the taxes and i can contest or add missing expenditure, its super easy if your employed you dont really do anything for filing its all done automatically.
tmpz22 4y ago
I thought Japanese government services were famously difficult for foreigners to navigate? Is this assumption wrong or is it just very effective for Japanese Citizens only?
- bojo 4y ago
  It's honestly a lot easier as a foreigner, your place of work takes care of your taxes for you. That said, I've had to file taxes outside of that scope before and it was fairly straightforward. They have people at the tax office to assist you.
  - LordDragonfang 4y ago
    >as a foreigner, your place of work takes care of your taxes for you. My understanding is that isn't just the case for foreigners, it's the case for everyone. Companies are expected to just take care of things like that for you, and in return you're expected to treat them with utmost loyalty. I imagine things have changed somewhat in the past decade, but this writeup is illuminating: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...
- fomine3 4y ago
  Tax agency is known for kindness for locals (I don't know for foreigners) unlike other gov services. It earns money unlike other gov services so it could be the reason. Anyway average employee just need to fill a few papers. Employer do most jobs. https://jopus.net/en/column/year-end-tax-adjustment.html https://jopus.net/en/column/year-end-tax-adjustment.html
calvinmorrison 4y ago
> If you need the government to behave against the best interest of the people in order for your industry to exist maybe your industry shouldn't exist. There was a "check cashing" store next to our DMV that solely existed to service people who visited the DMV. Our own government was unable to accept US tender. This exists all over the place. The amount of servicing and companies that exist basically because of the government is insane.
- ortusdux 4y ago
  IIRC, the US Coast Guard cannot provide gas to stranded boats that simply ran out of fuel because they were sued by companies that provide that service.
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    That’s basically the answer to all of these issues. Tax preparers bribed Congress to ban the IRS from doing it for the majority of Americans as well.
  - nickff 4y ago
    Do you have a reference or citation for this? I looked for the case, but couldn't turn anything up. It seems extraordinary, especially because the federal government would seemingly have sovereign immunity from such a lawsuit, unless it was somehow a taking.
    - ortusdux 4y ago
      It was told to me by a coast guard helicopter pilot that I grew up with. Not one prone to exaggeration. I've also heard from boaters that it is kind of general knowledge to say that you are having an emergency vs out of gas if find yourself stranded. Edit: Here is the best I can find. It sounds like it was a congressional mandate from 1983: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-02-22-mn-587-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-02-22-mn-587-st...
- cm42 4y ago
pfisch 4y ago
That would really only work if you owned no property or investments and had nothing but W2 income, and also no dependents. Taxes are complicated because in reality they are actually complicated for many tax payers.
- rpmisms 4y ago
  Because the tax code is too complicated.
- RappingBoomer 4y ago
  but no other nation on earth makes its citizens go through this annual horror show...and just as a coinky dink, turbotax gives generous donations to politicians...odd case...
- jfghi 4y ago
  I think a large part of the population fits in the above bucket and the processes for handling the above issues could be simplified. Perhaps those looking to itemize could complicate their yearly tax calculations or hire a CPA, but the rest of the population would be well served by having an automated process (whose numbers are already in place as is)
- bwanab 4y ago
  That's not really true. The IRS knows exactly what your investment income is if it is invested through a reputable broker. They all have to inform the IRS of all your transactions, dividends and interest. Even for property, the vast majority of the property that people own is the house they live in and sales on home real estate are public information.
  - runako 4y ago
    You're missing huge segments of income and deductions that are opaque to the IRS. In other cases, the information the IRS needs to calculate your tax isn't available until everyone else files their taxes (cyclic dependency). Some examples: - Investors in a local restaurant may receive dividends which are not disclosed to the IRS until the restaurant files taxes. - Those dividends may reach a person via intermediaries. For example, a person receives her share of dividends from all the investments from an investment company in which she is an investor. That company may also have in turn invested into other investment companies. - A person inherits stock and migrates it to her brokerage account. Subsequently, she sells it. Neither the original brokerage nor her brokerage knows her cost basis and therefore can't know what portion of the proceeds are taxable. - Inheritances can get messy, in particular because in some cases the IRS needs to know the size of the estate where the inheritance originated in order to calculate the tax. - Taxes, tips, and direct crypto sales are all taxable events of which the IRS may have no data. - Rents: you don't tell the IRS how much rent you pay; the corollary is that the IRS doesn't know how much rent the landlord took in. And even if they did, to calculate the tax they also need to know the sum of expenses for the year. To calculate that, you may need to know the financing of the property. There are similarly many cases on the deductions side of the ledger where a naive approach will end up over-collecting from taxpayers (people would love that). (Yes, some of these could change if we changed our tax code. But that's not something the IRS is able to do.)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
BitwiseFool 4y ago
>"There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong." Behind the scenes, the IRS already has a well informed idea of how much you owe, based on the information submitted to them by your employer and a few select third parties - such as your bank or broker. The challenge is that you personally need to report additional information for things like capital gains tax on asset sales, any credits/deductions you wish to claim, and changes in your living arrangements or life status. For the majority of people who file using 1040-EZ, you're basically just confirming what the IRS already knows from its own data collection along with some possible adjustments. It would be possible for the IRS to collect even more information, but that does seem rather intrusive and unwelcome to most American's sensibilities.
- ortusdux 4y ago
  There have been several proposed bills that would create a pre-filled tax form system, but they always get quietly sidelined by tax industry lobbyists. I think a change in language would go a long way. The average American spends 13 hours and $200 per year to fill and file their taxes. This expense is itself a tax, albeit an indirect one. "This tax season, we want to save you money, and pre-filled tax forms will do just that." "The tax industry and their lobbyists fight tooth and nail to keep our tax code complex, and every year this costs you money. We want to fix that."
  - bluGill 4y ago
    I've done my taxes by hand - pencil and paper (not even a calculator), and it was faster than filling in all the forms for the online tax software. I still use the software, because the last time I did things my hand I didn't transfer line 17a of form 2345b to line 28c of form 9876d and when that was caught it was a big hassle to correct (even though the IRS had the right numbers I still had to fill out an amended return and then send new forms to the state - the state of course had the right numbers too if they could be bothered to double check)
    - ortusdux 4y ago
asciimike 4y ago
Japan also has Furusato Nozei where (TL;DR) you can choose which province your taxes go to. In exchange, they send you local goods (crab, beef, etc.). This website shows some of the items available: https://www.furusato-tax.jp/ https://www.furusato-tax.jp/
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  I don't even need the produce/goods, I just wanna know what part of my taxes goes directly to the place where I live.
  - SoylentYellow 4y ago
    Or even send your taxes to a smaller town you want to help out.
0x457 4y ago
> There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong. That's not how it works, though. You're telling the government how much you own and how much you paid. They do have a good estimate, and often that estimate is probably correct. However, there are cases when that estimate isn't correct.
- forrestthewoods 4y ago
  Government: You owe us money. It’s called taxes. Me: How much do I owe? Gov’t: You have to figure that out. Me: I just pay what I want? Gov’t: Oh, no we know exactly how much you owe. But you have to guess that number too. Me: What if I get it wrong? Gov’t: You go to prison
  - bergenty 4y ago
    I think the difference is they don’t know until they have tax auditors on the ground at your location tallying it all up.
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      For the majority of Americans, they know… Most Americans don’t have passive income streams or investment income. Most Americans, for a given year, don’t have a change in living scenario (marriage, kids, etc). The majority of tax filers take the standard deduction.
    - sgc 4y ago
      Not always. I used taxAct last year to file, as I always do. I paid what I was told I owe by the software. I just received a tax refund in the mail. Just a check with a memo reading "tax refund", no explanation. Further, that would be true anywhere, since no system is immune to tax fraud or improper communication.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      There are lots of warnings before you get audited. You usually get several letters and then are told "preserve your documents, we may be coming." Then they send you an email or give you a phone call. Then, if you don't respond, they show up irate at your door.
failrate 4y ago
The "reason" we do not have this is people like Grover Norquist.
GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
Behind the scenes, I think you'll find that this is a legal and liability issue. US Title 26 makes you and your agent legally responsible. If the IRS calculates your taxes for you, then they are acting as your agent and the IRS can't act as your agent of course. There's also a CYA aspect, as the government managers involved don't want to be responsible for errors and omissions.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  I don't know why I have to point this out, but the government is fully capable of passing a law to resolve that particular concern. And I strongly suspect it wouldn't work that way anyway, since the government would be giving you the information that it has and asking you or your agent to confirm or correct that information.
  - andrewflnr 4y ago
    It's always depressing when you propose a change in the rules and people counter-argue with a concern that's contingent on the current rules.
    - Karunamon 4y ago
      It's a valid concern in that the government has no problem with legislating and then enforcing mutually exclusive rules. Example: driving the speed limit on some highways is actually unsafe and can get you hit with an impeding ticket, driving the safe speed gives a cop license to pull you over since you are technically speeding.
      - andrewflnr 4y ago
        Again, > the government is fully capable of passing a law to resolve that particular concern That's an implementation detail, not a fundamental obstacle. Failing to recognize this is a failure of imagination.
_9omd 4y ago
It just occurred to me, there may be a reason they don't tell you that I hadn't considered before. If they tell you exactly what income they do know about, then they're implicitly providing information about your income they don't know about. This might make people with harder to trace income less likely to pay taxes on it, as they have some upfront assurance that they won't get in trouble. In some ways it could be seen analogous to a common rule of negotiating, which is to get the other party to say a number first. This allows the IRS to prevent lowballing the tax number, and if the person comes in with a low number, they can still "negotiate" it up. I don't know, just a theory. I still think the whole complicated process is stupid and they should just give you a number at the end of the year.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  I paid taxes in France and Hong Kong. The French taxes are taken at source from your salary and you touch them up. In Hong Kong, it's a simple form, and they trust you. France is only 70M people and HK makes a tax profit every year with 8M people, sure. We re not the strong and beautiful United States, but if us shithole countries can tell people an estimate they can touch up, the US can as well Im sure. I thought before that the US was some sort of capital friendly country until I made a franco american friend who had to pay taxes there and Hong Kong. He had a guy hired and it seemed a complete nightmare. He worked as a low level programmer there for 3 years 15 years ago and nothing else. Still needs an accountant to do his taxes :s
  - grouchomarx 4y ago
    >We re not the strong and beautiful United States, but if us shithole countries can tell people an estimate they can touch up, the US can as well Im sure. you may have HN confused for reddit, you'll find very little american patriotism here
    - black_puppydog 4y ago
      Ahem... it just manifests very differently. But indeed, it is very rarely of the blatant nature hinted in GP's comment.
manuelabeledo 4y ago
This is also one of the things I miss the most, bureaucracy wise, having moved to the US from Spain. Back in Spain, they just send you a draft that you sign off on, or update if needed. In my first three years in the US, I went to a tax specialist to get my taxes done because I couldn't figure out how to get them right.
- biztos 4y ago
  In Germany (for employees) they just take their share and if you’re ok with that you don’t have to do anything at all. Unless you’re a US citizen or permanent resident, in which case you still need to file in the USA, but that’s not the Germans’ fault.
  - cjpearson 4y ago
    My anecdotal experience in Germany is that it's well worth the hour or so to fill out a tax return with some common deductions. The downside of optional filing is that many people will lose money to laziness or ignorance.
- nightski 4y ago
  I bet I've spent more time discussing taxes on HN than actually doing my taxes in the U.S. It really isn't that big of a thought, and I have a small business so it's even more complicated.
  - manuelabeledo 4y ago
    Point is, it could be massively better. I don't agree that things that one is used to, don't need to be improved upon. And the US is clearly falling behind the times here.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stcredzero 4y ago
There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong. Literally true! I've had to interact with IRS employees, and as far as I could tell, they basically had what amounted to what my tax return should be on some kind of computer screen right in front of them. This was back in 2015 or so!
cyanydeez 4y ago
Republicans want you to equate the difficulty with paying tax as the tax itself
- kyleee 4y ago
  it can be interesting to steelwoman that argument, for instance think of the vast sums of basically unnacountable money siphoned from taxpayers to kill hundreds of thousands of people during the iraq war, for instance? it's not the worst idea to have some counterbalances to that type of spending
  - somebodythere 4y ago
    Unfortunately if I underpay my taxes I don't get to pick whether it comes out of the "social programs and infrastructure" bucket or the "blow up children in the Middle East" bucket.
divbzero 4y ago
Interestingly, this is what Congress legislated in 1998 only to be beaten back by lobbying from the tax preparation industry: The Free File Alliance came to be because Congress originally mandated the IRS to do away with tax returns altogether in a law called the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. After a major lobbying push by the tax preparation industry, the Free File Alliance was introduced as a way to let low-income Americans file their taxes for free without getting rid of tax returns. The Alliance drew institutional momentum away from the change to return-free filing, which likely would have rendered large segments of the tax prep industry totally useless. https://thehill.com/homenews/3607174-the-irs-could-be-on-the-verge-of-changing-the-way-americans-file-their-taxes/ https://thehill.com/homenews/3607174-the-irs-could-be-on-the...
kahnclusions 4y ago
I live in the UK and we have a similar system here. I have a tax code assigned that describes my personal circumstances. My employer reports everything to the government. Taxes, refunds, etc, are all handled automatically through my paycheques. The only reason I would need to file a self assessment is if I had self employment income etc. It’s such a relief of stress every year. I hate the way the US (and Canada) does taxes.
clark-kent 4y ago
The reason IRS can't do that is because of lobbying by companies like Intuit. cc https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-the-government-from-offering-free-online-tax-filing-thank-turbotax https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-... https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-deliberately-hides-its-free-file-page-from-search-engines https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-deliberately-hid... Also see https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodeInvesting/comments/tcm21m/intuit_controversial_company_with_great/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodeInvesting/comments/tcm21m/int...
- ehsankia 4y ago
  One thing I don't understand is, sure in the US, lawmakers are all bought off, but do we have the same shit system here in Canada? Why are Canadian politicians helping some shitty American company get rich off Canadians? Why can't we have that system up here?
  - coffee_beqn 4y ago
    Because they like money ?
  - kennend3 4y ago
    I'm also Canadian. We have the same shitty system for the exact same reasons the US has their shitty system. 1) the best way to get elected is to promise people things with their own money. This creates more and more programs the government needs to fund and therefor ever more tax dollars are needed. 2) Rich people can hire lawyers and lobby their politicians. This allows them to make favourable changes to the tax code increasing its complexity. When has the tax code ever been reduced? 3) The government abuses the tax code as well. Instead of being a tool to generate revenue to pay expenses it does all sorts of "social" work as well. want your citizens to get married, change the tax code, want your citizens to buy houses, tax code... Move to the NWT, tax code. Every time the idea of a "flat tax" comes up those who benefit from the complexity freak out. A flat tax would remove the ever-increasing complexity and loopholes so the rich protest, the government cant abuse it so they protest, Revenue canada would be cut in 1/4 so they protest...
just_boost_it 4y ago
You're probably better off filing every year. In countries where you just get told what your taxes are, many people don't really even know how to get deductions made, let alone know what deductions apply to them. Also, I don't think you need to use intuit or anything like that, I think you can fill out the forms yourself if you really want to avoid that kind of thing.
- scarface74 4y ago
  90% of people just take the standard deduction. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-standard-deduction https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-standard-...
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    Many people can qualify for extra deductions and credits without itemizing. For instance, student loan interest, HSA contributions, investment losses, IRA contributions, alimony payments, tuition expenses, even charity donations can all be deducted even if you took the standard deduction.
- recursive 4y ago
  > In countries where you just get told what your taxes are, many people don't really even know how to get deductions made I've got some bad news. It's not just those exotic countries. There are people inside the USA that don't understand deductions either. I've lived here my whole life here and I'm in my forties now. I always just use the standard or default. I'm not exactly sure why someone would or would not want a deduction. Are my taxes optimal? Probably not. This is ok. I'd like to at least have the option of having a simpler process.
movedx 4y ago
It's great in Australia too, if you needed to feel even worse at all. I usually get a tax refund every year, automatically, in the thousands :)
dopidopHN 4y ago
Same in France. When I was filling there everything was pre-filled ( online ) with the information they had already anyway. I was able to confirm. And sign. Done in 20 to 30 min max
kfrzcode 4y ago
Cool. Until something goes wrong. Then you have to deal with challenging it. And of course, the IRS will be EXTREMELY helpful in a rapid resolution to your concern.. we expect your refund to be processed in no fewer than 482 days! ... burden on government is superior.
SnowHill9902 4y ago
Until there’s an error and your account is drained, and the onus is on you to prove it. While you are effectively broke.
- astura 4y ago
  WTF are you talking about?
refurb 4y ago
I think people overestimate the time savings with pre-filled tax forms. I've filed taxes in countries that "auto-complete" your return. What I end up doing in that case is pulling all the forms I received, double checking all the numbers, and if they are correct, hitting "submit". So I basically end up doing the return anyways. That said it was much simpler - but not because the form was already filled out, but because the tax code was way simpler. If the IRS starts auto-completing forms, people are either going to still have to "do their taxes" or just take the risk that the numbers are right. If you had a super simple return to start with, it wasn't much work anyways.
grecy 4y ago
> If you need the government to behave against the best interest of the people in order for your industry to exist maybe your industry shouldn't exist. It's exactly the same with healthcare (and health insurance) & higher education. Few systems in the US are setup in the best interest of the people, and are instead setup for profit.
stephen_g 4y ago
That's how it works in Australia. Employers report earnings, banks report interest, etc. and doing your tax return is logging into the tax office's web app, looking at what's there, adding any extra income, entering any deductions, and then hitting 'Submit'. Any return is electronically transferred within 14 days (otherwise you get a bill). Once I have the statements I need from investment funds, etc. I've never had a tax return take much more than about half an hour, and I've never paid a cent to file anything.
bpodgursky 4y ago
The IRS does not know, among other things, - how many dependents you have - whether you bought or sold a house - what you donated to charity - any cash business / side / hobby income - what health insurance you held this year I mean sure have them send out a form, but it's naive to expect the correction rate to be low; half the country is going to need to tell the IRS stuff about their personal life, if nothing else for dependents to correctly adjust EITC or CTC.

dustymcp 4y ago

This is how it works where i live, they do the taxes and i can contest or add missing expenditure, its super easy if your employed you dont really do anything for filing its all done automatically.

tmpz22 4y ago

I thought Japanese government services were famously difficult for foreigners to navigate? Is this assumption wrong or is it just very effective for Japanese Citizens only?

bojo 4y ago
It's honestly a lot easier as a foreigner, your place of work takes care of your taxes for you. That said, I've had to file taxes outside of that scope before and it was fairly straightforward. They have people at the tax office to assist you.
- LordDragonfang 4y ago
  >as a foreigner, your place of work takes care of your taxes for you. My understanding is that isn't just the case for foreigners, it's the case for everyone. Companies are expected to just take care of things like that for you, and in return you're expected to treat them with utmost loyalty. I imagine things have changed somewhat in the past decade, but this writeup is illuminating: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...
fomine3 4y ago
Tax agency is known for kindness for locals (I don't know for foreigners) unlike other gov services. It earns money unlike other gov services so it could be the reason. Anyway average employee just need to fill a few papers. Employer do most jobs. https://jopus.net/en/column/year-end-tax-adjustment.html https://jopus.net/en/column/year-end-tax-adjustment.html

calvinmorrison 4y ago

> If you need the government to behave against the best interest of the people in order for your industry to exist maybe your industry shouldn't exist. There was a "check cashing" store next to our DMV that solely existed to service people who visited the DMV. Our own government was unable to accept US tender. This exists all over the place. The amount of servicing and companies that exist basically because of the government is insane.

ortusdux 4y ago
IIRC, the US Coast Guard cannot provide gas to stranded boats that simply ran out of fuel because they were sued by companies that provide that service.
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  That’s basically the answer to all of these issues. Tax preparers bribed Congress to ban the IRS from doing it for the majority of Americans as well.
- nickff 4y ago
  Do you have a reference or citation for this? I looked for the case, but couldn't turn anything up. It seems extraordinary, especially because the federal government would seemingly have sovereign immunity from such a lawsuit, unless it was somehow a taking.
  - ortusdux 4y ago
    It was told to me by a coast guard helicopter pilot that I grew up with. Not one prone to exaggeration. I've also heard from boaters that it is kind of general knowledge to say that you are having an emergency vs out of gas if find yourself stranded. Edit: Here is the best I can find. It sounds like it was a congressional mandate from 1983: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-02-22-mn-587-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-02-22-mn-587-st...
cm42 4y ago

pfisch 4y ago

That would really only work if you owned no property or investments and had nothing but W2 income, and also no dependents. Taxes are complicated because in reality they are actually complicated for many tax payers.

rpmisms 4y ago
Because the tax code is too complicated.
RappingBoomer 4y ago
but no other nation on earth makes its citizens go through this annual horror show...and just as a coinky dink, turbotax gives generous donations to politicians...odd case...
jfghi 4y ago
I think a large part of the population fits in the above bucket and the processes for handling the above issues could be simplified. Perhaps those looking to itemize could complicate their yearly tax calculations or hire a CPA, but the rest of the population would be well served by having an automated process (whose numbers are already in place as is)
bwanab 4y ago
That's not really true. The IRS knows exactly what your investment income is if it is invested through a reputable broker. They all have to inform the IRS of all your transactions, dividends and interest. Even for property, the vast majority of the property that people own is the house they live in and sales on home real estate are public information.
- runako 4y ago
  You're missing huge segments of income and deductions that are opaque to the IRS. In other cases, the information the IRS needs to calculate your tax isn't available until everyone else files their taxes (cyclic dependency). Some examples: - Investors in a local restaurant may receive dividends which are not disclosed to the IRS until the restaurant files taxes. - Those dividends may reach a person via intermediaries. For example, a person receives her share of dividends from all the investments from an investment company in which she is an investor. That company may also have in turn invested into other investment companies. - A person inherits stock and migrates it to her brokerage account. Subsequently, she sells it. Neither the original brokerage nor her brokerage knows her cost basis and therefore can't know what portion of the proceeds are taxable. - Inheritances can get messy, in particular because in some cases the IRS needs to know the size of the estate where the inheritance originated in order to calculate the tax. - Taxes, tips, and direct crypto sales are all taxable events of which the IRS may have no data. - Rents: you don't tell the IRS how much rent you pay; the corollary is that the IRS doesn't know how much rent the landlord took in. And even if they did, to calculate the tax they also need to know the sum of expenses for the year. To calculate that, you may need to know the financing of the property. There are similarly many cases on the deductions side of the ledger where a naive approach will end up over-collecting from taxpayers (people would love that). (Yes, some of these could change if we changed our tax code. But that's not something the IRS is able to do.)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

BitwiseFool 4y ago

>"There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong." Behind the scenes, the IRS already has a well informed idea of how much you owe, based on the information submitted to them by your employer and a few select third parties - such as your bank or broker. The challenge is that you personally need to report additional information for things like capital gains tax on asset sales, any credits/deductions you wish to claim, and changes in your living arrangements or life status. For the majority of people who file using 1040-EZ, you're basically just confirming what the IRS already knows from its own data collection along with some possible adjustments. It would be possible for the IRS to collect even more information, but that does seem rather intrusive and unwelcome to most American's sensibilities.

ortusdux 4y ago
There have been several proposed bills that would create a pre-filled tax form system, but they always get quietly sidelined by tax industry lobbyists. I think a change in language would go a long way. The average American spends 13 hours and $200 per year to fill and file their taxes. This expense is itself a tax, albeit an indirect one. "This tax season, we want to save you money, and pre-filled tax forms will do just that." "The tax industry and their lobbyists fight tooth and nail to keep our tax code complex, and every year this costs you money. We want to fix that."
- bluGill 4y ago
  I've done my taxes by hand - pencil and paper (not even a calculator), and it was faster than filling in all the forms for the online tax software. I still use the software, because the last time I did things my hand I didn't transfer line 17a of form 2345b to line 28c of form 9876d and when that was caught it was a big hassle to correct (even though the IRS had the right numbers I still had to fill out an amended return and then send new forms to the state - the state of course had the right numbers too if they could be bothered to double check)
  - ortusdux 4y ago

asciimike 4y ago

Japan also has Furusato Nozei where (TL;DR) you can choose which province your taxes go to. In exchange, they send you local goods (crab, beef, etc.). This website shows some of the items available: https://www.furusato-tax.jp/ https://www.furusato-tax.jp/

justsomehnguy 4y ago
I don't even need the produce/goods, I just wanna know what part of my taxes goes directly to the place where I live.
- SoylentYellow 4y ago
  Or even send your taxes to a smaller town you want to help out.

0x457 4y ago

> There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong. That's not how it works, though. You're telling the government how much you own and how much you paid. They do have a good estimate, and often that estimate is probably correct. However, there are cases when that estimate isn't correct.

forrestthewoods 4y ago
Government: You owe us money. It’s called taxes. Me: How much do I owe? Gov’t: You have to figure that out. Me: I just pay what I want? Gov’t: Oh, no we know exactly how much you owe. But you have to guess that number too. Me: What if I get it wrong? Gov’t: You go to prison
- bergenty 4y ago
  I think the difference is they don’t know until they have tax auditors on the ground at your location tallying it all up.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    For the majority of Americans, they know… Most Americans don’t have passive income streams or investment income. Most Americans, for a given year, don’t have a change in living scenario (marriage, kids, etc). The majority of tax filers take the standard deduction.
  - sgc 4y ago
    Not always. I used taxAct last year to file, as I always do. I paid what I was told I owe by the software. I just received a tax refund in the mail. Just a check with a memo reading "tax refund", no explanation. Further, that would be true anywhere, since no system is immune to tax fraud or improper communication.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    There are lots of warnings before you get audited. You usually get several letters and then are told "preserve your documents, we may be coming." Then they send you an email or give you a phone call. Then, if you don't respond, they show up irate at your door.

failrate 4y ago

The "reason" we do not have this is people like Grover Norquist.

GartzenDeHaes 4y ago

Behind the scenes, I think you'll find that this is a legal and liability issue. US Title 26 makes you and your agent legally responsible. If the IRS calculates your taxes for you, then they are acting as your agent and the IRS can't act as your agent of course. There's also a CYA aspect, as the government managers involved don't want to be responsible for errors and omissions.

lamontcg 4y ago
I don't know why I have to point this out, but the government is fully capable of passing a law to resolve that particular concern. And I strongly suspect it wouldn't work that way anyway, since the government would be giving you the information that it has and asking you or your agent to confirm or correct that information.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  It's always depressing when you propose a change in the rules and people counter-argue with a concern that's contingent on the current rules.
  - Karunamon 4y ago
    It's a valid concern in that the government has no problem with legislating and then enforcing mutually exclusive rules. Example: driving the speed limit on some highways is actually unsafe and can get you hit with an impeding ticket, driving the safe speed gives a cop license to pull you over since you are technically speeding.
    - andrewflnr 4y ago
      Again, > the government is fully capable of passing a law to resolve that particular concern That's an implementation detail, not a fundamental obstacle. Failing to recognize this is a failure of imagination.

_9omd 4y ago

It just occurred to me, there may be a reason they don't tell you that I hadn't considered before. If they tell you exactly what income they do know about, then they're implicitly providing information about your income they don't know about. This might make people with harder to trace income less likely to pay taxes on it, as they have some upfront assurance that they won't get in trouble. In some ways it could be seen analogous to a common rule of negotiating, which is to get the other party to say a number first. This allows the IRS to prevent lowballing the tax number, and if the person comes in with a low number, they can still "negotiate" it up. I don't know, just a theory. I still think the whole complicated process is stupid and they should just give you a number at the end of the year.

xwolfi 4y ago
I paid taxes in France and Hong Kong. The French taxes are taken at source from your salary and you touch them up. In Hong Kong, it's a simple form, and they trust you. France is only 70M people and HK makes a tax profit every year with 8M people, sure. We re not the strong and beautiful United States, but if us shithole countries can tell people an estimate they can touch up, the US can as well Im sure. I thought before that the US was some sort of capital friendly country until I made a franco american friend who had to pay taxes there and Hong Kong. He had a guy hired and it seemed a complete nightmare. He worked as a low level programmer there for 3 years 15 years ago and nothing else. Still needs an accountant to do his taxes :s
- grouchomarx 4y ago
  >We re not the strong and beautiful United States, but if us shithole countries can tell people an estimate they can touch up, the US can as well Im sure. you may have HN confused for reddit, you'll find very little american patriotism here
  - black_puppydog 4y ago
    Ahem... it just manifests very differently. But indeed, it is very rarely of the blatant nature hinted in GP's comment.

manuelabeledo 4y ago

This is also one of the things I miss the most, bureaucracy wise, having moved to the US from Spain. Back in Spain, they just send you a draft that you sign off on, or update if needed. In my first three years in the US, I went to a tax specialist to get my taxes done because I couldn't figure out how to get them right.

biztos 4y ago
In Germany (for employees) they just take their share and if you’re ok with that you don’t have to do anything at all. Unless you’re a US citizen or permanent resident, in which case you still need to file in the USA, but that’s not the Germans’ fault.
- cjpearson 4y ago
  My anecdotal experience in Germany is that it's well worth the hour or so to fill out a tax return with some common deductions. The downside of optional filing is that many people will lose money to laziness or ignorance.
nightski 4y ago
I bet I've spent more time discussing taxes on HN than actually doing my taxes in the U.S. It really isn't that big of a thought, and I have a small business so it's even more complicated.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  Point is, it could be massively better. I don't agree that things that one is used to, don't need to be improved upon. And the US is clearly falling behind the times here.

deleted 4y ago

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stcredzero 4y ago

There's no reason the government couldn't just tell me how much money they took each year and give me a chance to contest it if I thought it was wrong. Literally true! I've had to interact with IRS employees, and as far as I could tell, they basically had what amounted to what my tax return should be on some kind of computer screen right in front of them. This was back in 2015 or so!

cyanydeez 4y ago

Republicans want you to equate the difficulty with paying tax as the tax itself

kyleee 4y ago
it can be interesting to steelwoman that argument, for instance think of the vast sums of basically unnacountable money siphoned from taxpayers to kill hundreds of thousands of people during the iraq war, for instance? it's not the worst idea to have some counterbalances to that type of spending
- somebodythere 4y ago
  Unfortunately if I underpay my taxes I don't get to pick whether it comes out of the "social programs and infrastructure" bucket or the "blow up children in the Middle East" bucket.

divbzero 4y ago

Interestingly, this is what Congress legislated in 1998 only to be beaten back by lobbying from the tax preparation industry: The Free File Alliance came to be because Congress originally mandated the IRS to do away with tax returns altogether in a law called the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. After a major lobbying push by the tax preparation industry, the Free File Alliance was introduced as a way to let low-income Americans file their taxes for free without getting rid of tax returns. The Alliance drew institutional momentum away from the change to return-free filing, which likely would have rendered large segments of the tax prep industry totally useless. https://thehill.com/homenews/3607174-the-irs-could-be-on-the-verge-of-changing-the-way-americans-file-their-taxes/ https://thehill.com/homenews/3607174-the-irs-could-be-on-the...

kahnclusions 4y ago

I live in the UK and we have a similar system here. I have a tax code assigned that describes my personal circumstances. My employer reports everything to the government. Taxes, refunds, etc, are all handled automatically through my paycheques. The only reason I would need to file a self assessment is if I had self employment income etc. It’s such a relief of stress every year. I hate the way the US (and Canada) does taxes.

clark-kent 4y ago

The reason IRS can't do that is because of lobbying by companies like Intuit. cc https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-the-government-from-offering-free-online-tax-filing-thank-turbotax https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-... https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-deliberately-hides-its-free-file-page-from-search-engines https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-deliberately-hid... Also see https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodeInvesting/comments/tcm21m/intuit_controversial_company_with_great/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodeInvesting/comments/tcm21m/int...

ehsankia 4y ago
One thing I don't understand is, sure in the US, lawmakers are all bought off, but do we have the same shit system here in Canada? Why are Canadian politicians helping some shitty American company get rich off Canadians? Why can't we have that system up here?
- coffee_beqn 4y ago
  Because they like money ?
- kennend3 4y ago
  I'm also Canadian. We have the same shitty system for the exact same reasons the US has their shitty system. 1) the best way to get elected is to promise people things with their own money. This creates more and more programs the government needs to fund and therefor ever more tax dollars are needed. 2) Rich people can hire lawyers and lobby their politicians. This allows them to make favourable changes to the tax code increasing its complexity. When has the tax code ever been reduced? 3) The government abuses the tax code as well. Instead of being a tool to generate revenue to pay expenses it does all sorts of "social" work as well. want your citizens to get married, change the tax code, want your citizens to buy houses, tax code... Move to the NWT, tax code. Every time the idea of a "flat tax" comes up those who benefit from the complexity freak out. A flat tax would remove the ever-increasing complexity and loopholes so the rich protest, the government cant abuse it so they protest, Revenue canada would be cut in 1/4 so they protest...

just_boost_it 4y ago

You're probably better off filing every year. In countries where you just get told what your taxes are, many people don't really even know how to get deductions made, let alone know what deductions apply to them. Also, I don't think you need to use intuit or anything like that, I think you can fill out the forms yourself if you really want to avoid that kind of thing.

scarface74 4y ago
90% of people just take the standard deduction. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-standard-deduction https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-standard-...
- missedthecue 4y ago
  Many people can qualify for extra deductions and credits without itemizing. For instance, student loan interest, HSA contributions, investment losses, IRA contributions, alimony payments, tuition expenses, even charity donations can all be deducted even if you took the standard deduction.
recursive 4y ago
> In countries where you just get told what your taxes are, many people don't really even know how to get deductions made I've got some bad news. It's not just those exotic countries. There are people inside the USA that don't understand deductions either. I've lived here my whole life here and I'm in my forties now. I always just use the standard or default. I'm not exactly sure why someone would or would not want a deduction. Are my taxes optimal? Probably not. This is ok. I'd like to at least have the option of having a simpler process.

movedx 4y ago

It's great in Australia too, if you needed to feel even worse at all. I usually get a tax refund every year, automatically, in the thousands :)

dopidopHN 4y ago

Same in France. When I was filling there everything was pre-filled ( online ) with the information they had already anyway. I was able to confirm. And sign. Done in 20 to 30 min max

kfrzcode 4y ago

Cool. Until something goes wrong. Then you have to deal with challenging it. And of course, the IRS will be EXTREMELY helpful in a rapid resolution to your concern.. we expect your refund to be processed in no fewer than 482 days! ... burden on government is superior.

SnowHill9902 4y ago

Until there’s an error and your account is drained, and the onus is on you to prove it. While you are effectively broke.

astura 4y ago
WTF are you talking about?

refurb 4y ago

I think people overestimate the time savings with pre-filled tax forms. I've filed taxes in countries that "auto-complete" your return. What I end up doing in that case is pulling all the forms I received, double checking all the numbers, and if they are correct, hitting "submit". So I basically end up doing the return anyways. That said it was much simpler - but not because the form was already filled out, but because the tax code was way simpler. If the IRS starts auto-completing forms, people are either going to still have to "do their taxes" or just take the risk that the numbers are right. If you had a super simple return to start with, it wasn't much work anyways.

grecy 4y ago

> If you need the government to behave against the best interest of the people in order for your industry to exist maybe your industry shouldn't exist. It's exactly the same with healthcare (and health insurance) & higher education. Few systems in the US are setup in the best interest of the people, and are instead setup for profit.

stephen_g 4y ago

That's how it works in Australia. Employers report earnings, banks report interest, etc. and doing your tax return is logging into the tax office's web app, looking at what's there, adding any extra income, entering any deductions, and then hitting 'Submit'. Any return is electronically transferred within 14 days (otherwise you get a bill). Once I have the statements I need from investment funds, etc. I've never had a tax return take much more than about half an hour, and I've never paid a cent to file anything.

bpodgursky 4y ago

The IRS does not know, among other things, - how many dependents you have - whether you bought or sold a house - what you donated to charity - any cash business / side / hobby income - what health insurance you held this year I mean sure have them send out a form, but it's naive to expect the correction rate to be low; half the country is going to need to tell the IRS stuff about their personal life, if nothing else for dependents to correctly adjust EITC or CTC.