4 ms·

> Taxes were complicated before Intuit existed. What was the cause of that? Well, people using the tax code to encourage certain moral and political views. Whe

> Taxes were complicated before Intuit existed. What was the cause of that? Well, people using the tax code to encourage certain moral and political views. Whether that's good or not depends on your political stance, and probably even various between particular deductions/credits. But I don't think it's relevant. The tax code is however complicated it is. The point is that the government already knows, more or less, all the right answers. Put that information, in bill form, down, and bill the taxpayer; the commenter above you is also attempting allow for adjustments (such as for things the government might not know about, perhaps like a donation) to permit for the cases the government already know about. The question still stands: why can that not be done, thus freeing most people (whose tax situations are simple) from the burden of needing to file using today's system? To your points about the rules, I think even in a scheme where the government sends a bill, the rules can quite easily change. Most of the rules today fall into either deductions or credits, or how we account for various sources of income. (E.g., normal income vs. capital gains.) That much could stay the same, and then the government can adjust its own accounting.

nonethewiser 4y ago
You point to the nature of the complications. The complicated bits are opportunities to pay less on taxes. As such, simplifications will always hurt people. It’s not evil Intuit trying to inject complexity into the tax system. It’s lots of taxpayers (individuals and orgs) and acting out of their own self interest. Taxes are just controversial by nature. Every change that raises taxes is going to be opposed by those people who will be taxed more, and when taxes are lowered it will be opposed by a portion of the people that the reduction doesn’t apply to.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  We're talking about US taxes right? The US tax code has lots of places where the complexity is purely happenstance. I think Vox did a piece recently about some of the silliness that's not some loophole helping a few tax payers it's just what happens when a sprawling tax code is appealing to special interests.
- function_seven 4y ago
  > It’s not evil Intuit trying to inject complexity into the tax system. No, they instead lobby to make it illegal for the IRS to offer the tools that would mitigate the complexity. Intuit didn't invent tax code complexity, but they sure fight like hell to own the results of that complexity. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483065-Intuit-board-of-directors-presentation-2007.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483065-Intuit-board...
- thfuran 4y ago
  >The complicated bits are opportunities to pay less on taxes. Or requirements to pay more.
- iudqnolq 4y ago
  The average American uses (or should use) the standard deduction. Those using complicated tricks to pay less on taxes are a minority. > Taxes are just controversial by nature Yes, but that doesn't mean that anything tax related automatically has no solution, you have to look at the specifics. And in this specific case things could be a bit better for many people.
  - deathanatos 4y ago
    Well … so I do agree, in a minority. But for example, I still took a tax credit due to investing, which isn't terribly rare. The best information I can find on taxable investment accounts[1] suggests that approximately 33% of Americans are in that bucket. While I concur it is a minority, it's not exactly a small minority. There's also state-level taxes, where I took a number of deductions such as from renting, which is also a minority, again about a third, and again from investing², so that same third again. I think those two minorities won't share that much overlap, perhaps even enough to get to a majority. (I should note too that these are criticisms of the complexity of the tax code itself; none of this invalidates the point that the original commenter above this thread started with: that the IRS knows all this and can simply compute a bill, on top of which — if required — alterations can be made. That seems to stand. But while, yes, many people — myself included — take the standard deduction, there's just enough other junk in the taxes that I feel like you can fairly easily wind up hitting one or two complications.) [1]: https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/fixed-income-advisory-committee/finra-investor-education-foundation-investor-households-fimsa-040918.pdf https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/fixed-income-advisory-committe... though a bit dated. ²Some states, mine included, do not tax income from US government obligations; this is pretty easy to get into accidentally if you're just doing something like a robo-account (which is how I have this situation). But this information is a PITA to get, because it is not captured in any box on a standardized form.
    - jedberg 4y ago
      Sure, but for something that applies to 30% of people, they could either ask you if that situation applies to you and then ask you to fill in the info. Like how TurboTax asks you a bunch of questions. But the government would have to ask you as many questions as TurboTax because they already have a lot of the info. Did you know that around August/September you can log into your IRS account and download all the forms the government has on you for that year? They would just have to expose that earlier. Or just make the tax deadline October.
- deathanatos 4y ago
  The suggestion here is to not change the complexity of the taxes themselves¹. The suggestion here is to change the complexity of filing those taxes. You can keep all the same credits & deductions that exist today, but still move to a system where the IRS says "here's what we know about your tax situation, are there any adjustments to be made?". For a large majority of people, that latter half is pretty small. But that's a simpler procedure than forcing them to compute most of what the IRS knows from scratch. ¹But if you want to, that's fine too, it's just not what this thread is about.

nonethewiser 4y ago

You point to the nature of the complications. The complicated bits are opportunities to pay less on taxes. As such, simplifications will always hurt people. It’s not evil Intuit trying to inject complexity into the tax system. It’s lots of taxpayers (individuals and orgs) and acting out of their own self interest. Taxes are just controversial by nature. Every change that raises taxes is going to be opposed by those people who will be taxed more, and when taxes are lowered it will be opposed by a portion of the people that the reduction doesn’t apply to.

tialaramex 4y ago
We're talking about US taxes right? The US tax code has lots of places where the complexity is purely happenstance. I think Vox did a piece recently about some of the silliness that's not some loophole helping a few tax payers it's just what happens when a sprawling tax code is appealing to special interests.
function_seven 4y ago
> It’s not evil Intuit trying to inject complexity into the tax system. No, they instead lobby to make it illegal for the IRS to offer the tools that would mitigate the complexity. Intuit didn't invent tax code complexity, but they sure fight like hell to own the results of that complexity. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483065-Intuit-board-of-directors-presentation-2007.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483065-Intuit-board...
thfuran 4y ago
>The complicated bits are opportunities to pay less on taxes. Or requirements to pay more.
iudqnolq 4y ago
The average American uses (or should use) the standard deduction. Those using complicated tricks to pay less on taxes are a minority. > Taxes are just controversial by nature Yes, but that doesn't mean that anything tax related automatically has no solution, you have to look at the specifics. And in this specific case things could be a bit better for many people.
- deathanatos 4y ago
  Well … so I do agree, in a minority. But for example, I still took a tax credit due to investing, which isn't terribly rare. The best information I can find on taxable investment accounts[1] suggests that approximately 33% of Americans are in that bucket. While I concur it is a minority, it's not exactly a small minority. There's also state-level taxes, where I took a number of deductions such as from renting, which is also a minority, again about a third, and again from investing², so that same third again. I think those two minorities won't share that much overlap, perhaps even enough to get to a majority. (I should note too that these are criticisms of the complexity of the tax code itself; none of this invalidates the point that the original commenter above this thread started with: that the IRS knows all this and can simply compute a bill, on top of which — if required — alterations can be made. That seems to stand. But while, yes, many people — myself included — take the standard deduction, there's just enough other junk in the taxes that I feel like you can fairly easily wind up hitting one or two complications.) [1]: https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/fixed-income-advisory-committee/finra-investor-education-foundation-investor-households-fimsa-040918.pdf https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/fixed-income-advisory-committe... though a bit dated. ²Some states, mine included, do not tax income from US government obligations; this is pretty easy to get into accidentally if you're just doing something like a robo-account (which is how I have this situation). But this information is a PITA to get, because it is not captured in any box on a standardized form.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    Sure, but for something that applies to 30% of people, they could either ask you if that situation applies to you and then ask you to fill in the info. Like how TurboTax asks you a bunch of questions. But the government would have to ask you as many questions as TurboTax because they already have a lot of the info. Did you know that around August/September you can log into your IRS account and download all the forms the government has on you for that year? They would just have to expose that earlier. Or just make the tax deadline October.
deathanatos 4y ago
The suggestion here is to not change the complexity of the taxes themselves¹. The suggestion here is to change the complexity of filing those taxes. You can keep all the same credits & deductions that exist today, but still move to a system where the IRS says "here's what we know about your tax situation, are there any adjustments to be made?". For a large majority of people, that latter half is pretty small. But that's a simpler procedure than forcing them to compute most of what the IRS knows from scratch. ¹But if you want to, that's fine too, it's just not what this thread is about.