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Yeah the American system absurd. “We have all the data but you still need to figure it out yourself and if you get it wrong you’ll get in trouble”. The Australi

Yeah the American system absurd. “We have all the data but you still need to figure it out yourself and if you get it wrong you’ll get in trouble”. The Australian system has improved a lot over the past few years - PAYG (employment), bank interest, and dividends are all pre-filled on your tax return. So all you need to figure out is deductions and other income. I’d still like to see it taken a step further like in the UK where you don’t even need to file a tax return unless you have income the HMRC doesn’t know about.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 3y ago
> Yeah the American system absurd. The hilarious thing is that if we remove the context from this statement it applies so broadly that you could mean just about of our systems. Having absurd systems is pretty much our defining characteristic.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing — After Exhausting All the Alternatives -- Winston Churchill (probably not[1]) 1 - more likely a generic version of this was posited by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban in the 1960s and mis-attributed to Churchill sometime in the 1980s
- balaji1 3y ago
  List a few. For the ppl who downvoted your comment.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    Downvoting can also happen, if people believe, that the comment won't lead to an interesting debate.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  You're not exactly wrong, but I think that's true of most countries. We're just not aware of foreign dirty laundry, and as a tourist you'll not notice.
  - sneak 3y ago
    Most industrialized countries in northern or western Europe have most government systems that are an order of magnitude less absurd than the American equivalents.
    - adventured 3y ago
      You just narrowed your claim down to a very small group of nations in the entire world. It's like when people say: Europe is so much better at xyz. When what they mean is: Finland is amazing, you know, tiny little 5m person Finland, with very little diversity and a strongly exclusionary (just try immigrating into it as a low-skill poor person) homogeneous culture, it's amazing. The same goes for much of affluent Europe: it's hyper exclusionary, elitist, and often extraordinarily racist against outsiders. Meanwhile the US is the world's largest economy, has welcomed tens of millions of poor people from the third world over the past 40 years (and that door is still very much open), has the third largest population and is hyper diverse compared to nearly all peers in Europe. Even Canada is drastically less diverse than the US. It's far easier to manage a nation that consists of an overwhelmingly dominant single culture, there are far fewer competing interests or complexities. A country as large and complex as the US, with that much diversity, and that many layers of government to manage it all (federal, state, local; the US state government system is gigantic in its own right), is going to be a very messy machine. There's no scenario where that isn't going to be the case, no matter where it exists. The only reasonable comparison regardless, due to the scale, is the US to Europe broadly. The US does just fine on that comparison. Shall we talk about how nice Western Russia is? How about the last 20-30 years of Greek and Italian history? Or is the premise to only refer to the good outcomes of Europe?
    - prottog 3y ago
      France, one of the most emblematic Western European countries, has a proliferation of 49-employee companies because of a boatload of regulations that kicks in starting employee number 50. Some estimates see almost two and a half times as many companies with exactly 49 employees than with exactly 50. Now that's pretty absurd!
    - jwestbury 3y ago
- kibwen 3y ago
  Bureaucracies naturally foster absurdity, but the US is solidly middle-of-the road when it comes to absurdities, and only seems more absurd because 1) it's the third-largest country in the world, and 2) it's so often in the spotlight. Of course, it's good to celebrate specific absurdities being overturned, as is (slowly) being done in this instance.
lr1970 3y ago
> Yeah the American system absurd. “We have all the data but you still need to figure it out yourself and if you get it wrong you’ll get in trouble”. IRS knows all the income data only in simple cases like salaried employees with W-2 forms. If you are business owner or contractor the things can be more complicated and what IRS really knows is a guessing game. IRS is posturing and bluffing that they know everything and put pressure on a tax-payer to voluntary disclose as much as possible about their income out of fear of criminal persecution. Also they will rarely tell you that you "overpaid" your taxes unless it is a simple math mistake.
- rapht 3y ago
  > IRS knows all the income data only in simple cases like salaried employees with W-2 forms. If you are business owner or contractor the things can be more complicated If you already can avoid the trouble for 50% (?) of the people who are in the standard case, it's already a massive win.
  - jghn 3y ago
    Exactly. Doing custom taxes could be opt-in. "Here's what we're going to charge you. If you think you owe less due to details we don't have, feel free to file the old way"
    - PopAlongKid 3y ago
      Correction: "If you think you owe less or more due to details we don't have, feel free to file the old way"
      - sgerenser 3y ago
        I’d be happy with a system like this, as long as they made it very clear WHEN you should do it the old way. For example: “Our estimate of your income may be too high in certain situations, for example if you are a business owner, independent contractor, or receive income from RSU or ESPP sales where the tax basis reported to the IRS is missing or inaccurate. In those cases, you are encouraged to fill out your tax return using the tool of your choice” (Hopefully with links to some options). Otherwise, there’s going to be a lot of tech workers who don’t understand RSU taxation paying thousands/10s of thousands of dollars extra in taxes for no reason. (And yes, I realize some may think this is a feature, not a bug.)

AnIdiotOnTheNet 3y ago

> Yeah the American system absurd. The hilarious thing is that if we remove the context from this statement it applies so broadly that you could mean just about of our systems. Having absurd systems is pretty much our defining characteristic.

alistairSH 3y ago
Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing — After Exhausting All the Alternatives -- Winston Churchill (probably not[1]) 1 - more likely a generic version of this was posited by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban in the 1960s and mis-attributed to Churchill sometime in the 1980s
balaji1 3y ago
List a few. For the ppl who downvoted your comment.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  Downvoting can also happen, if people believe, that the comment won't lead to an interesting debate.
BurningFrog 3y ago
You're not exactly wrong, but I think that's true of most countries. We're just not aware of foreign dirty laundry, and as a tourist you'll not notice.
- sneak 3y ago
  Most industrialized countries in northern or western Europe have most government systems that are an order of magnitude less absurd than the American equivalents.
  - adventured 3y ago
    You just narrowed your claim down to a very small group of nations in the entire world. It's like when people say: Europe is so much better at xyz. When what they mean is: Finland is amazing, you know, tiny little 5m person Finland, with very little diversity and a strongly exclusionary (just try immigrating into it as a low-skill poor person) homogeneous culture, it's amazing. The same goes for much of affluent Europe: it's hyper exclusionary, elitist, and often extraordinarily racist against outsiders. Meanwhile the US is the world's largest economy, has welcomed tens of millions of poor people from the third world over the past 40 years (and that door is still very much open), has the third largest population and is hyper diverse compared to nearly all peers in Europe. Even Canada is drastically less diverse than the US. It's far easier to manage a nation that consists of an overwhelmingly dominant single culture, there are far fewer competing interests or complexities. A country as large and complex as the US, with that much diversity, and that many layers of government to manage it all (federal, state, local; the US state government system is gigantic in its own right), is going to be a very messy machine. There's no scenario where that isn't going to be the case, no matter where it exists. The only reasonable comparison regardless, due to the scale, is the US to Europe broadly. The US does just fine on that comparison. Shall we talk about how nice Western Russia is? How about the last 20-30 years of Greek and Italian history? Or is the premise to only refer to the good outcomes of Europe?
  - prottog 3y ago
    France, one of the most emblematic Western European countries, has a proliferation of 49-employee companies because of a boatload of regulations that kicks in starting employee number 50. Some estimates see almost two and a half times as many companies with exactly 49 employees than with exactly 50. Now that's pretty absurd!
  - jwestbury 3y ago
kibwen 3y ago
Bureaucracies naturally foster absurdity, but the US is solidly middle-of-the road when it comes to absurdities, and only seems more absurd because 1) it's the third-largest country in the world, and 2) it's so often in the spotlight. Of course, it's good to celebrate specific absurdities being overturned, as is (slowly) being done in this instance.

lr1970 3y ago

> Yeah the American system absurd. “We have all the data but you still need to figure it out yourself and if you get it wrong you’ll get in trouble”. IRS knows all the income data only in simple cases like salaried employees with W-2 forms. If you are business owner or contractor the things can be more complicated and what IRS really knows is a guessing game. IRS is posturing and bluffing that they know everything and put pressure on a tax-payer to voluntary disclose as much as possible about their income out of fear of criminal persecution. Also they will rarely tell you that you "overpaid" your taxes unless it is a simple math mistake.

rapht 3y ago
> IRS knows all the income data only in simple cases like salaried employees with W-2 forms. If you are business owner or contractor the things can be more complicated If you already can avoid the trouble for 50% (?) of the people who are in the standard case, it's already a massive win.
- jghn 3y ago
  Exactly. Doing custom taxes could be opt-in. "Here's what we're going to charge you. If you think you owe less due to details we don't have, feel free to file the old way"
  - PopAlongKid 3y ago
    Correction: "If you think you owe less or more due to details we don't have, feel free to file the old way"
    - sgerenser 3y ago
      I’d be happy with a system like this, as long as they made it very clear WHEN you should do it the old way. For example: “Our estimate of your income may be too high in certain situations, for example if you are a business owner, independent contractor, or receive income from RSU or ESPP sales where the tax basis reported to the IRS is missing or inaccurate. In those cases, you are encouraged to fill out your tax return using the tool of your choice” (Hopefully with links to some options). Otherwise, there’s going to be a lot of tech workers who don’t understand RSU taxation paying thousands/10s of thousands of dollars extra in taxes for no reason. (And yes, I realize some may think this is a feature, not a bug.)