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> Think about all the information (marital status, dependents, residence, childcare spending, healthcare spending, education spending, charitable contributions,
by sys_64738 3y ago
> Think about all the information (marital status, dependents, residence, childcare spending, healthcare spending, education spending, charitable contributions, …) you need to correctly calculate your taxes owed. Now imagine that the IRS is tasked with maintaining all of this information in a single database so they can send you your “statement”.
There's nothing hard about updating a few values with these then you're done in five minutes. State governments already do simple walkthrough forms and federal is really no different. If you have a complex tax situation then that's your problem to deal with. Don't burden 99.9% of the population with something that should be free, should be simple, and should be fast.
- twoodfin 3y agoOK, but now we’re back to “free tax filing”, not “send me a statement”.
- plemer 3y agoReviewing and editing if needed (often not) is dramatically easier than filling out from scratch, regardless of what you call "free tax filing".
- refurb 3y agoIt’s actually not. I lived in a country that filled out the forms. I actually had to dig up pay statements, etc to confirm the information. I’m glad I did because my employer made a mistake on a retirement contribution. So what did it save me? Maybe typing in some numbers, which is probably 5% of the total effort. The issue is the complexity of the tax code. It would be great if the IRS pre-filled forms, but the forms aren’t going away. Many people won’t review the dozen or so pages of forms to make sure they’re correct. No doubt that will favor the IRS, not the tax payer.