4 ms·

> The IRS should be required to maintain its own online filing system, and provide it to all Americans without charge. Sure but if you let the government do it

> The IRS should be required to maintain its own online filing system, and provide it to all Americans without charge. Sure but if you let the government do it you can be 100 % sure it will be the worst software ever designed. They have no incentive to make it good. You know the drill.

Vanit 3y ago
The one the govt made in Australia isn't half bad, though mygov was rough when it launched.
- jalapenos 3y ago
  Yeah I remember the days when their e-filing system was you had to download that year's desktop app. But it was still decent. The purely online based one now is very decent.
- mianos 3y ago
  You used to be able to make small business filings on their portal as well. Then it got too hard when they spent a few years making many many more rules. They then mandated you use a third party to file things like employee payments saying there would be free or cheap software to do this and listed a few. Over time the free or low cost became more and more costly for something you have to submit to them by law. It is a difficult issue as most of the government IT are straight up incompetent. (Just last week they gave up on a project after spending $2 Billion AUD). The private industry would likely do a better job but then some people get rich, as opposed to a whole bunch more getting paid for what ends up in the bin.
nly 3y ago
The UK manage this and we're completely dysfunctional in many ways. Doing your taxes via self assessment is free and takes about 30mins to an hour online via HMRC. Most people also go their entire lives without "doing their taxes"
- moomin 3y ago
  Yeah, the self-assessment website isn’t exactly slick, but it’s easy to use, fills in most of the fields for you and gets the results correct. It’s not like I’m not aware of bad software by government but the taxes ain’t it. Possibly because they are, in fact, incentivised to make it good.
  - olig15 3y ago
    And most people won’t even need to fill a self assessment at all (if you’re not in the higher tax bracket it’s all handled automatically)
sealeck 3y ago
Have you tried using TurboTax? It doesn't exactly make one sing with joy.
hackerfooze 3y ago
Right - maybe we could have Bitcoin miners make the software?
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> They have no incentive to make it good. You know the drill And yet I regularly come across companies that manage to do even worse, despite having insentives. What should happen to them, Execution?
mgiampapa 3y ago
Have you ever purchased health care via healthcare.gov? It's not bad at all in my experience. It certainly gets the job done with a minimum amount of pain.
Broken_Hippo 3y ago
Government services don't have to be horrible. Taxes in Norway are a breeze, for example. You can design services so that they are easy to use for the taxpayer. If you want a more local example, take a look at the Indiana DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). The upgrades took it from "Ugh" to "maybe I can do it online or take a quick trip into a branch". It might have degraded in the last 10 years (i moved away) but I didn't mind dealing with them. Getting an apostille (special stamp for international stuff) on a document wasn't bad either - you just needed to be patient and wait on mail. Taxes can be like this. And I'll mention that the government - and you - have incentive for this. Taxes that are easy to pay and easy to fill out for the average person means that there is greater compliance. Greater compliance means more revenue, and we can spend the time and money on other things (like auditing complicated taxes instead of people using a 1040EZ)
- dasv 3y ago
  Norway is an interesting case regarding government provided services. Easy procedures, clear documentation, but then anything needing human review tends to take exactly six weeks for an answer.
- ftyers 3y ago
  Paying vehicle tax/registration at the Indiana BMV online is still easy and convenient. They even have a cute spinner of a car driving down a road... And no surprise extra charges.
rcxdude 3y ago
Tax payment is something which governments actually have a lot of incentive to get right, because it is how they get income. In countries which don't have a powerful political faction which doesn't believe the government should provide services to its citizens and sabotages attempts to do so, paying taxes is generally extremely smooth, requiring no actual effort at all from most citizens, not even filling in an online form.
ryukoposting 3y ago
It seems like things are improving. Treasury Direct recently went from "worst login system I have ever used" to "ugly but effective." OPM's SF86 form is by far the most complicated government form I have ever seen (lots of good reasons for that) but the web UI is modern, intuitive, and aesthetically pleasing. The federal student aid site always worked great. I expect the quality of government websites to improve exponentially as the old guard takes their "series of tubes" mentality out the door with them.

Vanit 3y ago

The one the govt made in Australia isn't half bad, though mygov was rough when it launched.

jalapenos 3y ago
Yeah I remember the days when their e-filing system was you had to download that year's desktop app. But it was still decent. The purely online based one now is very decent.
mianos 3y ago
You used to be able to make small business filings on their portal as well. Then it got too hard when they spent a few years making many many more rules. They then mandated you use a third party to file things like employee payments saying there would be free or cheap software to do this and listed a few. Over time the free or low cost became more and more costly for something you have to submit to them by law. It is a difficult issue as most of the government IT are straight up incompetent. (Just last week they gave up on a project after spending $2 Billion AUD). The private industry would likely do a better job but then some people get rich, as opposed to a whole bunch more getting paid for what ends up in the bin.

nly 3y ago

The UK manage this and we're completely dysfunctional in many ways. Doing your taxes via self assessment is free and takes about 30mins to an hour online via HMRC. Most people also go their entire lives without "doing their taxes"

moomin 3y ago
Yeah, the self-assessment website isn’t exactly slick, but it’s easy to use, fills in most of the fields for you and gets the results correct. It’s not like I’m not aware of bad software by government but the taxes ain’t it. Possibly because they are, in fact, incentivised to make it good.
- olig15 3y ago
  And most people won’t even need to fill a self assessment at all (if you’re not in the higher tax bracket it’s all handled automatically)

sealeck 3y ago

Have you tried using TurboTax? It doesn't exactly make one sing with joy.

hackerfooze 3y ago

Right - maybe we could have Bitcoin miners make the software?

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> They have no incentive to make it good. You know the drill And yet I regularly come across companies that manage to do even worse, despite having insentives. What should happen to them, Execution?

mgiampapa 3y ago

Have you ever purchased health care via healthcare.gov? It's not bad at all in my experience. It certainly gets the job done with a minimum amount of pain.

Broken_Hippo 3y ago

Government services don't have to be horrible. Taxes in Norway are a breeze, for example. You can design services so that they are easy to use for the taxpayer. If you want a more local example, take a look at the Indiana DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). The upgrades took it from "Ugh" to "maybe I can do it online or take a quick trip into a branch". It might have degraded in the last 10 years (i moved away) but I didn't mind dealing with them. Getting an apostille (special stamp for international stuff) on a document wasn't bad either - you just needed to be patient and wait on mail. Taxes can be like this. And I'll mention that the government - and you - have incentive for this. Taxes that are easy to pay and easy to fill out for the average person means that there is greater compliance. Greater compliance means more revenue, and we can spend the time and money on other things (like auditing complicated taxes instead of people using a 1040EZ)

dasv 3y ago
Norway is an interesting case regarding government provided services. Easy procedures, clear documentation, but then anything needing human review tends to take exactly six weeks for an answer.
ftyers 3y ago
Paying vehicle tax/registration at the Indiana BMV online is still easy and convenient. They even have a cute spinner of a car driving down a road... And no surprise extra charges.

rcxdude 3y ago

Tax payment is something which governments actually have a lot of incentive to get right, because it is how they get income. In countries which don't have a powerful political faction which doesn't believe the government should provide services to its citizens and sabotages attempts to do so, paying taxes is generally extremely smooth, requiring no actual effort at all from most citizens, not even filling in an online form.

ryukoposting 3y ago

It seems like things are improving. Treasury Direct recently went from "worst login system I have ever used" to "ugly but effective." OPM's SF86 form is by far the most complicated government form I have ever seen (lots of good reasons for that) but the web UI is modern, intuitive, and aesthetically pleasing. The federal student aid site always worked great. I expect the quality of government websites to improve exponentially as the old guard takes their "series of tubes" mentality out the door with them.