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Businesses will still need tax assistance. But there is no reason for a person whose income comes only from a salary, interest on savings and a brokerage accoun
by not2b 3y ago
Businesses will still need tax assistance. But there is no reason for a person whose income comes only from a salary, interest on savings and a brokerage account to need paid help to file taxes. The IRS already has all of the numbers. They could pre-fill the forms with those numbers and just have the taxpayer approve them.
- sokoloff 3y agoThe IRS processing of the data sent to them by various reporting requirements is much more like what we'd call "eventually consistent". If you ask for a transcript of your tax account ("what does the IRS know about my tax situation?") on April 15th and again 6 months later, the second report is very likely to be complete, while the first is not nearly as likely.
- not2b 3y agoSo, do it anyway and let the IRS eventually send a correction (refund or bill) in the rare cases where it makes a difference. Or allow the taxpayer to make corrections if they know about them. But probably the number of errors will go down; well-intended taxpayers often copy numbers wrong, and that probably happens more often than "eventually consistent" issues.