5 ms·

There are lots of comments along the lines of "xxx is cheap" Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithe

There are lots of comments along the lines of "xxx is cheap" Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. In the boring old UK I login to a govt. run website to do my annual tax self assessment. My P60 is already filled in (that's my PAYE - pay as you earn, my normal salary) I'm a company director too so I have dividends and expenses and offsets etc to worry about. It takes around an hour to complete. Most UK employees don't do self assessment. PAYE is such a simple and obvious idea - routine taxation should be done by routine.

willdr 3y ago
You're expecting coherency in the American libertarian mindset. There is none. "why should the government control the means of tax filing! I need to be free to pay a private company to do it!"
- 0xParlay 3y ago
  Libertarians who want to pay taxes.. Now there's a powerful lobby. Have you considered starting a think tank with your political acumen lol
- MBCook 3y ago
  It’s not just that. Remember this is normal in the US. Paper sucks. Tax filing helpers (people/software) have always cost money. “The government sucks” and won’t try to help you. And, oh yeah, ads and tax prep stores everywhere. No one questions it. They don’t like it, but they accept it. Just like so many other things in the US because we’ve never seen anything else.
  - refurb 3y ago
    I’ve paid taxes in countries where it pre-filled forms. Guess what I do? I get all my forms together. Look up the numbers on the forms. Double check the entries on the fillable forms are correct. Then I get my paystubs, I check the deductions, double check the prefilled form is correct. So what did it save me over the way US taxes are done? The form prefilled the numbers, that’s it. All the rest is the same. Same collecting forms, same doubling checking math. And why? Because mistakes are made. My employer sent the wrong numbers in, so the prefilled form was incorrect and would have cost me about $1,000 in extra tax. If you want to make tax filing better, make the tax code way more simple. I’ve lived in countries where the tax form was 2 pages with 12 entires. That’s it. Now that is the way to go. I could care less about fillable forms.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - elktown 3y ago
      > So what did it save me over the way US taxes are done? The form prefilled the numbers, that’s it. All the rest is the same. Same collecting forms, same doubling checking math. I'd wager that ~90% of people where I'm from where we have pre-filled tax forms does their taxes in less than 5 min (ah, looks reasonable, click).
      - refurb 3y ago
        That's a good reason why low income people stay low income. It's your money. You'd be smart to spend more than 5 minutes to make sure it's 100% right
        elktown 3y ago
        Not everyone is a arrogant cheapskate like yourself. The actual reason is that it's 99% of the time correct due to it generally being a well-functioning system proven over time.
        refurb 3y ago
        Easy thing to say when you’re rich. In my case it was $900 difference. I guess I’m not making those fat tech dollars like you where $900 extra is “close enough”. Must be nice. But try and remember not every is rich like you. $900 is the difference between paying rent and being homeless for a lot of people.
        elktown 3y ago
        90% of people in my country means that obviously not all are rich.
        refurb 3y ago
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  *Conspiracy hat on* Paying income ta is made into an arduous task so people are likely to vote against taxes or for repeal of taxes instead of being accepted as a fact of life.
  - amake 3y ago
    No need for the hat. As I understand, that is an explicit goal of influential political operatives like Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform)
gwbas1c 3y ago
> Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe. You're supposed to calculate that yourself... (And it's so damn complicated that it's worth paying someone to do it, unless you were the kid who did the math textbook for fun.) Eventually, the IRS calculates what they think you owe, and if you underpaid, they send you a bill. You can respond explaining why they are wrong, or pay. The interest is so low that, as long as you don't goof up every year, you're better off risking underpayment than overpayment. Honestly, the system would work better if the tax prep software could see all the information the IRS has, because then it would be easier to correct their mistakes and harder to make mistakes.
- reustle 3y ago
  What's to say it doesn't start incorporating some of that data in the future? Having an official IRS tax prep tool is absolutely the first step towards that.
- bb123 3y ago
  >Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe. >Eventually, the IRS calculates what they think you owe, and if you underpaid, they send you a bill It definitely feels like a few steps could be skipped here…
- Freedom2 3y ago
  > (And it's so damn complicated that it's worth paying someone to do it, unless you were the kid who did the math textbook for fun.) The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple. Unless you're extrapolating your own experience to everyone else, that is.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple. I assume you meant "tax returns" (instead of taxes). Have you ever paid income tax in another country (other than the US)? Many highly advanced countries do not require a tax return as long you are a regular salaried employee who makes less than X (usually a pretty large number). Even interest paid from a bank account or capital gains from securities trading would be handled automatically. It is crazy how much work you need to do in the US ... even for a "simple" filing.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. You don't; you can download the forms and fill them out yourself. It's annoying but doable. That said, it really should be better; your description sounds like a good outcome.
maccard 3y ago
> Most UK employees don't do self assessment. PAYE is such a simple and obvious idea - routine taxation should be done by routine. Just to double down on this, what gerdesj is describing only affects a very small portion of workers. For those who _don't_ do the steps above the process is: - It's automatically taken out of your pay, and you don't do anything. That's it.
- Freedom2 3y ago
  An argument can be made that since Americans are inherently distrustful of any forms of government whatsoever, it emboldens them if they feel like they're the one who has agency when submitting these forms to the IRS.
ChrisRR 3y ago
Exactly. Here in the UK I get paid a salary and so my tax is just automatically calculated and deducted from my pay. Then yearly my taxable benefits are calculated by payroll and deducted from next years taxes

willdr 3y ago

You're expecting coherency in the American libertarian mindset. There is none. "why should the government control the means of tax filing! I need to be free to pay a private company to do it!"

0xParlay 3y ago
Libertarians who want to pay taxes.. Now there's a powerful lobby. Have you considered starting a think tank with your political acumen lol
MBCook 3y ago
It’s not just that. Remember this is normal in the US. Paper sucks. Tax filing helpers (people/software) have always cost money. “The government sucks” and won’t try to help you. And, oh yeah, ads and tax prep stores everywhere. No one questions it. They don’t like it, but they accept it. Just like so many other things in the US because we’ve never seen anything else.
- refurb 3y ago
  I’ve paid taxes in countries where it pre-filled forms. Guess what I do? I get all my forms together. Look up the numbers on the forms. Double check the entries on the fillable forms are correct. Then I get my paystubs, I check the deductions, double check the prefilled form is correct. So what did it save me over the way US taxes are done? The form prefilled the numbers, that’s it. All the rest is the same. Same collecting forms, same doubling checking math. And why? Because mistakes are made. My employer sent the wrong numbers in, so the prefilled form was incorrect and would have cost me about $1,000 in extra tax. If you want to make tax filing better, make the tax code way more simple. I’ve lived in countries where the tax form was 2 pages with 12 entires. That’s it. Now that is the way to go. I could care less about fillable forms.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - elktown 3y ago
    > So what did it save me over the way US taxes are done? The form prefilled the numbers, that’s it. All the rest is the same. Same collecting forms, same doubling checking math. I'd wager that ~90% of people where I'm from where we have pre-filled tax forms does their taxes in less than 5 min (ah, looks reasonable, click).
    - refurb 3y ago
      That's a good reason why low income people stay low income. It's your money. You'd be smart to spend more than 5 minutes to make sure it's 100% right
      - elktown 3y ago
        Not everyone is a arrogant cheapskate like yourself. The actual reason is that it's 99% of the time correct due to it generally being a well-functioning system proven over time.
        refurb 3y ago
        Easy thing to say when you’re rich. In my case it was $900 difference. I guess I’m not making those fat tech dollars like you where $900 extra is “close enough”. Must be nice. But try and remember not every is rich like you. $900 is the difference between paying rent and being homeless for a lot of people.
        elktown 3y ago
        90% of people in my country means that obviously not all are rich.
        refurb 3y ago
heavyset_go 3y ago
*Conspiracy hat on* Paying income ta is made into an arduous task so people are likely to vote against taxes or for repeal of taxes instead of being accepted as a fact of life.
- amake 3y ago
  No need for the hat. As I understand, that is an explicit goal of influential political operatives like Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform)

gwbas1c 3y ago

> Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe. You're supposed to calculate that yourself... (And it's so damn complicated that it's worth paying someone to do it, unless you were the kid who did the math textbook for fun.) Eventually, the IRS calculates what they think you owe, and if you underpaid, they send you a bill. You can respond explaining why they are wrong, or pay. The interest is so low that, as long as you don't goof up every year, you're better off risking underpayment than overpayment. Honestly, the system would work better if the tax prep software could see all the information the IRS has, because then it would be easier to correct their mistakes and harder to make mistakes.

reustle 3y ago
What's to say it doesn't start incorporating some of that data in the future? Having an official IRS tax prep tool is absolutely the first step towards that.
bb123 3y ago
>Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe. >Eventually, the IRS calculates what they think you owe, and if you underpaid, they send you a bill It definitely feels like a few steps could be skipped here…
Freedom2 3y ago
> (And it's so damn complicated that it's worth paying someone to do it, unless you were the kid who did the math textbook for fun.) The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple. Unless you're extrapolating your own experience to everyone else, that is.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple. I assume you meant "tax returns" (instead of taxes). Have you ever paid income tax in another country (other than the US)? Many highly advanced countries do not require a tax return as long you are a regular salaried employee who makes less than X (usually a pretty large number). Even interest paid from a bank account or capital gains from securities trading would be handled automatically. It is crazy how much work you need to do in the US ... even for a "simple" filing.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

> Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. You don't; you can download the forms and fill them out yourself. It's annoying but doable. That said, it really should be better; your description sounds like a good outcome.

maccard 3y ago

> Most UK employees don't do self assessment. PAYE is such a simple and obvious idea - routine taxation should be done by routine. Just to double down on this, what gerdesj is describing only affects a very small portion of workers. For those who _don't_ do the steps above the process is: - It's automatically taken out of your pay, and you don't do anything. That's it.

Freedom2 3y ago
An argument can be made that since Americans are inherently distrustful of any forms of government whatsoever, it emboldens them if they feel like they're the one who has agency when submitting these forms to the IRS.

ChrisRR 3y ago

Exactly. Here in the UK I get paid a salary and so my tax is just automatically calculated and deducted from my pay. Then yearly my taxable benefits are calculated by payroll and deducted from next years taxes