5 ms·

> (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

> (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.
- gwbas1c 3y ago
  > Have you ever paid income tax in another country (other than the US)? No, but I do know that it's much simpler. We (the US) seem to have a "not invented here" syndrome towards learning from how other countries improve over our system. > It is crazy how much work you need to do in the US ... even for a "simple" filing. The old rumor is that drug dealers and gangsters get convicted for tax evasion.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    We (the US) seem to have a "not invented here" syndrome towards learning from how other countries improve over our system. I see this pattern repeat when I speak to people from (physically) large countries: Brazil, Australia, Russia, China, etc. It seems like the larger your country, the most culturally isolated that you become. Small to medium sized countries are more willing to look outside their borders for good ideas.
- Freedom2 3y ago
  I have, and I don't disagree that other countries are vastly simpler than the average, or even most simple, US tax return. I just think it's disingenuous to paint all US tax returns as this difficult, complex beast.
  - IIsi50MHz 3y ago
    Seems ingenuous to me. Except when Tele-File was a thing, every time has been 1-4 hours of torture, hoping all the places that are required to send me forms have done so (on time & correct), hoping that I have filled everything correctly, hoping that some unknown change of requirements hasn't made my past experience with some section irrelevant or misleading, and sometimes wondering why for the exact same inputs as the previous year (as occasionally happens) I am now told that instead of getting $X back I now owe $n*X. I sometimes end up plugging the currently requested info into 2 to 4 tax prep sites (discarding the highest results, unless the lowest seemed to come from a glitchy or confusingly-worded site), because even they can give wildly different results.

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.

gwbas1c 3y ago
> Have you ever paid income tax in another country (other than the US)? No, but I do know that it's much simpler. We (the US) seem to have a "not invented here" syndrome towards learning from how other countries improve over our system. > It is crazy how much work you need to do in the US ... even for a "simple" filing. The old rumor is that drug dealers and gangsters get convicted for tax evasion.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  We (the US) seem to have a "not invented here" syndrome towards learning from how other countries improve over our system. I see this pattern repeat when I speak to people from (physically) large countries: Brazil, Australia, Russia, China, etc. It seems like the larger your country, the most culturally isolated that you become. Small to medium sized countries are more willing to look outside their borders for good ideas.
Freedom2 3y ago
I have, and I don't disagree that other countries are vastly simpler than the average, or even most simple, US tax return. I just think it's disingenuous to paint all US tax returns as this difficult, complex beast.
- IIsi50MHz 3y ago
  Seems ingenuous to me. Except when Tele-File was a thing, every time has been 1-4 hours of torture, hoping all the places that are required to send me forms have done so (on time & correct), hoping that I have filled everything correctly, hoping that some unknown change of requirements hasn't made my past experience with some section irrelevant or misleading, and sometimes wondering why for the exact same inputs as the previous year (as occasionally happens) I am now told that instead of getting $X back I now owe $n*X. I sometimes end up plugging the currently requested info into 2 to 4 tax prep sites (discarding the highest results, unless the lowest seemed to come from a glitchy or confusingly-worded site), because even they can give wildly different results.