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Shouldn't Robots Be Doing My Taxes By Now?

113 points by luigi 14y ago

carsongross 14y ago
Another option would be to simplify the tax code to the point where normal humans could do their own taxes in a few minutes.
- draggnar 14y ago
  Is the rate at which tax codes are becoming more complex exceeding Moore's law?
- jaredsohn 14y ago
  The problem with doing that from the government perspective is that it takes away a lot of its power to shape behavior.
  - carsongross 14y ago
    That'd just be terrible, wouldn't it?
    - invalidOrTaken 14y ago
      While my knee-jerk response is to agree with you, there are some cases where we want the government to shape behavior. The best example I can think of for this is gas taxes---there's a cost to driving (road maintenance, traffic lights/signage) that you wouldn't really pay for unless it were through taxes. You could point out that that's a sales tax and thus not particularly applicable to the discussion at hand, and I'd agree, but the idea of making people pay for negative externalities is a good one.
      - carsongross 14y ago
        With an income tax? Rather than a use tax?
- protomyth 14y ago
  While were at it, why not roll all the taxes into one rate and have the IRS with their accountants divvy it up?
- jaredsohn 14y ago
  Normal humans can do their own taxes in a few minutes if they qualify for the 1040EZ. Intuit has a mobile app called SnapTax where you take a photo of your W2 and answer a few questions. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17101221 http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17101221
  - carsongross 14y ago
    That's nice for people who qualify for 1040EZ.
- roguecoder 14y ago
  But tax expenditures are the only way for anti-government types in government to spend money! ;-) The complexity doesn't come from the simple cases: it comes from the cases that are legitimately complex. Carried interest, investment gains, charitable contributions, foreign income, corporate debt and so forth aren't reducible to a simple equation. For the vast majority of Americans taxes are simple: for many of the rest, they will never be simple unless they are abolished all together.
  - carsongross 14y ago
    Carried (really, any) interest: income. Investment gains: income. Charitable contributions: good for you. Foreign income, less taxes paid upon repatriation: income. House purchase: congratulations. The tax code is complex because it gives the government power over us, because there is a huge industry built around it and because rich people can use it to their advantage.
    - ebiester 14y ago
      Agreed except for foreign income: we have treaties with most countries to avoid double taxation: If I've paid taxes to Turkey for money earned in Turkey, why do I pay it again in the US? Now, things get more complicated with foreign investments. If you've paid taxes on the investment in Ireland, you've likely paid less than you would in the US -- so that doesn't quite work. That's where things get complicated.
      - adavies42 14y ago
        should all work like multi-state commuter taxes--i live in NJ, work in NY, and my NY tax is credited against my NJ liability (leaving no liability to NJ, as NY rates are higher (at least with the extra NYC tax thrown in)). tax treaties (as exist between many states) just make the revenue sharing easier from the governments' point of view.
  - leot 14y ago
    This "but taxes are complicated" counter-argument is a canard. Under a verification-based tax system, the option would always remain available to do things the hard way (as it is today).
- jsdalton 14y ago
  There are plenty of good ideas on how to do this, for example: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/how-to-really-simplify-the-tax-code/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/how-to-really-s... Unfortunately, the political will to implement these ideas is almost entirely lacking. Also, while most people claim to object to tax credits to special interests in principle, in reality they only object to tax credits that other people enjoy.
vyrotek 14y ago
My father did mainframe dev contract work for the IRS and once told me it's a miracle you even get your tax returns every year. :) There's quite a mess behind the scenes due to a number of failed new projects at the cost of taxpayer money. I wish we could automate all of this but taxes themselves are also still a sort of art with all the exceptions. Technically there are rules about when you qualify for things but from my experience accounting firms operate more like law firms in that they help you figure out how to meet the bare minimum to legally qualify for various returns.
- protomyth 14y ago
  They just put in a new system over the Xmas break and it is even worse from a customer service perspective than before (almost impossible to talk to a human). Although the fonts on the letters they send you are nicer :)
- francoisdevlin 14y ago
  > accounting firms operate more like law firms in that they help you figure out how to meet the bare minimum to legally qualify for various returns My wife is a CPA, and many dinner conversations sound just like this.
citricsquid 14y ago
I'm not sure what the comparison between UK (where I am) and US taxes is, but I found the process here very easy. I load up an online form, I fill in the data and click submit, they tell me how much I owe and I pay. Very easy, the hardest part is saying goodbye to all that money.
- untog 14y ago
  The comparison, sadly, is totally different. The UK system is relatively simple (I never even had to do a tax return when living there), the US system is a byzantine labyrinth.
petercooper 14y ago
It can be done. In the UK, most people don't even do a tax return. And let's say you're self employed.. if your tax affairs are reasonably straight forward, you fill out a handful of numbers and dates on a Web site, get an estimated tax bill within minutes, and you're done. You then get sent a proper statement later. In a system with flat taxes, it'd be even easier. I think the author touches on the real problems in the last couple of paragraphs. The American government isn't particularly good at spearheading initiatives that benefit voters without allowing "lobbyists" or commercial interests to take over. It also doesn't help that you have the federal and state structure (as good as it may be for other things) since the decisions can't be taken by one central place given all the local tax laws.
- Symmetry 14y ago
  I seem to recall that there's something about the way the way that the US income tax works, legally, that prevents that from happening. That is, your income tax has to be something you pay rather than something someone pays for you.
  - dsr_ 14y ago
    Most people have their employer automatically deduct a chunk each paycheck. The annual forms are to figure out exactly how much you owe and whether you need to make up the difference or get a refund check. Most people get refunds. It's more complicated for the self-employed, or if you don't want to loan the government money for free.
    - petercooper 14y ago
      Most employed people in the UK also have their employer deduct taxes from their paychecks. The difference, though, is that if that happens and if someone doesn't declare their tax affairs as being more complex, the tax authorities assume everything is order and no tax return is required. I suspect other things have an impact on this system working though, such as the much lower ownership of shares and tax-attracting investments in the UK, as well as the generous tax-free allowance for capital gains (I'd need to make a realized gain of something like $20k in a year to pay any tax on shares, for example.)
dangoldin 14y ago
Estonia could be a good model for this - supposedly over 90% of people file online within 5 minutes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-ussr-shadow-internet-titan http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-uss...
francoisdevlin 14y ago
As a developer who's married to a CPA, here are my thoughts: 1. Taxes are a hard problem. Besides basic W2s, There are a lot of deductions to know about, and it's hard to keep track of all of them. 2. Depreciation schedules. They vary from item to item, and there's a bit of a grey area on what you can use, and what you can't. What can have bonus depreciation? 3. Calculating cost basis is too damn hard for most of us. Not just stocks, but partnerships as well. 4. When can you take a distribution from a business? How many times is that money taxed? 5. Add another 50 use cases, one for each state. 6. How do the states interact for individuals with diverse activity? Easily 2^50 cases here, and my gut say more like 50! 7. Foreign activity. Good luck with that. The bottom line is there still is enough complexity that this needs to be done manually. Not to mention there are a lot of things that are legitimate judgement calls, and vary from accountant to accountant (or auditor to auditor when dealing with the IRS). So, that's why robot's aren't doing my taxes any time soon.
- dmm 14y ago
  About 60% of tax payers submit a 1040A or 1040ez return. This is a dead simple return. The IRS already has all of the information needed to process these returns. The IRS could trivially set up a website that has two pages: 1. Verify this information is correct. 2. Where should we mail the check. The _only_ reason they don't is that there is a HUGE industry that exists solely to fill out these trivial forms for intimidated people. HR block, et al will never allow the tax system to be simple.
  - eli 14y ago
    Normally I dismiss statements like "the lobby for X is the reason why things suck," but in this case I think you're at least partly right. H&R Block has literally spent millions lobbying against tax reform bills.
    - sehugg 14y ago
      Not just H&R Block: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000026667 http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000026667
ableal 14y ago
Beware answered prayers. Over in my corner, we have a State provided income tax simulator and filer. Not too pretty, but correct and useful; it's done in Java and runs under Windows, MacOS and Linux. It's been so successful that most tax returns are nowadays filed with it, and quite a few public offices where people used to queue up to file their (paper) returns have been closed. There was never much of a setup/tradition of filing by mail like in the U.S. Over the last couple of years, they've improved data cross-referencing to the point where I can get most of my form pre-filled from the government.
- zyphlar 14y ago
  The horrors of Java! It's a single app, and it's cross-platform... oooooh. Now sit down and let me tell you a tale of Intuit.
- trafficlight 14y ago
  And what's the downside to that?
- tnorthcutt 14y ago
  Beware answered prayers. I don't understand. Are you saying that your scenario/reality is a bad thing?
Spoom 14y ago
This seems like a startup opportunity. Take photos of your standardized forms, upload them to a server, server calculates your taxes, only asking questions when the pertinent data is missing from the forms. IMHO this service should be offered by the government(s) themselves (and if it was, it would mean even less data needed to be entered; after all, they have copies of all your forms already), but fat chance on that.
- jaredsohn 14y ago
  Intuit TurboTax (http://www.turbotax.com http://www.turbotax.com) has been doing this for years, but charges ~$50 for federal and ~$30 for state (and a little more if you have a business.)
- mhp 14y ago
  This is exactly what HRBlock and Intuit currently do. They have hooks into all the payroll processors and investment companies and will download your W2s and any 1099s from the relevant company. Then you just answer a bunch of questions. The problem is that a private company shouldn't have to offer this service. The government should do it for you for free because it helps them get their money faster and easier. However, as the article and others noted, those private companies realize this would be very bad for their business and have lobbied to stop it.
untog 14y ago
I was on a StartupBus to SXSW this year- at the pitching stage, one of the guys pitched an idea based around simplifying people's taxes. He was a qualified CPA himself, and had years of experience working in the tax industry. No-one volunteered to work on his idea. The winning StartupBus team was a site that let you make your own custom breakfast cereal. I suspect that if we want to ask "why isn't tedious process [x] automated by now?", we should be looking at ourselves for answers.
- molsongolden 14y ago
  Do you know who the CPA was? Is he still working on the idea?
  - untog 14y ago
    He is- looking at his blog he actually submitted a YC application: http://www.cameronkeng.com/ http://www.cameronkeng.com/ (after the first day on the bus he and another guy broke off from their team to work on the tax idea- so it wasn't a total lost cause, but wasn't the highlight of the competition that it could have been)
rweba 14y ago
THIS: "Better yet: since the agency is already receiving that data from all those financial institutions through a separate stream, how about organizing the data for me and simply letting me sign off on my automatically-generated return? I suspect that a lot of people would like that, given that the alternative is spending a spring day doing paperwork." Especially for those who only have a single W2 or a similarly simple state of affairs, it is quite ridiculous the amount of pain you have to go through (and preparation fees you have to pay) CONSIDERING THE GOVERNMENT ALREADY HAS THE INFORMATION! I definitely think tax preparation firms are lobbying to keep from simplifying the preparation process. I remember one year around 2005 or so I was able to file my (federal) return by telephone directly with the IRS for FREE (I was a student and had only the one W2) and it was relatively painless but the next year the option seems to have disappeared. Anyone remember that?
- crusso 14y ago
  Not only do they have the information, but they also are already calculating your taxes. How do you think they determine that you've made an error?
doc4t 14y ago
The real problem is not the lack of systems but the ridiculous complexity of tax law. Since the complexity is unlikely to go away any system would have to handle it - and this is not an easy task. Given that the OP works for an organization which is "focused on digitization of government data" it is quite peculiar that he doesn't understand the problem domain any better. It's quite a joke to think that it's a matter of throwing in some web forms here and there. In complexity I would say it's up there with his favorite Apollo quote. Maybe not on par - but close. Just thinking about the size of the rule engine which is required makes my head hurt.
- a3camero 14y ago
  Not just complexity, but vagueness. Good luck writing a program that calculates what's "reasonable". Was the construction work a "repair" or an "upgrade"? How about determining what would be a reasonable amount for someone to pay if they were in the shoes of the businessperson but dealing at arm's length?
ErikRogneby 14y ago
Back before my life got a whole lot more complicated and I was a simple wage slave I recall filing my 1040EZ by phone. This was maybe 15 years ago.
smackfu 14y ago
The 1040EZ is not exactly a hard form to fill out: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040ez.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040ez.pdf One side of a piece of paper. You enter 12 numbers, and need to look up one value in a table too see how much tax you owe.
pgroves 14y ago
I work on optimization software and I'm pretty sure you could do some serious damage to the government's tax collection efforts if you hooked up a genetic algorithm to some very good accounting software to minimize taxes. The problem with GA's is that they frequently exploit loopholes in their setups, so you get solutions that technically satisfy your evaluation criteria but it's not what you really want. This process is basically what corporate accountants do manually to get ridiculously low tax rates for big companies. Congress writes the tax code but it will always have loopholes, and GA's will definitely find them. Here's a recent blog post of mine that goes into some of the problems with GA's, which when you're looking for loopholes is actually a huge advantage: http://designbyrobots.com/2012/03/29/evolution-is-cleverer-than-you/ http://designbyrobots.com/2012/03/29/evolution-is-cleverer-t...
asnyder 14y ago
I'm pretty sure Intuit lobbied pretty hard to kill any and all progress that would allow most people to have their taxes automatically completed for them, equivalent to the 1040AUTO mentioned in some of the other comments. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100723/09055310339.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100723/09055310339.shtml
fidotron 14y ago
My concern about this is that if we fail to simplify taxation laws before any singularity then we'll reach the point where only robots are capable of processing taxes. I have to echo the comments here about the UK system. It's unbelievable to someone that's only experienced the Inland Revenue, but they're about the biggest non-event ever when compared to their equivalents elsewhere.
gcb 14y ago
SEVERAL countries does taxes electronically --and i don't mean the lame way irs does here, where doing it eletronically means auto-filling two boxes in the PDF to take somewhere else later. Brazil, 3rd world mind you, has a java application (for years) where you fill in some boxes and it not only calculates everything it also allows you to compare different ways to use your exemptions. It's not very good if you have a corporation, but that's because they choose so. not because oh my god it's impossible to code something so complex. Everyone talking about how difficult it is to implement all the rules have no idea how software works apparently. if it's already worded as rules, you can code something to work with them just like a human reading those rules. People code more complex systems than taxes every hour. Now, if you take the irs.gov experience i just had this month... every link is link-bait to PAID services. And that's the ONLY reason we don't have robots doing our taxes. Someone that already have robots doing our taxes make enough money to pass legislations that allows them to put links in the IRS own site that have more visibility than link to the forms. tl;dr capitalism, bitches.
sophacles 14y ago
The thing is, complicate tax code is merely a welfare program for tax lawyers and accountants. If we made taxes easy, or automated parts of the process that are the same for everyone, we would be cutting off the supply of money to the leeches. Since they don't want that, and they are better at being parasites than the groups normally attacked for parasitism (teachers, postal workers etc), they successfully lobby against making taxes easier for most people.
jarrett 14y ago
Here's a fun example of why the government should maintain its own databases and use them to pre-fill your taxes. This year, the state sent me a letter claiming I had paid zero taxes in 2010. They said I had to pay 100% of my tax liability right away or face liens, etc.. Of course, this was patently untrue--my employer had actually withheld more than my total tax liability for 2010. (I know this because I still have my 2010 W-2). So I was entitled to a refund for 2010, but the state was saying I owed them the full amount, plus penalties. After contacting the state about this, they said the problem was that my W-2 form had likely become "detached" from my 2010 return. So apparently, the state relies on a paper copy of your W-2 attached to your return to determine whether your employer has paid them the withheld taxes. If they can't find the W-2 you send them, they assume your employer didn't pay them anything on your behalf. Given that employers are already making electronic payments each quarter, why can't the government just derive its W-2 data from that? (I know, I know--they're probably not collecting that data right now. But the point is they could do it as part of the quarterly payment process.) EDIT: Another funny bit to this story. I asked the state to confirm that my employer had indeed paid the amount reflected on my W-2. I figured that if the error was on my employer's end, I could take it up with them. But the state refused to say one way or another, citing confidentiality.
- matwood 14y ago
  I've wondered the same thing. This year the state asked me to supply a paper copy of my W2 to verify my electronic return submission. Are things so messed up at the state level that they don't know who paid what and when? Why couldn't they just look up in their database that says I paid $X and it matches box 3 on form Y. For extra credit they could do this using this new technology called a computer.
  - jarrett 14y ago
    I don't know much about the state forms, but look at the IRS withholding form: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f941.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f941.pdf I don't see anything on there where the employer would break down the payroll tax by employee. Does anyone know if there's some other mechanism for this? Do employers send all W-2s to the IRS?
patio11 14y ago
There exists a school of thought that says making taxes painful is a great way to remind you that taxes have visible consequences on your life just like spending does, which is a point of non-trivial interest ot the American polity. Someone subscribing to that school of thought might rationally oppose non-economic ways to make taxation less painful as a way to prevent a transition to invisible (or even fun!) higher taxes. I'm stopping here to avoid committing politics on HN.
- paulhauggis 14y ago
  It's funny you mention this. I worked at an e-commerce store that shipped a lot internationally. In the beginning, we had calculations for all of the tariffs and taxes required to ship and added that to the end (ups would allow us to pay for this up-front to make it easier for our customers). Customers would bitch at us all the time about how our prices were too high. We changed it so they had to pay for all of this separately (and so they knew that we weren't the ones increasing prices) and the bitching stopped. It's one of the reasons I don't want taxes hidden on goods sold in the US. Because people won't think about it and won't really know when the government starts raising taxes. They will just assume it's the big, evil, companies overcharging. It's happening right now with gas. Many states have additional taxes/gallon and people just assume it's the stations.
  - eru 14y ago
    In Europe taxes (like VAT and those on petrol) are usually included in quoted prices, and people are quite aware of them.
    - rmc 14y ago
      Not really. In Ireland & the UK, VAT in the region of (22%ish or 17%ish), prices of goods in shops and online are quoted 'VAT inclusive' (likewise petrol), it's only 'trade', i.e. companies that sell products to other business (who then have to charge VAT to the general public) are sold 'ex VAT'.
      - 14y ago
mattgreenrocks 14y ago
Why debate the complexities of filing taxes when the tax code is kept needlessly complicated?
patrickod 14y ago
There are many good reasons to move to the US but having just done so I look around at friends filing and complaining about their taxes and dread having to do it myself.
jes5199 14y ago
I do my taxes on paper! I'm a professional software engineer. I know how software works and how it doesn't work. I don't trust automated tax software at all. Fortunately, even the 1040 long form is a simple pen&paper algorithm that I can do in a couple hours.
pork 14y ago
Have you been to H&R block? They already are!
drcube 14y ago
I once complained on a message board that sales tax should be included in the sticker price, so that I know ahead of time what I'm going to pay. I still feel that way, but someone pointed out that it would further hide from consumers the fact that the government takes money out of every transaction. Now I contend that every sticker should tell me both the price with taxes, and the price without. This would make it very clear how much I would have to pay without government intrusion, and how much extra they get from me. I'm getting the same vibe here with income taxes. Taxes used to be a much more contentious issue before it was taken out of every paycheck prior to the worker seeing the money. Now the single pain point in paying taxes is an hour's worth of paperwork once a year. Eliminate that friction, and the government becomes an invisible siphon, sucking money right out of the economy, with hardly anyone noticing. By all means, make paying taxes easier, but don't obscure the fact that someone is taking your money, all the time, without giving you a choice in the matter.
- angersock 14y ago
  That's the price for living in a civilization that provides enough safety for having a source of reliable income, and a market to spend it in. Not that the US government is really doing a good job allocating that price or spending the proceeds, mind you, but please don't go all "MAH TAX DOLLAHS".
  - drcube 14y ago
    I'm not. To clarify, I'm only advocating that "the price for living in a civilization" not be hidden from those who must pay it. Look at it this way: Taxpayer awareness is a cost to the government. If they could reduce or eliminate that awareness, they could raise more taxes. I don't think it makes me a right wing radical to suggest that there should be a hurdle or two for the government to jump before they can raise taxes.
    - leot 14y ago
      The U.S. is already tax-obsessed, to its own detriment.
- 14y ago
zeroonetwothree 14y ago
Assuming our tax law remains insane, I actually prefer having private tax preparers. The IRS's incentive is clearly to make me pay much tax as possible, whereas for private tax preparers it's to make me pay as little tax as possible. If our tax law were simple there wouldn't be much difference between the two, but in its current state there is. Thus I think the tension between the two groups is healthy.
CoryMathews 14y ago
The bigger question is why am I still doing taxes once a year?
- sp332 14y ago
  How often do you think it should happen? Federal income tax is once a year. Sales tax, tolls on roads, etc. happen much more often.
rogerbinns 14y ago
If I was ever elected president, I would direct congress to reduce the size of the tax code by 10% each year. If they fail to do so then 10% are automatically eliminated - eg all those whose last digit of the article number is 3. The real reason for why things are so screwed up is corrupt politicians who use their power as a fund raising mechanism. For example there were several taxes added temporarily to see if they worked well. They did, but congress doesn't make them permanent. Instead they wait to be paid each time to renew them temporarily again. (This started in the Reagan administration.) See this excellent talk by Lessig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc The whole tax provisions as fund raising is covered at 7m30s.
jlm382 14y ago
Auto-generating a tax return is one thing. Taking advantage of all your potential tax benefits and considering your edge cases is another thing. I've seen tax returns for many of inDinero's customers, and it's clear to me that their previous accountants took shortcuts in compiling the return. Yes, it'll get filed. But there were probably more tax advantageous things they could have / should have done. Consider these examples: 1 - tax credits. How is the government supposed to automatically know that you're paying for child care? How are they to know that you just installed solar panels on your roof or that you just purchased an electric vehicle? Sure, they can make this "automatic" -- but then you'd still be going out of your way to report your purchase, and this is in no way simpler than the current solution today. 2 - does it make sense to be taxed as a partnership or sole-proprietor? For a lot of our customers, they're basically flushing $20k down the toilet because they didn't want to go through the tiny nuisance of filing as an S-Corporation. Pretty sure you don't want the IRS to dictate your tax treatment. 3 - should you depreciate your Aeron chairs over multiple years, or do accelerated depreciation which will allow you to deduct the entire amount in a single year? The IRS gives us the flexibility to choose, and it's questions like these that may require the help of a tax professional. 4 - deducting vehicle expenses. How is the IRS supposed to figure out how many miles on your car were used for business VS personal purposes? 5 - what part of your apartment was used exclusively for hacking? No way for the IRS to know that the number is 250/1500 square feet. In short, putting together a tax return isn't that hard. The difficult part is hunting down all of this other information that we have no way of just knowing. Instead of asking why robots couldn't be doing our taxes by now, we might rephrase the question to read "how can we do year-round accounting in such a way that taxes are 10X easier to take care of?"
bajsejohannes 14y ago
Some countries do already. In Norway, you get a your tax papers (well, paper; it's only one sheet) pre-filled. You only have to take action if they got it wrong. At least this works for normal employees. It gets slightly worse when you have your own company.
cs702 14y ago
It won't be happening any time soon. Here's why: http://www.republicreport.org/2012/corruption-taxes-fivemins/ http://www.republicreport.org/2012/corruption-taxes-fivemins...
Joeri 14y ago
Belgium has had this for a few years now. In my case everything is prefilled, even the deduction for charitable donations. Basically this is a US-specific problem. You can see a flash demo (in dutch) of the belgian tax-on-web app here: https://eservices.minfin.fgov.be/taxonweb/static/nl/demo_v2/player.html https://eservices.minfin.fgov.be/taxonweb/static/nl/demo_v2/...
- jamaicahest 14y ago
  Was going to say the same is the case here in Denmark. Your employer reports your earnings, your banks report your balances, etc. And if you need to enter some extra information, like mortgage interests or driving reimbursement it's all done through a website and a new report is generated instantly. I suspect all this automatic reporting might clash with the average american's perception of personal privacy.
mindslight 14y ago
The flawed assumption being that tithes are solely financial. The government would be content to burn your "money" in a pit; your submission and mental buy-in are what it's really after.
camz 14y ago
I'm working on a tax startup. The two products we're working on right now is taxcast.co (semi-finalist on the startupbus at SXSW) and autotax.me. Taxcast.co is a system that forecasts your tax deductions, audit proofs your information and calculates your current and future tax liability. you can check out the demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CuvWkKW4w&context=C44040d8ADvjVQa1PpcFMR8iGVGidoILkFShlJzk1Av-qJay210Hw= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CuvWkKW4w&context=C4404... Autotax.me is going to help you deal with your independent contractors. It contracts, files and audit proofs your 1099 taxes. It's almost like an HR/Tax service in one. You can check it out now but its still really rough/ugly. The functions work but there's no real UI so that's what I'm going to be finishing up. Any questions, you can check out cameronkeng.com if you're interested in any of these products, shoot me an email at cameronkeng@gmail.com or tweet me @cameronkeng =D
stretchwithme 14y ago
I owed them money a few years back and had to pay them using some online payment system. It was necessary to do this because they failed to implement the payment plan that they agreed to. So interest was piling up and they weren't withdrawing what I owed them. So I sign up on this system. They had to MAIL me the password. By USPS mail! So it finally comes. I log in and pay off the entire amount. Later, I find out that the system applied the payment to the wrong year. Apparently this was my fault somehow, as the system defaults to the current year, not the year that you owe on. So I have to call to get that straightened out. The person applies the payment to the correct year. yea! Now can I find out my balance? Is it paid off? "Let me transfer you to the department that can do that." Apparently, that's a different skill set altogether. No way to check it online. Why would you ever need to do that? Finally get to a person who can tell me. And it turns out they started the original withdrawal of funds from my bank. So now they owed ME money. And that came by paper check, delivered by USPS of course.

113 points by luigi 14y ago

Another option would be to simplify the tax code to the point where normal humans could do their own taxes in a few minutes.

draggnar 14y ago
Is the rate at which tax codes are becoming more complex exceeding Moore's law?
jaredsohn 14y ago
The problem with doing that from the government perspective is that it takes away a lot of its power to shape behavior.
- carsongross 14y ago
  That'd just be terrible, wouldn't it?
  - invalidOrTaken 14y ago
    While my knee-jerk response is to agree with you, there are some cases where we want the government to shape behavior. The best example I can think of for this is gas taxes---there's a cost to driving (road maintenance, traffic lights/signage) that you wouldn't really pay for unless it were through taxes. You could point out that that's a sales tax and thus not particularly applicable to the discussion at hand, and I'd agree, but the idea of making people pay for negative externalities is a good one.
    - carsongross 14y ago
      With an income tax? Rather than a use tax?
protomyth 14y ago
While were at it, why not roll all the taxes into one rate and have the IRS with their accountants divvy it up?
jaredsohn 14y ago
Normal humans can do their own taxes in a few minutes if they qualify for the 1040EZ. Intuit has a mobile app called SnapTax where you take a photo of your W2 and answer a few questions. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17101221 http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17101221
- carsongross 14y ago
  That's nice for people who qualify for 1040EZ.
roguecoder 14y ago
But tax expenditures are the only way for anti-government types in government to spend money! ;-) The complexity doesn't come from the simple cases: it comes from the cases that are legitimately complex. Carried interest, investment gains, charitable contributions, foreign income, corporate debt and so forth aren't reducible to a simple equation. For the vast majority of Americans taxes are simple: for many of the rest, they will never be simple unless they are abolished all together.
- carsongross 14y ago
  Carried (really, any) interest: income. Investment gains: income. Charitable contributions: good for you. Foreign income, less taxes paid upon repatriation: income. House purchase: congratulations. The tax code is complex because it gives the government power over us, because there is a huge industry built around it and because rich people can use it to their advantage.
  - ebiester 14y ago
    Agreed except for foreign income: we have treaties with most countries to avoid double taxation: If I've paid taxes to Turkey for money earned in Turkey, why do I pay it again in the US? Now, things get more complicated with foreign investments. If you've paid taxes on the investment in Ireland, you've likely paid less than you would in the US -- so that doesn't quite work. That's where things get complicated.
    - adavies42 14y ago
      should all work like multi-state commuter taxes--i live in NJ, work in NY, and my NY tax is credited against my NJ liability (leaving no liability to NJ, as NY rates are higher (at least with the extra NYC tax thrown in)). tax treaties (as exist between many states) just make the revenue sharing easier from the governments' point of view.
- leot 14y ago
  This "but taxes are complicated" counter-argument is a canard. Under a verification-based tax system, the option would always remain available to do things the hard way (as it is today).
jsdalton 14y ago
There are plenty of good ideas on how to do this, for example: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/how-to-really-simplify-the-tax-code/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/how-to-really-s... Unfortunately, the political will to implement these ideas is almost entirely lacking. Also, while most people claim to object to tax credits to special interests in principle, in reality they only object to tax credits that other people enjoy.

vyrotek 14y ago

My father did mainframe dev contract work for the IRS and once told me it's a miracle you even get your tax returns every year. :) There's quite a mess behind the scenes due to a number of failed new projects at the cost of taxpayer money. I wish we could automate all of this but taxes themselves are also still a sort of art with all the exceptions. Technically there are rules about when you qualify for things but from my experience accounting firms operate more like law firms in that they help you figure out how to meet the bare minimum to legally qualify for various returns.

protomyth 14y ago
They just put in a new system over the Xmas break and it is even worse from a customer service perspective than before (almost impossible to talk to a human). Although the fonts on the letters they send you are nicer :)
francoisdevlin 14y ago
> accounting firms operate more like law firms in that they help you figure out how to meet the bare minimum to legally qualify for various returns My wife is a CPA, and many dinner conversations sound just like this.

citricsquid 14y ago

I'm not sure what the comparison between UK (where I am) and US taxes is, but I found the process here very easy. I load up an online form, I fill in the data and click submit, they tell me how much I owe and I pay. Very easy, the hardest part is saying goodbye to all that money.

untog 14y ago
The comparison, sadly, is totally different. The UK system is relatively simple (I never even had to do a tax return when living there), the US system is a byzantine labyrinth.

petercooper 14y ago

It can be done. In the UK, most people don't even do a tax return. And let's say you're self employed.. if your tax affairs are reasonably straight forward, you fill out a handful of numbers and dates on a Web site, get an estimated tax bill within minutes, and you're done. You then get sent a proper statement later. In a system with flat taxes, it'd be even easier. I think the author touches on the real problems in the last couple of paragraphs. The American government isn't particularly good at spearheading initiatives that benefit voters without allowing "lobbyists" or commercial interests to take over. It also doesn't help that you have the federal and state structure (as good as it may be for other things) since the decisions can't be taken by one central place given all the local tax laws.

Symmetry 14y ago
I seem to recall that there's something about the way the way that the US income tax works, legally, that prevents that from happening. That is, your income tax has to be something you pay rather than something someone pays for you.
- dsr_ 14y ago
  Most people have their employer automatically deduct a chunk each paycheck. The annual forms are to figure out exactly how much you owe and whether you need to make up the difference or get a refund check. Most people get refunds. It's more complicated for the self-employed, or if you don't want to loan the government money for free.
  - petercooper 14y ago
    Most employed people in the UK also have their employer deduct taxes from their paychecks. The difference, though, is that if that happens and if someone doesn't declare their tax affairs as being more complex, the tax authorities assume everything is order and no tax return is required. I suspect other things have an impact on this system working though, such as the much lower ownership of shares and tax-attracting investments in the UK, as well as the generous tax-free allowance for capital gains (I'd need to make a realized gain of something like $20k in a year to pay any tax on shares, for example.)

dangoldin 14y ago

Estonia could be a good model for this - supposedly over 90% of people file online within 5 minutes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-ussr-shadow-internet-titan http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-uss...

francoisdevlin 14y ago

As a developer who's married to a CPA, here are my thoughts: 1. Taxes are a hard problem. Besides basic W2s, There are a lot of deductions to know about, and it's hard to keep track of all of them. 2. Depreciation schedules. They vary from item to item, and there's a bit of a grey area on what you can use, and what you can't. What can have bonus depreciation? 3. Calculating cost basis is too damn hard for most of us. Not just stocks, but partnerships as well. 4. When can you take a distribution from a business? How many times is that money taxed? 5. Add another 50 use cases, one for each state. 6. How do the states interact for individuals with diverse activity? Easily 2^50 cases here, and my gut say more like 50! 7. Foreign activity. Good luck with that. The bottom line is there still is enough complexity that this needs to be done manually. Not to mention there are a lot of things that are legitimate judgement calls, and vary from accountant to accountant (or auditor to auditor when dealing with the IRS). So, that's why robot's aren't doing my taxes any time soon.

dmm 14y ago
About 60% of tax payers submit a 1040A or 1040ez return. This is a dead simple return. The IRS already has all of the information needed to process these returns. The IRS could trivially set up a website that has two pages: 1. Verify this information is correct. 2. Where should we mail the check. The _only_ reason they don't is that there is a HUGE industry that exists solely to fill out these trivial forms for intimidated people. HR block, et al will never allow the tax system to be simple.
- eli 14y ago
  Normally I dismiss statements like "the lobby for X is the reason why things suck," but in this case I think you're at least partly right. H&R Block has literally spent millions lobbying against tax reform bills.
  - sehugg 14y ago
    Not just H&R Block: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000026667 http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000026667

ableal 14y ago

Beware answered prayers. Over in my corner, we have a State provided income tax simulator and filer. Not too pretty, but correct and useful; it's done in Java and runs under Windows, MacOS and Linux. It's been so successful that most tax returns are nowadays filed with it, and quite a few public offices where people used to queue up to file their (paper) returns have been closed. There was never much of a setup/tradition of filing by mail like in the U.S. Over the last couple of years, they've improved data cross-referencing to the point where I can get most of my form pre-filled from the government.

zyphlar 14y ago
The horrors of Java! It's a single app, and it's cross-platform... oooooh. Now sit down and let me tell you a tale of Intuit.
trafficlight 14y ago
And what's the downside to that?
tnorthcutt 14y ago
Beware answered prayers. I don't understand. Are you saying that your scenario/reality is a bad thing?

Spoom 14y ago

This seems like a startup opportunity. Take photos of your standardized forms, upload them to a server, server calculates your taxes, only asking questions when the pertinent data is missing from the forms. IMHO this service should be offered by the government(s) themselves (and if it was, it would mean even less data needed to be entered; after all, they have copies of all your forms already), but fat chance on that.

jaredsohn 14y ago
Intuit TurboTax (http://www.turbotax.com http://www.turbotax.com) has been doing this for years, but charges ~$50 for federal and ~$30 for state (and a little more if you have a business.)
mhp 14y ago
This is exactly what HRBlock and Intuit currently do. They have hooks into all the payroll processors and investment companies and will download your W2s and any 1099s from the relevant company. Then you just answer a bunch of questions. The problem is that a private company shouldn't have to offer this service. The government should do it for you for free because it helps them get their money faster and easier. However, as the article and others noted, those private companies realize this would be very bad for their business and have lobbied to stop it.

untog 14y ago

I was on a StartupBus to SXSW this year- at the pitching stage, one of the guys pitched an idea based around simplifying people's taxes. He was a qualified CPA himself, and had years of experience working in the tax industry. No-one volunteered to work on his idea. The winning StartupBus team was a site that let you make your own custom breakfast cereal. I suspect that if we want to ask "why isn't tedious process [x] automated by now?", we should be looking at ourselves for answers.

molsongolden 14y ago
Do you know who the CPA was? Is he still working on the idea?
- untog 14y ago
  He is- looking at his blog he actually submitted a YC application: http://www.cameronkeng.com/ http://www.cameronkeng.com/ (after the first day on the bus he and another guy broke off from their team to work on the tax idea- so it wasn't a total lost cause, but wasn't the highlight of the competition that it could have been)

rweba 14y ago

THIS: "Better yet: since the agency is already receiving that data from all those financial institutions through a separate stream, how about organizing the data for me and simply letting me sign off on my automatically-generated return? I suspect that a lot of people would like that, given that the alternative is spending a spring day doing paperwork." Especially for those who only have a single W2 or a similarly simple state of affairs, it is quite ridiculous the amount of pain you have to go through (and preparation fees you have to pay) CONSIDERING THE GOVERNMENT ALREADY HAS THE INFORMATION! I definitely think tax preparation firms are lobbying to keep from simplifying the preparation process. I remember one year around 2005 or so I was able to file my (federal) return by telephone directly with the IRS for FREE (I was a student and had only the one W2) and it was relatively painless but the next year the option seems to have disappeared. Anyone remember that?

crusso 14y ago
Not only do they have the information, but they also are already calculating your taxes. How do you think they determine that you've made an error?

doc4t 14y ago

The real problem is not the lack of systems but the ridiculous complexity of tax law. Since the complexity is unlikely to go away any system would have to handle it - and this is not an easy task. Given that the OP works for an organization which is "focused on digitization of government data" it is quite peculiar that he doesn't understand the problem domain any better. It's quite a joke to think that it's a matter of throwing in some web forms here and there. In complexity I would say it's up there with his favorite Apollo quote. Maybe not on par - but close. Just thinking about the size of the rule engine which is required makes my head hurt.

a3camero 14y ago
Not just complexity, but vagueness. Good luck writing a program that calculates what's "reasonable". Was the construction work a "repair" or an "upgrade"? How about determining what would be a reasonable amount for someone to pay if they were in the shoes of the businessperson but dealing at arm's length?

ErikRogneby 14y ago

Back before my life got a whole lot more complicated and I was a simple wage slave I recall filing my 1040EZ by phone. This was maybe 15 years ago.

smackfu 14y ago

The 1040EZ is not exactly a hard form to fill out: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040ez.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040ez.pdf One side of a piece of paper. You enter 12 numbers, and need to look up one value in a table too see how much tax you owe.

pgroves 14y ago

I work on optimization software and I'm pretty sure you could do some serious damage to the government's tax collection efforts if you hooked up a genetic algorithm to some very good accounting software to minimize taxes. The problem with GA's is that they frequently exploit loopholes in their setups, so you get solutions that technically satisfy your evaluation criteria but it's not what you really want. This process is basically what corporate accountants do manually to get ridiculously low tax rates for big companies. Congress writes the tax code but it will always have loopholes, and GA's will definitely find them. Here's a recent blog post of mine that goes into some of the problems with GA's, which when you're looking for loopholes is actually a huge advantage: http://designbyrobots.com/2012/03/29/evolution-is-cleverer-than-you/ http://designbyrobots.com/2012/03/29/evolution-is-cleverer-t...

asnyder 14y ago

I'm pretty sure Intuit lobbied pretty hard to kill any and all progress that would allow most people to have their taxes automatically completed for them, equivalent to the 1040AUTO mentioned in some of the other comments. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100723/09055310339.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100723/09055310339.shtml

fidotron 14y ago

My concern about this is that if we fail to simplify taxation laws before any singularity then we'll reach the point where only robots are capable of processing taxes. I have to echo the comments here about the UK system. It's unbelievable to someone that's only experienced the Inland Revenue, but they're about the biggest non-event ever when compared to their equivalents elsewhere.

gcb 14y ago

SEVERAL countries does taxes electronically --and i don't mean the lame way irs does here, where doing it eletronically means auto-filling two boxes in the PDF to take somewhere else later. Brazil, 3rd world mind you, has a java application (for years) where you fill in some boxes and it not only calculates everything it also allows you to compare different ways to use your exemptions. It's not very good if you have a corporation, but that's because they choose so. not because oh my god it's impossible to code something so complex. Everyone talking about how difficult it is to implement all the rules have no idea how software works apparently. if it's already worded as rules, you can code something to work with them just like a human reading those rules. People code more complex systems than taxes every hour. Now, if you take the irs.gov experience i just had this month... every link is link-bait to PAID services. And that's the ONLY reason we don't have robots doing our taxes. Someone that already have robots doing our taxes make enough money to pass legislations that allows them to put links in the IRS own site that have more visibility than link to the forms. tl;dr capitalism, bitches.

sophacles 14y ago

The thing is, complicate tax code is merely a welfare program for tax lawyers and accountants. If we made taxes easy, or automated parts of the process that are the same for everyone, we would be cutting off the supply of money to the leeches. Since they don't want that, and they are better at being parasites than the groups normally attacked for parasitism (teachers, postal workers etc), they successfully lobby against making taxes easier for most people.

jarrett 14y ago

Here's a fun example of why the government should maintain its own databases and use them to pre-fill your taxes. This year, the state sent me a letter claiming I had paid zero taxes in 2010. They said I had to pay 100% of my tax liability right away or face liens, etc.. Of course, this was patently untrue--my employer had actually withheld more than my total tax liability for 2010. (I know this because I still have my 2010 W-2). So I was entitled to a refund for 2010, but the state was saying I owed them the full amount, plus penalties. After contacting the state about this, they said the problem was that my W-2 form had likely become "detached" from my 2010 return. So apparently, the state relies on a paper copy of your W-2 attached to your return to determine whether your employer has paid them the withheld taxes. If they can't find the W-2 you send them, they assume your employer didn't pay them anything on your behalf. Given that employers are already making electronic payments each quarter, why can't the government just derive its W-2 data from that? (I know, I know--they're probably not collecting that data right now. But the point is they could do it as part of the quarterly payment process.) EDIT: Another funny bit to this story. I asked the state to confirm that my employer had indeed paid the amount reflected on my W-2. I figured that if the error was on my employer's end, I could take it up with them. But the state refused to say one way or another, citing confidentiality.

matwood 14y ago
I've wondered the same thing. This year the state asked me to supply a paper copy of my W2 to verify my electronic return submission. Are things so messed up at the state level that they don't know who paid what and when? Why couldn't they just look up in their database that says I paid $X and it matches box 3 on form Y. For extra credit they could do this using this new technology called a computer.
- jarrett 14y ago
  I don't know much about the state forms, but look at the IRS withholding form: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f941.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f941.pdf I don't see anything on there where the employer would break down the payroll tax by employee. Does anyone know if there's some other mechanism for this? Do employers send all W-2s to the IRS?

patio11 14y ago

There exists a school of thought that says making taxes painful is a great way to remind you that taxes have visible consequences on your life just like spending does, which is a point of non-trivial interest ot the American polity. Someone subscribing to that school of thought might rationally oppose non-economic ways to make taxation less painful as a way to prevent a transition to invisible (or even fun!) higher taxes. I'm stopping here to avoid committing politics on HN.

paulhauggis 14y ago
It's funny you mention this. I worked at an e-commerce store that shipped a lot internationally. In the beginning, we had calculations for all of the tariffs and taxes required to ship and added that to the end (ups would allow us to pay for this up-front to make it easier for our customers). Customers would bitch at us all the time about how our prices were too high. We changed it so they had to pay for all of this separately (and so they knew that we weren't the ones increasing prices) and the bitching stopped. It's one of the reasons I don't want taxes hidden on goods sold in the US. Because people won't think about it and won't really know when the government starts raising taxes. They will just assume it's the big, evil, companies overcharging. It's happening right now with gas. Many states have additional taxes/gallon and people just assume it's the stations.
- eru 14y ago
  In Europe taxes (like VAT and those on petrol) are usually included in quoted prices, and people are quite aware of them.
  - rmc 14y ago
    Not really. In Ireland & the UK, VAT in the region of (22%ish or 17%ish), prices of goods in shops and online are quoted 'VAT inclusive' (likewise petrol), it's only 'trade', i.e. companies that sell products to other business (who then have to charge VAT to the general public) are sold 'ex VAT'.
    - 14y ago

mattgreenrocks 14y ago

Why debate the complexities of filing taxes when the tax code is kept needlessly complicated?

patrickod 14y ago

There are many good reasons to move to the US but having just done so I look around at friends filing and complaining about their taxes and dread having to do it myself.

jes5199 14y ago

I do my taxes on paper! I'm a professional software engineer. I know how software works and how it doesn't work. I don't trust automated tax software at all. Fortunately, even the 1040 long form is a simple pen&paper algorithm that I can do in a couple hours.

pork 14y ago

Have you been to H&R block? They already are!

drcube 14y ago

I once complained on a message board that sales tax should be included in the sticker price, so that I know ahead of time what I'm going to pay. I still feel that way, but someone pointed out that it would further hide from consumers the fact that the government takes money out of every transaction. Now I contend that every sticker should tell me both the price with taxes, and the price without. This would make it very clear how much I would have to pay without government intrusion, and how much extra they get from me. I'm getting the same vibe here with income taxes. Taxes used to be a much more contentious issue before it was taken out of every paycheck prior to the worker seeing the money. Now the single pain point in paying taxes is an hour's worth of paperwork once a year. Eliminate that friction, and the government becomes an invisible siphon, sucking money right out of the economy, with hardly anyone noticing. By all means, make paying taxes easier, but don't obscure the fact that someone is taking your money, all the time, without giving you a choice in the matter.

angersock 14y ago
That's the price for living in a civilization that provides enough safety for having a source of reliable income, and a market to spend it in. Not that the US government is really doing a good job allocating that price or spending the proceeds, mind you, but please don't go all "MAH TAX DOLLAHS".
- drcube 14y ago
  I'm not. To clarify, I'm only advocating that "the price for living in a civilization" not be hidden from those who must pay it. Look at it this way: Taxpayer awareness is a cost to the government. If they could reduce or eliminate that awareness, they could raise more taxes. I don't think it makes me a right wing radical to suggest that there should be a hurdle or two for the government to jump before they can raise taxes.
  - leot 14y ago
    The U.S. is already tax-obsessed, to its own detriment.
14y ago

zeroonetwothree 14y ago

Assuming our tax law remains insane, I actually prefer having private tax preparers. The IRS's incentive is clearly to make me pay much tax as possible, whereas for private tax preparers it's to make me pay as little tax as possible. If our tax law were simple there wouldn't be much difference between the two, but in its current state there is. Thus I think the tension between the two groups is healthy.

CoryMathews 14y ago

The bigger question is why am I still doing taxes once a year?

sp332 14y ago
How often do you think it should happen? Federal income tax is once a year. Sales tax, tolls on roads, etc. happen much more often.

rogerbinns 14y ago

If I was ever elected president, I would direct congress to reduce the size of the tax code by 10% each year. If they fail to do so then 10% are automatically eliminated - eg all those whose last digit of the article number is 3. The real reason for why things are so screwed up is corrupt politicians who use their power as a fund raising mechanism. For example there were several taxes added temporarily to see if they worked well. They did, but congress doesn't make them permanent. Instead they wait to be paid each time to renew them temporarily again. (This started in the Reagan administration.) See this excellent talk by Lessig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc The whole tax provisions as fund raising is covered at 7m30s.

jlm382 14y ago

Auto-generating a tax return is one thing. Taking advantage of all your potential tax benefits and considering your edge cases is another thing. I've seen tax returns for many of inDinero's customers, and it's clear to me that their previous accountants took shortcuts in compiling the return. Yes, it'll get filed. But there were probably more tax advantageous things they could have / should have done. Consider these examples: 1 - tax credits. How is the government supposed to automatically know that you're paying for child care? How are they to know that you just installed solar panels on your roof or that you just purchased an electric vehicle? Sure, they can make this "automatic" -- but then you'd still be going out of your way to report your purchase, and this is in no way simpler than the current solution today. 2 - does it make sense to be taxed as a partnership or sole-proprietor? For a lot of our customers, they're basically flushing $20k down the toilet because they didn't want to go through the tiny nuisance of filing as an S-Corporation. Pretty sure you don't want the IRS to dictate your tax treatment. 3 - should you depreciate your Aeron chairs over multiple years, or do accelerated depreciation which will allow you to deduct the entire amount in a single year? The IRS gives us the flexibility to choose, and it's questions like these that may require the help of a tax professional. 4 - deducting vehicle expenses. How is the IRS supposed to figure out how many miles on your car were used for business VS personal purposes? 5 - what part of your apartment was used exclusively for hacking? No way for the IRS to know that the number is 250/1500 square feet. In short, putting together a tax return isn't that hard. The difficult part is hunting down all of this other information that we have no way of just knowing. Instead of asking why robots couldn't be doing our taxes by now, we might rephrase the question to read "how can we do year-round accounting in such a way that taxes are 10X easier to take care of?"

bajsejohannes 14y ago

Some countries do already. In Norway, you get a your tax papers (well, paper; it's only one sheet) pre-filled. You only have to take action if they got it wrong. At least this works for normal employees. It gets slightly worse when you have your own company.

cs702 14y ago

It won't be happening any time soon. Here's why: http://www.republicreport.org/2012/corruption-taxes-fivemins/ http://www.republicreport.org/2012/corruption-taxes-fivemins...

Joeri 14y ago

Belgium has had this for a few years now. In my case everything is prefilled, even the deduction for charitable donations. Basically this is a US-specific problem. You can see a flash demo (in dutch) of the belgian tax-on-web app here: https://eservices.minfin.fgov.be/taxonweb/static/nl/demo_v2/player.html https://eservices.minfin.fgov.be/taxonweb/static/nl/demo_v2/...

jamaicahest 14y ago
Was going to say the same is the case here in Denmark. Your employer reports your earnings, your banks report your balances, etc. And if you need to enter some extra information, like mortgage interests or driving reimbursement it's all done through a website and a new report is generated instantly. I suspect all this automatic reporting might clash with the average american's perception of personal privacy.

mindslight 14y ago

The flawed assumption being that tithes are solely financial. The government would be content to burn your "money" in a pit; your submission and mental buy-in are what it's really after.

camz 14y ago

I'm working on a tax startup. The two products we're working on right now is taxcast.co (semi-finalist on the startupbus at SXSW) and autotax.me. Taxcast.co is a system that forecasts your tax deductions, audit proofs your information and calculates your current and future tax liability. you can check out the demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CuvWkKW4w&context=C44040d8ADvjVQa1PpcFMR8iGVGidoILkFShlJzk1Av-qJay210Hw= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CuvWkKW4w&context=C4404... Autotax.me is going to help you deal with your independent contractors. It contracts, files and audit proofs your 1099 taxes. It's almost like an HR/Tax service in one. You can check it out now but its still really rough/ugly. The functions work but there's no real UI so that's what I'm going to be finishing up. Any questions, you can check out cameronkeng.com if you're interested in any of these products, shoot me an email at cameronkeng@gmail.com or tweet me @cameronkeng =D

stretchwithme 14y ago

I owed them money a few years back and had to pay them using some online payment system. It was necessary to do this because they failed to implement the payment plan that they agreed to. So interest was piling up and they weren't withdrawing what I owed them. So I sign up on this system. They had to MAIL me the password. By USPS mail! So it finally comes. I log in and pay off the entire amount. Later, I find out that the system applied the payment to the wrong year. Apparently this was my fault somehow, as the system defaults to the current year, not the year that you owe on. So I have to call to get that straightened out. The person applies the payment to the correct year. yea! Now can I find out my balance? Is it paid off? "Let me transfer you to the department that can do that." Apparently, that's a different skill set altogether. No way to check it online. Why would you ever need to do that? Finally get to a person who can tell me. And it turns out they started the original withdrawal of funds from my bank. So now they owed ME money. And that came by paper check, delivered by USPS of course.