3 ms·

Do you consider it an incentive problem for cloud providers to send you a bill instead of asking you to submit what you believe you should owe? We have societal

Do you consider it an incentive problem for cloud providers to send you a bill instead of asking you to submit what you believe you should owe? We have societally solved these problems my making them auditable. People don’t necessarily trust the bill, and have means of disputing it. If you think the government’s tool is overcharging, you are welcome to file your own taxes and deal with the possibility of getting audited.

remarkEon 3y ago
Wait, do people not keep track of their own usage to compare it to their AWS bill? I just use free tiers for personal projects, but I guess I assumed that there would be some log reviews at some point if you were using it for running an actual business. Anyway, I guess that means my answer is "yes". >If you think the government’s tool is overcharging, you are welcome to file your own taxes and deal with the possibility of getting audited. "Pay what we say you owe or we'll nuke your finances with an audit". Yes this is exactly my problem.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  > "Pay what we say you owe or we'll nuke your finances with an audit". Yes this is exactly my problem. You might be misunderstanding in what an audit entails. There’s no direct “nuking” of finances due to an audit. In the vast majority of cases an audit is nothing more than “you claimed this on your return, can you please provide the documentation that supports it?” More specifically, I believe most audits are about claiming child tax credit and them wanting documentation to support the claim. If your finances get nuked that means you lied on your return, with very few exceptions. Main exception that comes to mind is claiming expenses that are up for debate. Also circling back to your earlier comment. Yes the tax code is needlessly complicated, Intuit et al. are the ones who caused that and are actively lobbying against simplifying it because their paid services would become obsolete if the tax code was nice and simple.

remarkEon 3y ago

Wait, do people not keep track of their own usage to compare it to their AWS bill? I just use free tiers for personal projects, but I guess I assumed that there would be some log reviews at some point if you were using it for running an actual business. Anyway, I guess that means my answer is "yes". >If you think the government’s tool is overcharging, you are welcome to file your own taxes and deal with the possibility of getting audited. "Pay what we say you owe or we'll nuke your finances with an audit". Yes this is exactly my problem.

turquoisevar 3y ago
> "Pay what we say you owe or we'll nuke your finances with an audit". Yes this is exactly my problem. You might be misunderstanding in what an audit entails. There’s no direct “nuking” of finances due to an audit. In the vast majority of cases an audit is nothing more than “you claimed this on your return, can you please provide the documentation that supports it?” More specifically, I believe most audits are about claiming child tax credit and them wanting documentation to support the claim. If your finances get nuked that means you lied on your return, with very few exceptions. Main exception that comes to mind is claiming expenses that are up for debate. Also circling back to your earlier comment. Yes the tax code is needlessly complicated, Intuit et al. are the ones who caused that and are actively lobbying against simplifying it because their paid services would become obsolete if the tax code was nice and simple.