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It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial lit

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

throwaway5959 2y ago
TurboTax. It’s really that simple. They pay a very small amount in bribes (er lobbying), and they ruin what could be a very good thing for millions of Americans.
jrockway 2y ago
> it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately I assume most people have too much money taken out of their paycheck for taxes, so the net result is that the government takes in extra money.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Agreed, this is not a problem they want to solve.
  - tomrod 2y ago
    Sure "they" do.
- tadfisher 2y ago
  Withholding too much is literally required under the law. If you don't withhold enough, at tax time you could be liable for penalties unless you also pay quarterly to make up the difference. This counts for all of your income, not just the income from a W-2 job. Fixing the withholding system to account for the real world would go a long way toward simplifying reporting and would improve compliance.
  - boolemancer 2y ago
    > Withholding too much is literally required under the law. If you don't withhold enough, at tax time you could be liable for penalties unless you also pay quarterly to make up the difference. You only need to withhold 90% of the taxes you owe to avoid an underpayment penalty, so you don't need to withhold too much.
thegrim33 2y ago
I guess it was originally done this way because in the past people actually had some semblance of privacy and the government didn't actually know a great deal about people's income. Eventually, privacy was eroded away year after year to the point where the government now knows an extreme amount about each citizen. I guess I'd refrain the question - instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government knows everything about us that they could do it for us, should we really have that little privacy? Maybe instead of changing the way we file taxes, we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? Of course, those ideas, liberty and privacy, small government, etc., isn't really fashionable with the latest generations and most people would gladly give up their freedom and privacy to save having to fill out some paperwork.
- guntars 2y ago
  It was the older generations that gave up freedom and privacy for convenience, making that choice for everyone.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- janalsncm 2y ago
  Liberty and privacy are fashionable. The problem is that our Congress passes hundreds of pages of domestic spying legislation in the middle of the night. It’s not exactly the School House Rock democratic process we learned about in 4th grade. But that’s really beside the point. If you are like millions of other Americans filing W2s, the fact that you work for your employer isn’t a secret. Your salary isn’t a secret. Most people will take the standard deduction. There’s no reason why that can’t be the default. It’s not a privacy violation for the IRS to use that info to make peoples lives easier.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    > the fact that you work for your employer isn’t a secret I would prefer if it was. It's even worse than that, the government has entitled itself to be a party to every transaction over $600, so even the self employed have to shoulder this unseemly burden. > Your salary isn’t a secret It is. It's a shared secret. Again, I would prefer if I didn't have to do this. My salary is not at all the same as my "taxable income." It puts me in a position to have to justify my filings after the fact to an entity that only has access to half my relevant information.
bobthepanda 2y ago
The anti tax republicans believe that if Americans had an easier time filling their taxes then they would have less objections to the same or higher level of taxation. https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175332655/what-would-the-u-s-be-like-with-no-tax-returns https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175332655/what-would-the-u-s-...
- loeg 2y ago
  They're probably right about that?
  - yongjik 2y ago
    Well, as a non-citizen US resident, having to do my own taxes definitely makes me think "They can't even build a tax filing system? What the fuck are they doing with all that money?" I guess the difference is that my mind immediately goes to "Who are those people who think government not doing its job properly is a Good Thing(TM), and why do Americans keep electing them?" It's as if a wannabe entrepreneur claiming "Capitalism does not work! Make me your CEO and I'll prove it to you!" - and then the board keeps falling for those guys.
    - eastbound 2y ago
      > They can't even build a tax filing system? What the fuck are they doing with all that money? More like “They can’t even solve poverty? What are they doing with 2/3rd of my income?” France here. Cities have to build 40% of poverty housing, by law, because, well, we’ve determined that 40% people are poor. The benefit of not declaring income is not only taxes, but lower-rent housing as well.
  - mikestew 2y ago
    I’ve paid no tax and I’ve paid lots of tax. I did not care in either case how much I was paying in taxes (it is what it is). What I did care about is how much of a pain in the as it is. Mail me a goddamn postcard telling me how much I owe and be done with it. And then to find out one political party would prefer that I suffer so I’ll vote the way they want? Yeah, fuck those guys, I’m voting for the other ones.
nkrisc 2y ago
It’s amazing how much of an idiot I felt like when we hired a babysitter for two days a week for about a year and then it came time to do things properly regarding taxes and her wages. I understand why it’s important to do it properly (for the employee’s benefit) but when I tried to look into what we had to do, as technically her employer, and it was nearly impossible for me to figure out what we had to do and then how to even do it (federal and state). I understand why many people just want to pay cash under the table. It really made me feel like a complete moron. If we ever do it again we’ll have to just hire a payroll service and factor that cost into what wages we can offer, or structure it so that total payments remain under the threshold required for filing.
- neltnerb 2y ago
  Out of curiosity, what made it difficult? Not knowing what was required for sure? Figuring out how to fill out the 1099-MISC? Knowing how to file it with the IRS/state? I remember it being a bit tricky at first but once I knew the right form it only took a few minutes. The hard part for me is keeping track of rule changes. Payroll service works though =)
  - sveiss 2y ago
    If they’re trying to follow the rules, then they can’t just fill out a 1099-MISC. A babysitter one of the examples specifically called out as a household employee in the IRS guidance[1], so if you’re doing it right you should be running payroll. That’s pretty tricky to DIY properly. [1] https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc756 https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc756
    - sbrother 2y ago
      I can see doing this for a nanny, but surely no one is jumping through all these hoops for ad-hoc, hourly babysitting? Any of the random highschoolers or college kids I've used would look at me like I was crazy if I tried to set them up on payroll lol.
      - 2y ago
worik 2y ago
> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but... Stop there! Really? "6th grade" is age eleven? That is mind blowing!
- LoganDark 2y ago
  I wonder if they went through school and just didn't retain it, or if they were simply not educated at all.
  - throwaway5959 2y ago
    Just wait until you see how many people don’t read another book for the rest of their lives after high school/college.
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      I haven't done that either, mostly because of ADHD.
  - nxm 2y ago
    It’s also practically impossible to fire bad teachers, and standards continue to go down in many states in order to mask the poor performance of their schools.
itronitron 2y ago
At this point I think of it as a jobs program. Every year we calculate our taxes by reading the manuals and instructions, fill out our tax return and submit it. I like to think that my literacy is above 6th grade level but every year it gets corrected by the IRS, and sometimes more than once.
_mlbt 2y ago
The real issue is that taxes are unreasonably and unnecessarily complicated to allow politicians to pander to specific voting blocks (both rich and poor) at the expense of the middle class. There is no reason every legitimate employer can't send tax information to the IRS and the self employed can't simply self-report our taxable incomes. No more deductions, for anything, just simple graduated tax brackets. Easy for the IRS to calculate quickly and either send a bill or a refund by April. They would need a fraction of the staff they currently employ and we could apply the savings to the national debt.
- pompino 2y ago
  The tax code is also designed to incentivize behavior that we wish to promote as a society. for example, directly reducing the tax versus tax benefits of a 401(k) and other such mechanisms. ultimately, the government is there to serve the interests of the people and society.
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    I understand the noble intent behind much of the tax code, but it has grown into a gnarly beast full of loopholes for the rich, and the wrong kind of societal incentives for the poor.
    - pompino 2y ago
      Is there a specific country's tax system that you look up to as the ideal? I see often people claim that the US tax code sucks (nobody is going to defend it with the rising inequality), but there isn't any proposal about how exactly to enact the changes while still keeping the benefits of the tax code that apply to the disadvantaged. Also, I'd like to point out that the tax code has every type of federal tax, administrative elements, and isn't just about income tax, and I'd argue that most of the federal tax code has nothing to do with "loopholes for the rich". https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26
      - 2y ago
pompino 2y ago
that’s a common talking point, but that is not exactly true. they don’t know how many dependents you have, if you are eligible for certain tax credits, whether you use your home as a work location, etc., etc.
- deprecative 2y ago
  If only there were a way for you to tell the IRS how many dependents you have. Seems like we should just scrap the ability for folks to fill out anything and let Daddy Intuit do it for us since we're all so helpless with our taxy waxies.
  - pompino 2y ago
    You’re barking up the wrong tree. More than a third of people file their own taxes.
binkHN 2y ago
The fact of the matter is the tax code is stupidly complex for no good reason. It's used to promote policy and benefits the wealthy (Warren Buffett has noted this numerous times). That's it. If the focus was on collecting taxes it would be stupidly simple.
bigstrat2003 2y ago
What's sad to me is the level of apprehension people have towards doing taxes. It's not that hard! The first few years of my adult life I did it by hand, using the paper forms. It is very easy to do if you can follow basic instructions, yet people act as if it's super difficult and requires an expert.
- wredue 2y ago
  If having spent some time in IT support has taught me anything at all, it’s that “reading basic instructions and following them” is not among the talents of a huge portion of people. Even the people I work with as team mates often call me and do a screen share for a problem and most of the time the answer is “dude, you’re just machine gunning the buttons before I can even read them. Lets just slow down for a second here”.
wredue 2y ago
>I cannot fathom why it is still done this way *intuit has left the chat
anon291 2y ago
Following tax forms is so braindead simple, I honestly can't see how anyone can be that incapable without being mentally deficient enough to be under conservatorship. It's literally step by step "Add this" or "subtract that". If you have a calculator and a 3rd grade level understanding of English, I can't see how you'd have a problem.
- llukas 2y ago
  We can have a problem with forms being on paper and not doing "add this" or "subtract that" automatically? It was available in other countries 10+ years AGO ;)
- hedora 2y ago
  The US tax code is 70,000 pages, and is revised an average of once per day: https://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-many-words-are-tax-code/ https://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-many-words-are-tax-code/ A typical federal tax filing for our household is over 100 pages long, and that’s just the stuff that we need to mail. The accompanying directions and worksheets are probably close to 1000 pages. Also, lots of the directions are incredibly obfuscated once you start getting into those 1000 pages. > If you do A and not B then you can do C. > Example calculation of C (usually over a page long): > Bob wants to do C but encountered corner case exceptions E and F in the absence of event G. That implies B, so here’s the arithmetic for doing D (which is covered elsewhere in this book, and is probably irrelevant to your situation). This is just standard stuff TurboTax handles. God help people with filings too complicated for that! (And, yes, I used to do taxes by hand.)
- jcranmer 2y ago
  > Following tax forms is so braindead simple One year, I had to spend a good deal of time working around a cycle in my taxes--VA wanted me to do my CA taxes first and CA wanted me to do my VA taxes first, and the instructions that explained how to handle this situation were only one on the one form that needed to be used to solve it, with nothing telling you maybe you should look for that form instead. Furthermore, there's quite a few cases where the instructions basically tell you "fill in the number that belongs here" without giving a good idea of what numbers actually belong there. Here is an example of such an instruction in its entirety: > Enter in line 5 the amount of pension, annuities, IRA/Keogh distributions not taxed on your Massachusetts Form 1. The hard part of taxes isn't knowing whether or not to add or subtract two lines. It's knowing which lines shouldn't be 0!
username135 2y ago
Why is it done this way? Capitalism bby! If you can make a market out of it, someone will.
nox101 2y ago
> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, AFAICT this is a mis-interpretation. IIUC the actual study says "54% of adults in the United States have a literacy IN ENGLISH below 6th grade level". They might be highly literate in some other language but that wasn't tested.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  This may be a misinterpretation in the study but even if every single multilingual person in the US was counted as not being proficient the number would not meaningfully change in context of the conversation (i.e. still above 1/3 in the extreme case).
- throwup238 2y ago
  Only 14% of the US is foreign born according to the last census so that’s not enough to make up the difference. The functional literacy statistics are bad no matter how you dice them.
  - yorwba 2y ago
    How about dicing them this way: "Sixth-graders already read about as well as the median adult." Sounds pretty good to me. The shock value of the original statement derives from the idea that sixth-graders are basically illiterates who can barely function in society, but what if that's not the case and six years in school are actually enough to learn reading and writing? It's a pretty long time already. What further improvements are to be expected from another six years?
    - Maxatar 2y ago
      The shock value should come from the fact that the US scores very low among developed countries. The UK, Canada, and most of Europe score much higher on literacy tests. The US has exceptional universities and colleges, but its K12 education system leaves much to be desired.
      - 2y ago
flandish 2y ago
> cannot fathom Yes you can. It’s capitalism. The owners of the current system lobby and advertise and “manufacture consent” in keeping the current system because it is wildly profitable. That’s really all there is to it.
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  [flagged]
deadbabe 2y ago
If the IRS takes responsibility for filing everyone’s tax forms, then it could potentially shift liability to them if they were to make a mistake. Whereas if people are filing their own forms, the blame can be put on the taxpayer for any errors.
skybrian 2y ago
There used to be the 1040ez which is a one page form, but I guess that was discontinued.
steelframe 2y ago
I've filed my taxes myself for several years. A couple of times the IRS sent me letters after the fact saying I messed something up. Then it's another several hours combing through all their paperwork trying to correct whatever they said I did wrong. One time they directed me to "explain why you won't make this mistake again in the future." Which is a particularly asinine thing to ask. "Well, Mr. Tax Man Sir, I probably won't make that particular mistake again because now I know not to make that particular mistake again." This year things got complicated enough that after spending an entire Saturday staring at forms, instructions, and spreadsheets trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, I finally gave up and hired a CPA that specializes in tax returns do my 1040. The whole thing ended up being 27 pages long. I guess I needed forms 1040-ES, 2210, 8949, 8995-A, 8960; Schedules 2, B, D, and 8812; and several worksheets. I consider myself fairly capable and experienced in filing my own taxes having done it 20-something times, but I don't think I would have ever figured out that I'd need all those forms and schedules this time around. It's particularly frustrating that they are somehow able to tell me that it's wrong after the fact and harass me to correct it. If they can do that, why not just tell me what they think it's supposed to be in the first place, and then give me the option of correcting what they send me if I spot something that doesn't make sense to me?
H12 2y ago
> I cannot fathom why it is still done this way. Like many things in America, the government is lobbied to create an unnecessary problem by private companies who aim to profit off of solving that problem.
hintymad 2y ago
> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level I wonder if this issue is due to the overall spread of academic abilities, or if it's because progressive education systems focus more on caring for students' feelings rather than setting higher standards
nathanasmith 2y ago
>54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level I don't care how many times this is repeated it's utterly preposterous. Imagine being so naive or less charitably to possess the motivated reasoning to actually believe this shit.

throwaway5959 2y ago

TurboTax. It’s really that simple. They pay a very small amount in bribes (er lobbying), and they ruin what could be a very good thing for millions of Americans.

jrockway 2y ago

> it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately I assume most people have too much money taken out of their paycheck for taxes, so the net result is that the government takes in extra money.

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Agreed, this is not a problem they want to solve.
- tomrod 2y ago
  Sure "they" do.
tadfisher 2y ago
Withholding too much is literally required under the law. If you don't withhold enough, at tax time you could be liable for penalties unless you also pay quarterly to make up the difference. This counts for all of your income, not just the income from a W-2 job. Fixing the withholding system to account for the real world would go a long way toward simplifying reporting and would improve compliance.
- boolemancer 2y ago
  > Withholding too much is literally required under the law. If you don't withhold enough, at tax time you could be liable for penalties unless you also pay quarterly to make up the difference. You only need to withhold 90% of the taxes you owe to avoid an underpayment penalty, so you don't need to withhold too much.

thegrim33 2y ago

I guess it was originally done this way because in the past people actually had some semblance of privacy and the government didn't actually know a great deal about people's income. Eventually, privacy was eroded away year after year to the point where the government now knows an extreme amount about each citizen. I guess I'd refrain the question - instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government knows everything about us that they could do it for us, should we really have that little privacy? Maybe instead of changing the way we file taxes, we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? Of course, those ideas, liberty and privacy, small government, etc., isn't really fashionable with the latest generations and most people would gladly give up their freedom and privacy to save having to fill out some paperwork.

guntars 2y ago
It was the older generations that gave up freedom and privacy for convenience, making that choice for everyone.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
janalsncm 2y ago
Liberty and privacy are fashionable. The problem is that our Congress passes hundreds of pages of domestic spying legislation in the middle of the night. It’s not exactly the School House Rock democratic process we learned about in 4th grade. But that’s really beside the point. If you are like millions of other Americans filing W2s, the fact that you work for your employer isn’t a secret. Your salary isn’t a secret. Most people will take the standard deduction. There’s no reason why that can’t be the default. It’s not a privacy violation for the IRS to use that info to make peoples lives easier.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > the fact that you work for your employer isn’t a secret I would prefer if it was. It's even worse than that, the government has entitled itself to be a party to every transaction over $600, so even the self employed have to shoulder this unseemly burden. > Your salary isn’t a secret It is. It's a shared secret. Again, I would prefer if I didn't have to do this. My salary is not at all the same as my "taxable income." It puts me in a position to have to justify my filings after the fact to an entity that only has access to half my relevant information.

bobthepanda 2y ago

The anti tax republicans believe that if Americans had an easier time filling their taxes then they would have less objections to the same or higher level of taxation. https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175332655/what-would-the-u-s-be-like-with-no-tax-returns https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175332655/what-would-the-u-s-...

loeg 2y ago
They're probably right about that?
- yongjik 2y ago
  Well, as a non-citizen US resident, having to do my own taxes definitely makes me think "They can't even build a tax filing system? What the fuck are they doing with all that money?" I guess the difference is that my mind immediately goes to "Who are those people who think government not doing its job properly is a Good Thing(TM), and why do Americans keep electing them?" It's as if a wannabe entrepreneur claiming "Capitalism does not work! Make me your CEO and I'll prove it to you!" - and then the board keeps falling for those guys.
  - eastbound 2y ago
    > They can't even build a tax filing system? What the fuck are they doing with all that money? More like “They can’t even solve poverty? What are they doing with 2/3rd of my income?” France here. Cities have to build 40% of poverty housing, by law, because, well, we’ve determined that 40% people are poor. The benefit of not declaring income is not only taxes, but lower-rent housing as well.
- mikestew 2y ago
  I’ve paid no tax and I’ve paid lots of tax. I did not care in either case how much I was paying in taxes (it is what it is). What I did care about is how much of a pain in the as it is. Mail me a goddamn postcard telling me how much I owe and be done with it. And then to find out one political party would prefer that I suffer so I’ll vote the way they want? Yeah, fuck those guys, I’m voting for the other ones.

nkrisc 2y ago

It’s amazing how much of an idiot I felt like when we hired a babysitter for two days a week for about a year and then it came time to do things properly regarding taxes and her wages. I understand why it’s important to do it properly (for the employee’s benefit) but when I tried to look into what we had to do, as technically her employer, and it was nearly impossible for me to figure out what we had to do and then how to even do it (federal and state). I understand why many people just want to pay cash under the table. It really made me feel like a complete moron. If we ever do it again we’ll have to just hire a payroll service and factor that cost into what wages we can offer, or structure it so that total payments remain under the threshold required for filing.

neltnerb 2y ago
Out of curiosity, what made it difficult? Not knowing what was required for sure? Figuring out how to fill out the 1099-MISC? Knowing how to file it with the IRS/state? I remember it being a bit tricky at first but once I knew the right form it only took a few minutes. The hard part for me is keeping track of rule changes. Payroll service works though =)
- sveiss 2y ago
  If they’re trying to follow the rules, then they can’t just fill out a 1099-MISC. A babysitter one of the examples specifically called out as a household employee in the IRS guidance[1], so if you’re doing it right you should be running payroll. That’s pretty tricky to DIY properly. [1] https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc756 https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc756
  - sbrother 2y ago
    I can see doing this for a nanny, but surely no one is jumping through all these hoops for ad-hoc, hourly babysitting? Any of the random highschoolers or college kids I've used would look at me like I was crazy if I tried to set them up on payroll lol.
    - 2y ago

worik 2y ago

> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but... Stop there! Really? "6th grade" is age eleven? That is mind blowing!

LoganDark 2y ago
I wonder if they went through school and just didn't retain it, or if they were simply not educated at all.
- throwaway5959 2y ago
  Just wait until you see how many people don’t read another book for the rest of their lives after high school/college.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    I haven't done that either, mostly because of ADHD.
- nxm 2y ago
  It’s also practically impossible to fire bad teachers, and standards continue to go down in many states in order to mask the poor performance of their schools.

itronitron 2y ago

At this point I think of it as a jobs program. Every year we calculate our taxes by reading the manuals and instructions, fill out our tax return and submit it. I like to think that my literacy is above 6th grade level but every year it gets corrected by the IRS, and sometimes more than once.

_mlbt 2y ago

The real issue is that taxes are unreasonably and unnecessarily complicated to allow politicians to pander to specific voting blocks (both rich and poor) at the expense of the middle class. There is no reason every legitimate employer can't send tax information to the IRS and the self employed can't simply self-report our taxable incomes. No more deductions, for anything, just simple graduated tax brackets. Easy for the IRS to calculate quickly and either send a bill or a refund by April. They would need a fraction of the staff they currently employ and we could apply the savings to the national debt.

pompino 2y ago
The tax code is also designed to incentivize behavior that we wish to promote as a society. for example, directly reducing the tax versus tax benefits of a 401(k) and other such mechanisms. ultimately, the government is there to serve the interests of the people and society.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  I understand the noble intent behind much of the tax code, but it has grown into a gnarly beast full of loopholes for the rich, and the wrong kind of societal incentives for the poor.
  - pompino 2y ago
    Is there a specific country's tax system that you look up to as the ideal? I see often people claim that the US tax code sucks (nobody is going to defend it with the rising inequality), but there isn't any proposal about how exactly to enact the changes while still keeping the benefits of the tax code that apply to the disadvantaged. Also, I'd like to point out that the tax code has every type of federal tax, administrative elements, and isn't just about income tax, and I'd argue that most of the federal tax code has nothing to do with "loopholes for the rich". https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26
    - 2y ago

pompino 2y ago

that’s a common talking point, but that is not exactly true. they don’t know how many dependents you have, if you are eligible for certain tax credits, whether you use your home as a work location, etc., etc.

deprecative 2y ago
If only there were a way for you to tell the IRS how many dependents you have. Seems like we should just scrap the ability for folks to fill out anything and let Daddy Intuit do it for us since we're all so helpless with our taxy waxies.
- pompino 2y ago
  You’re barking up the wrong tree. More than a third of people file their own taxes.

binkHN 2y ago

The fact of the matter is the tax code is stupidly complex for no good reason. It's used to promote policy and benefits the wealthy (Warren Buffett has noted this numerous times). That's it. If the focus was on collecting taxes it would be stupidly simple.

bigstrat2003 2y ago

What's sad to me is the level of apprehension people have towards doing taxes. It's not that hard! The first few years of my adult life I did it by hand, using the paper forms. It is very easy to do if you can follow basic instructions, yet people act as if it's super difficult and requires an expert.

wredue 2y ago
If having spent some time in IT support has taught me anything at all, it’s that “reading basic instructions and following them” is not among the talents of a huge portion of people. Even the people I work with as team mates often call me and do a screen share for a problem and most of the time the answer is “dude, you’re just machine gunning the buttons before I can even read them. Lets just slow down for a second here”.

wredue 2y ago

>I cannot fathom why it is still done this way *intuit has left the chat

anon291 2y ago

Following tax forms is so braindead simple, I honestly can't see how anyone can be that incapable without being mentally deficient enough to be under conservatorship. It's literally step by step "Add this" or "subtract that". If you have a calculator and a 3rd grade level understanding of English, I can't see how you'd have a problem.

llukas 2y ago
We can have a problem with forms being on paper and not doing "add this" or "subtract that" automatically? It was available in other countries 10+ years AGO ;)
hedora 2y ago
The US tax code is 70,000 pages, and is revised an average of once per day: https://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-many-words-are-tax-code/ https://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-many-words-are-tax-code/ A typical federal tax filing for our household is over 100 pages long, and that’s just the stuff that we need to mail. The accompanying directions and worksheets are probably close to 1000 pages. Also, lots of the directions are incredibly obfuscated once you start getting into those 1000 pages. > If you do A and not B then you can do C. > Example calculation of C (usually over a page long): > Bob wants to do C but encountered corner case exceptions E and F in the absence of event G. That implies B, so here’s the arithmetic for doing D (which is covered elsewhere in this book, and is probably irrelevant to your situation). This is just standard stuff TurboTax handles. God help people with filings too complicated for that! (And, yes, I used to do taxes by hand.)
jcranmer 2y ago
> Following tax forms is so braindead simple One year, I had to spend a good deal of time working around a cycle in my taxes--VA wanted me to do my CA taxes first and CA wanted me to do my VA taxes first, and the instructions that explained how to handle this situation were only one on the one form that needed to be used to solve it, with nothing telling you maybe you should look for that form instead. Furthermore, there's quite a few cases where the instructions basically tell you "fill in the number that belongs here" without giving a good idea of what numbers actually belong there. Here is an example of such an instruction in its entirety: > Enter in line 5 the amount of pension, annuities, IRA/Keogh distributions not taxed on your Massachusetts Form 1. The hard part of taxes isn't knowing whether or not to add or subtract two lines. It's knowing which lines shouldn't be 0!

username135 2y ago

Why is it done this way? Capitalism bby! If you can make a market out of it, someone will.

nox101 2y ago

> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, AFAICT this is a mis-interpretation. IIUC the actual study says "54% of adults in the United States have a literacy IN ENGLISH below 6th grade level". They might be highly literate in some other language but that wasn't tested.

zamadatix 2y ago
This may be a misinterpretation in the study but even if every single multilingual person in the US was counted as not being proficient the number would not meaningfully change in context of the conversation (i.e. still above 1/3 in the extreme case).
throwup238 2y ago
Only 14% of the US is foreign born according to the last census so that’s not enough to make up the difference. The functional literacy statistics are bad no matter how you dice them.
- yorwba 2y ago
  How about dicing them this way: "Sixth-graders already read about as well as the median adult." Sounds pretty good to me. The shock value of the original statement derives from the idea that sixth-graders are basically illiterates who can barely function in society, but what if that's not the case and six years in school are actually enough to learn reading and writing? It's a pretty long time already. What further improvements are to be expected from another six years?
  - Maxatar 2y ago
    The shock value should come from the fact that the US scores very low among developed countries. The UK, Canada, and most of Europe score much higher on literacy tests. The US has exceptional universities and colleges, but its K12 education system leaves much to be desired.
    - 2y ago

flandish 2y ago

> cannot fathom Yes you can. It’s capitalism. The owners of the current system lobby and advertise and “manufacture consent” in keeping the current system because it is wildly profitable. That’s really all there is to it.

cscurmudgeon 2y ago
[flagged]

deadbabe 2y ago

If the IRS takes responsibility for filing everyone’s tax forms, then it could potentially shift liability to them if they were to make a mistake. Whereas if people are filing their own forms, the blame can be put on the taxpayer for any errors.

skybrian 2y ago

There used to be the 1040ez which is a one page form, but I guess that was discontinued.

steelframe 2y ago

I've filed my taxes myself for several years. A couple of times the IRS sent me letters after the fact saying I messed something up. Then it's another several hours combing through all their paperwork trying to correct whatever they said I did wrong. One time they directed me to "explain why you won't make this mistake again in the future." Which is a particularly asinine thing to ask. "Well, Mr. Tax Man Sir, I probably won't make that particular mistake again because now I know not to make that particular mistake again." This year things got complicated enough that after spending an entire Saturday staring at forms, instructions, and spreadsheets trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, I finally gave up and hired a CPA that specializes in tax returns do my 1040. The whole thing ended up being 27 pages long. I guess I needed forms 1040-ES, 2210, 8949, 8995-A, 8960; Schedules 2, B, D, and 8812; and several worksheets. I consider myself fairly capable and experienced in filing my own taxes having done it 20-something times, but I don't think I would have ever figured out that I'd need all those forms and schedules this time around. It's particularly frustrating that they are somehow able to tell me that it's wrong after the fact and harass me to correct it. If they can do that, why not just tell me what they think it's supposed to be in the first place, and then give me the option of correcting what they send me if I spot something that doesn't make sense to me?

H12 2y ago

> I cannot fathom why it is still done this way. Like many things in America, the government is lobbied to create an unnecessary problem by private companies who aim to profit off of solving that problem.

hintymad 2y ago

> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level I wonder if this issue is due to the overall spread of academic abilities, or if it's because progressive education systems focus more on caring for students' feelings rather than setting higher standards

nathanasmith 2y ago

>54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level I don't care how many times this is repeated it's utterly preposterous. Imagine being so naive or less charitably to possess the motivated reasoning to actually believe this shit.