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> 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
by kayson 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.
You still had to file taxes, though, so they would know about your income, if only a year behind. I read somewhere that tax withholding only started during WWII (and it was supposed to be temporary). It's really the withholding that would give the IRS the information needed to file your taxes in advance, so it's only a fairly recent possibility.
- nilamo 2y agoIt's not just withholding. Cost basis info on all stock market transactions are also provided to the IRS by your brokerage...
- altdataseller 2y agoWhat about expenses for those that are self employed? What about rental income? What about expenses related to rental properties? Lots of things the government doesn’t know…
- alistairSH 2y agoNone of which apply to the vast majority of filers. Nobody is saying filing taxes should never be necessary. Only that it shouldn’t be necessary for most people. The flow should be… Employer and financial institutions send info to IRS (they mostly do already). Then, in January, IRS sends a “Is this correct?” notice to residents. If correct, no action is needed. If not correct, then make adjustments.
- nilamo 2y ago100% agree. These conversations always seem to end with lots of "what about"s, as if being easy for the average case was somehow undesirable.
- dh2022 2y agoHow would the residents verify the amount on the notice is correct? It sounds like the residents would have to do their taxes to verify the amount on the notice....
- bobthepanda 2y agoIt switches the labor from manual input of every line to cross referencing, which is significantly less work
- superb_dev 2y agoThey don’t just send the amount, they would also send their work
- bobthepanda 2y agofree-file is entirely voluntary. You can still submit the forms yourself if you want. free-file is estimated to cover 47% of Americans. we fund public schools even though a significantly smaller proportion of Americans are children. you would have a hard time finding any government service that applies to 100% of people
- troupo 2y agoThis is solved by: - IRS pre-fills all it knows about you - you log into to IRS web site to check if everything is correct, and provide additional data or correct invalid data - submit Oh look. By implementing this you may join Sweden and a bunch of other countries in the 21st century.
- altdataseller 2y agoGotcha. I was under the impression that what the government showed you was 100% final
- everforward 2y agoFederal individual income tax wasnt a thing until 1916, so it just wasn’t an issue. I believe state income taxes only started shortly before that.