5 ms·

I never understood why the Revenue can't provide a set of simple online forms for tax returns like India does. Heck, India provided Excel sheets with VBA script

by zkmon 1y ago

I never understood why the Revenue can't provide a set of simple online forms for tax returns like India does. Heck, India provided Excel sheets with VBA script for many years, that produced an XML which can be submitted as tax filing. Tax filing is now a 15-minute affair for a salary-only income in India.

jameslk 1y ago
The complexity is a feature not a bug. If you have more complexity, you have more opportunities for loopholes. Those loopholes are currently used by those wealthy enough to hire creative firms to help them get through them and minimize owed taxes If there’s one outcome I really hope from AI automating work, it’s taking away the advantage the monied class has in this regard. Then perhaps there’s less purpose for the complexity
- dennis_jeeves2 1y ago
  >The complexity is a feature not a bug. If you have more complexity, you have more opportunities for loopholes. Those loopholes are currently used by those wealthy enough to hire creative firms to help you get through them Agreed that the complexity is a feature but it's not for the rich ( though the rich will take advantage of it, and why not? ) . It's mostly for the powers that be. If there were a 'flat' tax ( and one could argue what constitutes a flat tax) the rich will be more willing to pay that flat tax. I'd say complexity support a very large govt, keeping several people employed including accountants, tax software companies etc. It serves the parasite class.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
    The tax brackets are not what make taxes complicated. Knowing how to categorize different types of income is what makes taxes complicated. The flat tax would not make tax preparation any bit easier. They only thing it would do would be to eliminate progressive taxation. In other words, the rich would pay less. The poor would pay more.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - smcl 1y ago
      This is exactly correct. That said, I'm quite surprised how many people struggle to understand how progressive tax bands/brackets work. It maybe doesn't help that the (right wing) media often portray them dishonestly (i.e. claiming that a 50% tax band starting at $100k/year means you would pay $50k/year in tax if you earn $100k/year)
      - Terr_ 1y ago
        > portray them dishonestly Tangentially, the same motivated-disinformation occurs with Social Security. It's best-understood as an insurance-policy (OASDI is literally named that way) against dying poor and old/orphaned/disabled. With an insurance policy, it's normal for my month's premium to be spent on somebody else's current tragedy, it's normal for me to expect no cash if the Bad Thing never actually happens to me, and it's normal that there's no asset for me to pass on to my heirs. However wall-street bankers can't make tons of profits competing under that model, so instead they try to trick citizens into misunderstanding what the model is. They want people to think it's a government-managed investment account instead, where every person is filling an individual bucket of "their" money that will someday be tipped back out for them. With this deception, their job is much easier: They just need to say that they'll be a nicer manager of the accounts than the government is, because they'll give you more choices for managing "your" money. It's dishonest because the two things are fundamentally different in how they work and what they're good for.
    - fn-mote 1y ago
      > The flat tax would not make tax preparation any bit easier. This is absolutely not true in the USA. Income from different sources is taxed differently. Example: The forms distinguish between short term capital gains, long term capital gains, and e.g., income from government bonds is taxed differently at lower levels of government.
    - dennis_jeeves2 1y ago
      >The flat tax would not make tax preparation any bit easier. there are many way to 'define' a 'flat' tax. My way would be a fixed sum. Not a fixed rate. ( yes the rich pay the same as poor) This would ofcourse have it's own if/buts but it would eliminate 90%+ complexity. The ideal situation would be be no income tax and many other forms of taxation.
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    > If there were a 'flat' tax [...] the rich will be more willing to pay That's just because moving from progressive-taxation to a flat-tax reduces how much they pay! The "simplicity" of the math done by their usual accounting firm that does their taxes for them is irrelevant by comparison. _________ To illustrate why the burden shifts, suppose the nation of Elbonia needs a constant $540 to operate, and it moves from a progressive tax to a flat tax. This year, progressive taxation, rising %: 90 peasants each earn $10 and are taxed 20% -> $2 per peasant. 10 nobles each earn $90 and are taxed 40% -> $36 per noble. Total collection is $540. Next year, flat tax, same % for all: 90 peasants each earn $10 and are taxed 30% -> $3 per peasant. 10 nobles each earn $90 and are taxed 30% -> $27 per noble. Total collection is $540. It should be no surprise that most of the Elbonian nobles are "willing" to see that change happen. Meanwhile, the peasants that are already living paycheck-to-paycheck have to plan how to cut back on luxuries like keeping their teeth.
    - themafia 1y ago
      It's worth pointing out that the Treasury takes in tax revenues throughout the year. The sources of that income are: 50% Payroll Income Tax. 35% Social Security Taxes. 7% Business Taxes. 7% Excise Taxes. 70 years ago they were: 25% Payroll Income Tax. 25% Social Security Taxes. 25% Business Taxes. 25% Excise Taxes. I think the priority is fixing this distribution to levels which were historically perceived as being more fair. The wealthy are one problem. The oversized corporations are the everlasting machine which drives them.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        Excise taxes are effectively sales tax but only on specific products. This is less economically efficient than broad-based taxes unless the thing you're taxing is something you're specifically trying to discourage (e.g. cigarettes) rather than having the purpose of generating revenue, but since 1955 the government has become more inclined to ban things it doesn't like than tax them. In a global economy higher business taxes just cause large international corporations to incorporate in a different jurisdiction, which gives them an advantage over smaller purely domestic corporations, which is bad. Social Security is already taking in less money than it's paying out. Reducing the Social Security tax would imply reducing Social Security benefits, since that's where it goes, unless you're proposing a more significant reform of the system in general. The size of corporations and the amount they're taxed are two entirely different things. Indeed, the tax code does a lot of things to encourage corporations to be larger, like taxing dividends and capital gains after corporate income has already been taxed, which creates a tax preference for leaving the money inside of an existing corporation rather than investing it in starting a new competitor.
- bni 1y ago
  AI will increase the complexity even more
- dguest 1y ago
  Maybe the AI will create a level playing field and make the tax prep / loophole industry collapse. Or maybe the free models will start responding with """ It looks like you're asking for help with tax preparation. I recommend our designated AI tax service [link to service that asks you to upgrade your plan or pay a one-time fee]. """ They are operating free models at a loss now, but at some point they are going to have to turn a profit. At that point tax prep becomes a revenue stream for AI as well.
  - saagarjha 1y ago
    Using AI to do your taxes seems like a quick way to get into a bunch of trouble.
    - ibizaman 1y ago
      Not if the IRS verifies using the same AI. Actually, it’s probably twice the trouble.
      - potato3732842 1y ago
        >Actually, it’s probably twice the trouble. Plus interest and fees (they can't call them fines because then you'd have rights), so call it triple to be safe.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    Please don't allow a computer to guess, one token at a time, what you tax liability is or how to fill out the forms properly.
- ta20240528 1y ago
  This is incorrect: the wealthy don't use loop holes. They use incentives explicitly enumerated in the tax code. What else is an incentive for, but that the government wants you to use it? Hell, Google got pre-approval from the IRS for their Dutch Sandwich tax structure. Most poor people don't read the tax code. They should.
  - defrost 1y ago
    ~ Kerry Packer, before House of Reps Select Committee on Print Media, November 1991. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e97kq2XflKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e97kq2XflKE ) It's still largely maximising what can be pushed through unintended loopholes.
  - smaudet 1y ago
    Most poor people don't read* They should. Of course, this is not to say they always are stupid or illiterate, it's again usually just another form of exploitation, they don't have (or feel they don't) time to read it. Which is arguably explicit exploitation/enslavement - the Walmart door greeter doesn't have a difficult job, however their role doesn't allow them to do anything that would benefit themselves. I wouldn't care if they were reading their phones or a book, but noo... can't have the peasants educating themselves. And they aren't paid enough, so when they return home, they likely don't have any time after needing to perform meal prep, taking a second job, etc. The USA is a third world country in many respects.
    - ta20240528 1y ago
      I'll grant you that: in many cases individual incentives combine in ways that are lucrative and unintended.
- victorbjorklund 1y ago
  They could still live side by side. You could still have a system where you have simplified filing where for 99.99% of the people you can just pretty much fill in one or two fields of what you made and something like that and even maybe get this data directly from the employers. That's how it works in Sweden. And then for the people who have complicated business, you could have a more complicated form where you need to hire a lawyer or accountant to do it. This is just assuming you don't care about whether or not there are loopholes for people. Like that's a political decision maybe more, because I guess the people defending them would say that there are good reasons they exist and you know wealth creation and so on. But it makes no sense to make it so complicated for people who have very simple lives where they have one employer who is paying them a salary and that's it.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    My entire life (in the US) there has been the idea floated that our tax code should be simplified to the point where filing can be done on something the size of a postcard. We absolutely could do that, but the government has no incentive to do so. At least in the US, taxes are a form of control, a source of power for those in charge, a political chip for elections, and a mechanism to further the wealth divide. Taxes are not primarily meant to fund our government, and definitely don't include goals related to making the average person's life easier.
    - mrguyorama 1y ago
      This idea is "floated" by the exact people who make taxes complicated in the US. Every time they insist they want to "simplify" taxes, they demonstrate that what that means is just another tax break to wealthy businesses. The DOGE team shut down a simple tax filing system the IRS had freely made available. It's republicans. Stop saying "Government" when it is republicans Form 1040 isn't even complicated! But republicans have convinced millions that the IRS is going to black bag them for missing a decimal point somewhere. Guess what! The IRS is not funded enough to care! They will send you an automated form saying "We fixed it for you, here's how much you owe/are getting back". You can even ignore that letter and you won't end up in prison! They just seized a couple of my state tax returns!
- tzs 1y ago
  Much of the complexity is to close loopholes. Many things in the tax code start out fairly simple, then people find ways to use them in ways that were not intended, and then the simple thing becomes complex as additional rules are added to try to fix that. This can iterate and what started out as a couple of sentences that most people knew what they intended becomes a few pages of convoluted rules.
throwaway667555 1y ago
It's so easy that one man creates an Excel 1040 every year. See https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home
bilekas 1y ago
The tax system in the US is complicated, you've got different state taxes as well as the federal, for example if your kids go to a different state for school than you live, add that your partner might work in another state, maybe they have different relief taxes for disasters through the year. It might very well be a feature but it is complicated, and the more activities you have, maybe investments, a small business, multiple jobs. It becomes overwhelming for non accountants.
- zegl 1y ago
  Many other countries have figured this out since the early 2000s, the US could do it as well if they wanted to.
  - Thlom 1y ago
    We got pre-calculated returns as an alternative in the early 90's, by the time I got my first real job in the early 00's everyone used the pre-calculated one and just made changes as necessary. The first years I got my tax return in the mail and I think a few years I had to mail back a signed copy, but these days everything is digital and if you don't have to make any changes you don't have to do anything at all. Back then you also had to physically deliver your tax deduction card to your employer so they could deduct tax correctly, but these days that is also digital and salary systems just fetches the current deduction card before running salary jobs every month.
  - xnorswap 1y ago
    Sometimes I think the most exceptional thing about the USA is exceptionalism. Solutions to problems that are solved elsewhere are pushed back against, because "The USA is fundamentally different". Other countries have states too. The UK even has a country with an entirely different legal system (Scots Law), but we still make our collection of income tax system simple. A "complicated tax system" (if that is the root cause) is not something that is impossible to change. It is within the gift of the government(s) to change that. The lack of appetite for change is the result of decades of lobbying for the status quo to continue.
ZenoArrow 1y ago
> I never understood why the Revenue can't provide a set of simple online forms for tax returns like India does. Did you read the article? The TL;DR summary is that the US government has proposed doing this in the past, but has been lobbied against it by companies that seek to profit from software to help prepare tax returns.
eloisant 1y ago
The whole point of the article is to answer to that question.
rurban 1y ago
They do provide the forms, you simply fill them out. I did that every year without consulting any specialist or extra services. Much easier than in Europe. It was a 20min affair.
graemep 1y ago
The UK has online forms for this, even for businesses, but is moving away from this as part of "Making Tax Digital" - i.e. they are axing paper forms to doing away with the online equivalents as well. Then again, most people here who have salary only income do not have to fill in a tax return at all - only if they have certain types of income (self-employment, capital gains or investment income) above a threshold.
- gerdesj 1y ago
  I've been doing Self Assessment for 25 years. In the first few years it was fill in a colourful paper form which won awards for clear English etc. Nowadays it is online with many details pre-filled in. At the end you can download a .pdf that looks exactly like the paper form or not bother.
  - rwmj 1y ago
    That's for personal tax returns. For businesses, the new MTD stuff is all through commercial partners.
Amezarak 1y ago
They do, it's called free fillable forms. If you have salary-only income that's about how long it takes. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form... Tax prep software exists for people with more complicated tax situations and people who are unwilling to add and subtract a couple of numbers. The 1040 form is not complicated and anyone can use it to file their taxes for free.
tzs 1y ago
Something like ~40% of US individual taxpayers only need to file a form 1040 [1] for their federal tax return. Another large group will need that plus a small number of other forms, most of which will be easy to fill. For example if they are getting a tax credit to help with health insurance costs there is form for that. That one's easy to fill out because you will be mailed a report that contains the information needed for the form. The report is in a standard format, and the instructions will be of the form copy line X form the report to line Y of the form. If your income is just salary plus some investment income from investments like mutual funds you don't have enough deductions to be worth itemizing [2], it generally is pretty straightforward. [1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf [2] In the US you have a choice between "itemizing" your deductions, which means you have to list all of them, or taking the "standard" deduction, which is around $15k for a single person and around $30k for a married couple. Around 90% of people take the standard deduction.
roxolotl 1y ago
They were rolling out a free service over the past few years that was getting solid reviews and plenty of people used[0][1]. One of the top priorities[2] of the Trump administration and DOGE was to prevent that and it has been since shut down[3] and partly open sourced[4]. 0: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24071005/irs-direct-file-free-tax-software-turbotax-review https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24071005/irs-direct-file-... 1: https://www.investopedia.com/early-reaction-to-the-new-irs-free-online-tax-filing-service-8621571 https://www.investopedia.com/early-reaction-to-the-new-irs-f... 2: https://apnews.com/article/irs-direct-file-musk-18f-6a4dc35a92f9f29c310721af53f58b16 https://apnews.com/article/irs-direct-file-musk-18f-6a4dc35a... 3:https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/30/irs-chief-says-agency-plans-to-end-free-direct-file-program.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/30/irs-chief-says-agency-plans-... 4: https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file
shepardrtc 1y ago
They do, IRS Direct File: https://directfile.irs.gov/ https://directfile.irs.gov/
- BHSPitMonkey 1y ago
  You mean they did, but the Trump administration and GOP passed a provision to begin eliminating the program earlier this year.

by zkmon 1y ago

jameslk 1y ago

The complexity is a feature not a bug. If you have more complexity, you have more opportunities for loopholes. Those loopholes are currently used by those wealthy enough to hire creative firms to help them get through them and minimize owed taxes If there’s one outcome I really hope from AI automating work, it’s taking away the advantage the monied class has in this regard. Then perhaps there’s less purpose for the complexity

dennis_jeeves2 1y ago
>The complexity is a feature not a bug. If you have more complexity, you have more opportunities for loopholes. Those loopholes are currently used by those wealthy enough to hire creative firms to help you get through them Agreed that the complexity is a feature but it's not for the rich ( though the rich will take advantage of it, and why not? ) . It's mostly for the powers that be. If there were a 'flat' tax ( and one could argue what constitutes a flat tax) the rich will be more willing to pay that flat tax. I'd say complexity support a very large govt, keeping several people employed including accountants, tax software companies etc. It serves the parasite class.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
  The tax brackets are not what make taxes complicated. Knowing how to categorize different types of income is what makes taxes complicated. The flat tax would not make tax preparation any bit easier. They only thing it would do would be to eliminate progressive taxation. In other words, the rich would pay less. The poor would pay more.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - smcl 1y ago
    This is exactly correct. That said, I'm quite surprised how many people struggle to understand how progressive tax bands/brackets work. It maybe doesn't help that the (right wing) media often portray them dishonestly (i.e. claiming that a 50% tax band starting at $100k/year means you would pay $50k/year in tax if you earn $100k/year)
    - Terr_ 1y ago
      > portray them dishonestly Tangentially, the same motivated-disinformation occurs with Social Security. It's best-understood as an insurance-policy (OASDI is literally named that way) against dying poor and old/orphaned/disabled. With an insurance policy, it's normal for my month's premium to be spent on somebody else's current tragedy, it's normal for me to expect no cash if the Bad Thing never actually happens to me, and it's normal that there's no asset for me to pass on to my heirs. However wall-street bankers can't make tons of profits competing under that model, so instead they try to trick citizens into misunderstanding what the model is. They want people to think it's a government-managed investment account instead, where every person is filling an individual bucket of "their" money that will someday be tipped back out for them. With this deception, their job is much easier: They just need to say that they'll be a nicer manager of the accounts than the government is, because they'll give you more choices for managing "your" money. It's dishonest because the two things are fundamentally different in how they work and what they're good for.
  - fn-mote 1y ago
    > The flat tax would not make tax preparation any bit easier. This is absolutely not true in the USA. Income from different sources is taxed differently. Example: The forms distinguish between short term capital gains, long term capital gains, and e.g., income from government bonds is taxed differently at lower levels of government.
  - dennis_jeeves2 1y ago
    >The flat tax would not make tax preparation any bit easier. there are many way to 'define' a 'flat' tax. My way would be a fixed sum. Not a fixed rate. ( yes the rich pay the same as poor) This would ofcourse have it's own if/buts but it would eliminate 90%+ complexity. The ideal situation would be be no income tax and many other forms of taxation.
- Terr_ 1y ago
  > If there were a 'flat' tax [...] the rich will be more willing to pay That's just because moving from progressive-taxation to a flat-tax reduces how much they pay! The "simplicity" of the math done by their usual accounting firm that does their taxes for them is irrelevant by comparison. _________ To illustrate why the burden shifts, suppose the nation of Elbonia needs a constant $540 to operate, and it moves from a progressive tax to a flat tax. This year, progressive taxation, rising %: 90 peasants each earn $10 and are taxed 20% -> $2 per peasant. 10 nobles each earn $90 and are taxed 40% -> $36 per noble. Total collection is $540. Next year, flat tax, same % for all: 90 peasants each earn $10 and are taxed 30% -> $3 per peasant. 10 nobles each earn $90 and are taxed 30% -> $27 per noble. Total collection is $540. It should be no surprise that most of the Elbonian nobles are "willing" to see that change happen. Meanwhile, the peasants that are already living paycheck-to-paycheck have to plan how to cut back on luxuries like keeping their teeth.
  - themafia 1y ago
    It's worth pointing out that the Treasury takes in tax revenues throughout the year. The sources of that income are: 50% Payroll Income Tax. 35% Social Security Taxes. 7% Business Taxes. 7% Excise Taxes. 70 years ago they were: 25% Payroll Income Tax. 25% Social Security Taxes. 25% Business Taxes. 25% Excise Taxes. I think the priority is fixing this distribution to levels which were historically perceived as being more fair. The wealthy are one problem. The oversized corporations are the everlasting machine which drives them.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      Excise taxes are effectively sales tax but only on specific products. This is less economically efficient than broad-based taxes unless the thing you're taxing is something you're specifically trying to discourage (e.g. cigarettes) rather than having the purpose of generating revenue, but since 1955 the government has become more inclined to ban things it doesn't like than tax them. In a global economy higher business taxes just cause large international corporations to incorporate in a different jurisdiction, which gives them an advantage over smaller purely domestic corporations, which is bad. Social Security is already taking in less money than it's paying out. Reducing the Social Security tax would imply reducing Social Security benefits, since that's where it goes, unless you're proposing a more significant reform of the system in general. The size of corporations and the amount they're taxed are two entirely different things. Indeed, the tax code does a lot of things to encourage corporations to be larger, like taxing dividends and capital gains after corporate income has already been taxed, which creates a tax preference for leaving the money inside of an existing corporation rather than investing it in starting a new competitor.
bni 1y ago
AI will increase the complexity even more
dguest 1y ago
Maybe the AI will create a level playing field and make the tax prep / loophole industry collapse. Or maybe the free models will start responding with """ It looks like you're asking for help with tax preparation. I recommend our designated AI tax service [link to service that asks you to upgrade your plan or pay a one-time fee]. """ They are operating free models at a loss now, but at some point they are going to have to turn a profit. At that point tax prep becomes a revenue stream for AI as well.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  Using AI to do your taxes seems like a quick way to get into a bunch of trouble.
  - ibizaman 1y ago
    Not if the IRS verifies using the same AI. Actually, it’s probably twice the trouble.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      >Actually, it’s probably twice the trouble. Plus interest and fees (they can't call them fines because then you'd have rights), so call it triple to be safe.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  Please don't allow a computer to guess, one token at a time, what you tax liability is or how to fill out the forms properly.
ta20240528 1y ago
This is incorrect: the wealthy don't use loop holes. They use incentives explicitly enumerated in the tax code. What else is an incentive for, but that the government wants you to use it? Hell, Google got pre-approval from the IRS for their Dutch Sandwich tax structure. Most poor people don't read the tax code. They should.
- defrost 1y ago
  ~ Kerry Packer, before House of Reps Select Committee on Print Media, November 1991. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e97kq2XflKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e97kq2XflKE ) It's still largely maximising what can be pushed through unintended loopholes.
- smaudet 1y ago
  Most poor people don't read* They should. Of course, this is not to say they always are stupid or illiterate, it's again usually just another form of exploitation, they don't have (or feel they don't) time to read it. Which is arguably explicit exploitation/enslavement - the Walmart door greeter doesn't have a difficult job, however their role doesn't allow them to do anything that would benefit themselves. I wouldn't care if they were reading their phones or a book, but noo... can't have the peasants educating themselves. And they aren't paid enough, so when they return home, they likely don't have any time after needing to perform meal prep, taking a second job, etc. The USA is a third world country in many respects.
  - ta20240528 1y ago
    I'll grant you that: in many cases individual incentives combine in ways that are lucrative and unintended.
victorbjorklund 1y ago
They could still live side by side. You could still have a system where you have simplified filing where for 99.99% of the people you can just pretty much fill in one or two fields of what you made and something like that and even maybe get this data directly from the employers. That's how it works in Sweden. And then for the people who have complicated business, you could have a more complicated form where you need to hire a lawyer or accountant to do it. This is just assuming you don't care about whether or not there are loopholes for people. Like that's a political decision maybe more, because I guess the people defending them would say that there are good reasons they exist and you know wealth creation and so on. But it makes no sense to make it so complicated for people who have very simple lives where they have one employer who is paying them a salary and that's it.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  My entire life (in the US) there has been the idea floated that our tax code should be simplified to the point where filing can be done on something the size of a postcard. We absolutely could do that, but the government has no incentive to do so. At least in the US, taxes are a form of control, a source of power for those in charge, a political chip for elections, and a mechanism to further the wealth divide. Taxes are not primarily meant to fund our government, and definitely don't include goals related to making the average person's life easier.
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    This idea is "floated" by the exact people who make taxes complicated in the US. Every time they insist they want to "simplify" taxes, they demonstrate that what that means is just another tax break to wealthy businesses. The DOGE team shut down a simple tax filing system the IRS had freely made available. It's republicans. Stop saying "Government" when it is republicans Form 1040 isn't even complicated! But republicans have convinced millions that the IRS is going to black bag them for missing a decimal point somewhere. Guess what! The IRS is not funded enough to care! They will send you an automated form saying "We fixed it for you, here's how much you owe/are getting back". You can even ignore that letter and you won't end up in prison! They just seized a couple of my state tax returns!
tzs 1y ago
Much of the complexity is to close loopholes. Many things in the tax code start out fairly simple, then people find ways to use them in ways that were not intended, and then the simple thing becomes complex as additional rules are added to try to fix that. This can iterate and what started out as a couple of sentences that most people knew what they intended becomes a few pages of convoluted rules.

throwaway667555 1y ago

It's so easy that one man creates an Excel 1040 every year. See https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home https://sites.google.com/view/incometaxspreadsheet/home

bilekas 1y ago

The tax system in the US is complicated, you've got different state taxes as well as the federal, for example if your kids go to a different state for school than you live, add that your partner might work in another state, maybe they have different relief taxes for disasters through the year. It might very well be a feature but it is complicated, and the more activities you have, maybe investments, a small business, multiple jobs. It becomes overwhelming for non accountants.

zegl 1y ago
Many other countries have figured this out since the early 2000s, the US could do it as well if they wanted to.
- Thlom 1y ago
  We got pre-calculated returns as an alternative in the early 90's, by the time I got my first real job in the early 00's everyone used the pre-calculated one and just made changes as necessary. The first years I got my tax return in the mail and I think a few years I had to mail back a signed copy, but these days everything is digital and if you don't have to make any changes you don't have to do anything at all. Back then you also had to physically deliver your tax deduction card to your employer so they could deduct tax correctly, but these days that is also digital and salary systems just fetches the current deduction card before running salary jobs every month.
- xnorswap 1y ago
  Sometimes I think the most exceptional thing about the USA is exceptionalism. Solutions to problems that are solved elsewhere are pushed back against, because "The USA is fundamentally different". Other countries have states too. The UK even has a country with an entirely different legal system (Scots Law), but we still make our collection of income tax system simple. A "complicated tax system" (if that is the root cause) is not something that is impossible to change. It is within the gift of the government(s) to change that. The lack of appetite for change is the result of decades of lobbying for the status quo to continue.

ZenoArrow 1y ago

> I never understood why the Revenue can't provide a set of simple online forms for tax returns like India does. Did you read the article? The TL;DR summary is that the US government has proposed doing this in the past, but has been lobbied against it by companies that seek to profit from software to help prepare tax returns.

eloisant 1y ago

The whole point of the article is to answer to that question.

rurban 1y ago

They do provide the forms, you simply fill them out. I did that every year without consulting any specialist or extra services. Much easier than in Europe. It was a 20min affair.

graemep 1y ago

The UK has online forms for this, even for businesses, but is moving away from this as part of "Making Tax Digital" - i.e. they are axing paper forms to doing away with the online equivalents as well. Then again, most people here who have salary only income do not have to fill in a tax return at all - only if they have certain types of income (self-employment, capital gains or investment income) above a threshold.

gerdesj 1y ago
I've been doing Self Assessment for 25 years. In the first few years it was fill in a colourful paper form which won awards for clear English etc. Nowadays it is online with many details pre-filled in. At the end you can download a .pdf that looks exactly like the paper form or not bother.
- rwmj 1y ago
  That's for personal tax returns. For businesses, the new MTD stuff is all through commercial partners.

Amezarak 1y ago

They do, it's called free fillable forms. If you have salary-only income that's about how long it takes. https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form... Tax prep software exists for people with more complicated tax situations and people who are unwilling to add and subtract a couple of numbers. The 1040 form is not complicated and anyone can use it to file their taxes for free.

tzs 1y ago

Something like ~40% of US individual taxpayers only need to file a form 1040 [1] for their federal tax return. Another large group will need that plus a small number of other forms, most of which will be easy to fill. For example if they are getting a tax credit to help with health insurance costs there is form for that. That one's easy to fill out because you will be mailed a report that contains the information needed for the form. The report is in a standard format, and the instructions will be of the form copy line X form the report to line Y of the form. If your income is just salary plus some investment income from investments like mutual funds you don't have enough deductions to be worth itemizing [2], it generally is pretty straightforward. [1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf [2] In the US you have a choice between "itemizing" your deductions, which means you have to list all of them, or taking the "standard" deduction, which is around $15k for a single person and around $30k for a married couple. Around 90% of people take the standard deduction.

roxolotl 1y ago

They were rolling out a free service over the past few years that was getting solid reviews and plenty of people used[0][1]. One of the top priorities[2] of the Trump administration and DOGE was to prevent that and it has been since shut down[3] and partly open sourced[4]. 0: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24071005/irs-direct-file-free-tax-software-turbotax-review https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24071005/irs-direct-file-... 1: https://www.investopedia.com/early-reaction-to-the-new-irs-free-online-tax-filing-service-8621571 https://www.investopedia.com/early-reaction-to-the-new-irs-f... 2: https://apnews.com/article/irs-direct-file-musk-18f-6a4dc35a92f9f29c310721af53f58b16 https://apnews.com/article/irs-direct-file-musk-18f-6a4dc35a... 3:https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/30/irs-chief-says-agency-plans-to-end-free-direct-file-program.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/30/irs-chief-says-agency-plans-... 4: https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file https://github.com/IRS-Public/direct-file

shepardrtc 1y ago

They do, IRS Direct File: https://directfile.irs.gov/ https://directfile.irs.gov/

BHSPitMonkey 1y ago
You mean they did, but the Trump administration and GOP passed a provision to begin eliminating the program earlier this year.