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Fun fact: the US government has the ability to tell you how much you should be paying in taxes, and to pre-fill your tax returns. However this has been prevent

• techsupporter 13y ago
  That seems to be the way things are going an awful lot lately. "Fun fact: the {federal|state|local} government has the {information|resources|capability} to {something}. However, this has been prevented by lobbyists from the {group that opposes something or makes a killing doing something very inefficiently}." Feel free to insert everything from tax filing data to broadband-as-an-infratructure.
• mynameishere 13y ago
  They do it anyway. I've been surprised by how many times the IRS have told me about mistakes...and then send me a check since I paid too much.
  • szx 13y ago
    NYS actually sent me a letter saying I missed this and that credit, refund check enclosed. Pretty crazy.
• greenyoda 13y ago
  "the US government has the ability to tell you how much you should be paying in taxes, and to pre-fill your tax returns" This is only true if you have a relatively straightforward tax return. Once you itemize deductions, there are all sorts of things the federal government doesn't know about, like how much real estate tax you paid, how much you gave to charity, what your medical and miscellaneous expenses were, etc. They only know about what's on your W-2, 1099s, K-1s, etc. For the really simple tax returns (like 1040-EZ), I think there's already an option to have the IRS compute your tax for you.