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Slightly unrelated: So I am foreigner living here with greencard for just few year, so I might miss something. After filing my fifth tax return this year I was

by hippich 13y ago

Slightly unrelated: So I am foreigner living here with greencard for just few year, so I might miss something. After filing my fifth tax return this year I was wondering - why I need to spend an evening at all doing copy/paste from paper forms I receive in the mail, when IRS receives same forms? I.e. why IRS can't just send me a bill or a check if they already have all numbers? I understand there might be some issues with self-employed people, but I think majority's income is reported on W-2 or 1099 forms. And for minority who is not part of these reporting could be required to go with some additional calculation.

stronglikedan 13y ago
Mortgages, donations, and other deductibles. As well as stock trades, investments and other sources of income. I used to wonder that as well until I bought a house and did some investing. For the more simple returns, there's easier ways than copy/pasting. If it's just a W2, there's apps that let you take a picture of it, and it'll OCR it and populate the forms automagically.
- hippich 13y ago
  mortgages already send reports to IRS. System could be set where IRS send an estimate and tax payer either pays/agrees for refund, or send back updated one with deduction and supporting documentation for these deduction. I own a house, do freelancing, investment done in retirement accounts, HSA accounts. Except business expenses, everything else was already reported to IRS either by bank, or employer or client on 1099-MISC. If there would be a form I could just sign and send back - I probably would skip expenses completely in this year. And for majority of people I feel like there would be nothing to report what already is not reported.
maxerickson 13y ago
The tax preparation industry has more lobbyists than you (and I) do. stronglikedan has a fair point with deductible expenses, but they could send a prepared statement to anyone who took the standard deduction in the previous year. Or they could send prepared statements to everyone, with some mechanism for adjusting the deductions (which should still be a big simplification). Edit: It probably also makes sense to just let people change anything on the statement; it shouldn't matter, but I think there are lots of people that would find that allowance reassuring.
- epistasis 13y ago
  Yes, this is purely a political problem rather than a technical problem. The other issue is that taxes are so politicized that there will undoubtedly be a contingent of congresspeople that think the hassle of taxes is a feature of the system rather than a bug.
  - hga 13y ago
    This book goes into quite some detail about how our tax code and it's frequent changes, or threats to do so, are a finely tuned instrument of Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Pockets/dp/0544103343/ http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Po... Quite a bit more, as well. Did you know that a Congresscritter can set up a "leadership PAC", and spend the money on anything he wants? I've been following this sort of thing since the early '70s (sic, late grade school and junior high, then again that was the Watergate period), but I didn't know that....

by hippich 13y ago

stronglikedan 13y ago

Mortgages, donations, and other deductibles. As well as stock trades, investments and other sources of income. I used to wonder that as well until I bought a house and did some investing. For the more simple returns, there's easier ways than copy/pasting. If it's just a W2, there's apps that let you take a picture of it, and it'll OCR it and populate the forms automagically.

hippich 13y ago
mortgages already send reports to IRS. System could be set where IRS send an estimate and tax payer either pays/agrees for refund, or send back updated one with deduction and supporting documentation for these deduction. I own a house, do freelancing, investment done in retirement accounts, HSA accounts. Except business expenses, everything else was already reported to IRS either by bank, or employer or client on 1099-MISC. If there would be a form I could just sign and send back - I probably would skip expenses completely in this year. And for majority of people I feel like there would be nothing to report what already is not reported.

maxerickson 13y ago

The tax preparation industry has more lobbyists than you (and I) do. stronglikedan has a fair point with deductible expenses, but they could send a prepared statement to anyone who took the standard deduction in the previous year. Or they could send prepared statements to everyone, with some mechanism for adjusting the deductions (which should still be a big simplification). Edit: It probably also makes sense to just let people change anything on the statement; it shouldn't matter, but I think there are lots of people that would find that allowance reassuring.

epistasis 13y ago
Yes, this is purely a political problem rather than a technical problem. The other issue is that taxes are so politicized that there will undoubtedly be a contingent of congresspeople that think the hassle of taxes is a feature of the system rather than a bug.
- hga 13y ago
  This book goes into quite some detail about how our tax code and it's frequent changes, or threats to do so, are a finely tuned instrument of Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Pockets/dp/0544103343/ http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Po... Quite a bit more, as well. Did you know that a Congresscritter can set up a "leadership PAC", and spend the money on anything he wants? I've been following this sort of thing since the early '70s (sic, late grade school and junior high, then again that was the Watergate period), but I didn't know that....