4 ms·

Thanks, but I read the article before it was even posted to HN and it doesn't even come close to resolving anything for anyone who's self-employed or has their

by maratd 12y ago

Thanks, but I read the article before it was even posted to HN and it doesn't even come close to resolving anything for anyone who's self-employed or has their own business. It might resolve the problem for some people, in a marginal manner, but overall, it doesn't do much.

s73v3r 12y ago
So because it doesn't help you, even though it would help the vast majority of people, we shouldn't do it.
- maratd 12y ago
  Is that what I said? I think I said there are better options that would help everyone even more. We should explore those instead. Also, if the government has all the information necessary to do your income taxes properly, then it'll literally take you 5 minutes to fill out the form. You receive the same forms they do, just plug in the numbers. The PDF version will calculate everything for you. The problem is that the vast majority of people have DEDUCTIONS and the government has no idea what those are, so this wouldn't work for them.
  - ianburrell 12y ago
    The vast majority of people take the standard deduction. Only about third of taxpayers itemize deductions. Many of those would probably be covered by mortgage interest and donations which the IRS already knows about. The self employed and wealthy probably would still need to do their taxes. Self employed is only 7% of workforce. Even their taxes would be easier because they would know all of the info that the IRS collected and wouldn't have to collect the paper forms.