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Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

incometaxcalculator.net.in

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Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#41

Post by patja »

kingsidharth wrote: post #23
patja wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How depressing is it for India that cheating on taxes is a national pastime and only 2 - 3 percent pay them? Much as I abhor the complexity of the US tax system (go flat tax!), at least most taxpayers in the US actually pay.

98-97% people are not "cheating". Most of then don't even fall under category of having taxable income. Anyone earning below Rs. 200,000 is exempt from Income Tax I wouldn't generalise. http://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-india-pay-income-tax-...

I didn't say that. I said cheating on taxes is a national pastime. And that only 2 - 3% pay taxes. Two different assertions in the same general subject domain. I apologize if my choice of words led you to conclude I was saying 98 - 97% are cheating: that was not my intention, and if you re-examine my comment I think you will understand.

The article you reference basically says that of those who owe taxes the only people who don't cheat are the few who work for large corporations who handle the filing of taxes for them.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#42

Post by hiharryhere »

damoncali wrote: post #16
dylanjermiah wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have to keep TurboTax and its derivatives in business somehow :)

I've always wondered what would/will happen when the tax code gets so complicated that nobody can understand it, and we have to rely on a machine to interpret it. A sort of brave new world where the inputs are collected by computers, the tax is calculated by computers and taken by computers, all understood only by a small cadre of tax coders. Kind of scary.

I've been thinking about this recently too. In Australia the government is looking into using IBM Watson to automatically make administrative decisions, e.g. assess applications for immigrant visas.

I can foresee a future where legislation becomes ever more complex and people defer to Watson as the source of truth as there will be nobody left in the public service who needs to know the actual text of the law.

Fun times ahead.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#43

Post by kamaal »

ska wrote: post #21
kamaal wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because India's tax base isn't as elaborate as the US tax base currently. Gradually this will change, countries like India are growing and the government needs a lot of tax to build infrastructure and other stuff. I think in the next few decades Indian tax system would equally if not more complicated than the US tax system.

I fail to see why complexity is a necessary result of increasing tax revenues. Most of the complexity seems to come from policy initiatives and successful lobbying of special interest groups .. both of which may be considered to be misguided.

>>I fail to see why complexity is a necessary result of increasing tax revenues.

Because increasing tax base also means increasing the sources which you can tax. In case of India, nearly all business men don't pay taxes. There is a lot of money exchanged through corruption at all levels, there is money exchanged through gifts, dowry etc etc.

Which is why the biggest reforms pending in India currently is to get everyone to have a bank account, so that they can be paid through a bank instead of handing out cash directly. Once the necessary infrastructure is in place(Bank accounts, connectivity etc), you can start reducing the supply of paper money and have people deal in electronic means. You can increase your tax base and cut a great deal of unaccounted transactions and tax them appropriately. You can also cut corruption since a transaction implies a source and receiver, who need to explain what they are doing when a transaction of money is taking place.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#44

Post by [deleted] »

ska wrote: post #21
kamaal wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because India's tax base isn't as elaborate as the US tax base currently. Gradually this will change, countries like India are growing and the government needs a lot of tax to build infrastructure and other stuff. I think in the next few decades Indian tax system would equally if not more complicated than the US tax system.

I fail to see why complexity is a necessary result of increasing tax revenues. Most of the complexity seems to come from policy initiatives and successful lobbying of special interest groups .. both of which may be considered to be misguided.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#45

Post by kamaal »

patja wrote: post #41
kingsidharth wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

98-97% people are not "cheating". Most of then don't even fall under category of having taxable income. Anyone earning below Rs. 200,000 is exempt from Income Tax I wouldn't generalise. http://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-india-pay-income-tax-...

I didn't say that. I said cheating on taxes is a national pastime. And that only 2 - 3% pay taxes. Two different assertions in the same general subject domain. I apologize if my choice of words led you to conclude I was saying 98 - 97% are cheating: that was not my intention, and if you re-examine my comment I think you will understand. The article you reference basically says that of those who owe taxes the only peo…

>>only people who don't cheat are the few who work for large corporations who handle the filing of taxes for them.

People in large corporations are well known to turn in fake rent receipts, produce medical receipts of their relatives/neighbors to claim tax benefits. So whatever 2-3% might be paying, aren't paying it completely.

India needs massive tax reforms.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#46

Post by arihant »

chdir wrote: post #26
damoncali wrote: post #12

How depressing is it for us in the US that the Indian tax code is simple enough that someone can "show HN" a tax calculator.

Indian tax code is FAR from simple and FAR from being unambiguous. There are seemingly straightforward cases that can easy land you in soup with the tax authorities because it is so difficult to interpret the language. It simply fails to cover all possible cases. That's not to say that US tax code is leaps & bounds better.

I don't understand what is hard in the language: http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Documents/direct-taxes-code...

Indian tax code is beautifully spelled out. It is basically a collection of to-do list items with each item having an extremely simple description. For a nominal Indian, you have to, at the most, read this document till point number 85. All the points are collected in groups. So you if you do not have a non-profit org, for eg., you can just skip that entire section.

Don't judge it by it's length. It is extremely clear. So clear that Income tax is taught in grade 8 and 9 in Indian schools.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#47

Post by ska »

kamaal wrote: post #43
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see why complexity is a necessary result of increasing tax revenues. Most of the complexity seems to come from policy initiatives and successful lobbying of special interest groups .. both of which may be considered to be misguided.

>>I fail to see why complexity is a necessary result of increasing tax revenues. Because increasing tax base also means increasing the sources which you can tax. In case of India, nearly all business men don't pay taxes. There is a lot of money exchanged through corruption at all levels, there is money exchanged through gifts, dowry etc etc. Which is why the biggest reforms pending in India currently is to get everyo…

That doesn't mean you have to have much added complexity. The complexity doesn't really come from adding sources, it comes from adding exemptions and credits.

e.g. an overly simplistic tax code could read: everyone pays 18% on all income. All money you get from any source is income.

Now clearly that has some problems - but complexity isn't one of them.

Reporting and fraud are separate issues, or at least separable ones.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#48

Post by suter »

Kluny wrote: post #35
burke wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting sidenote: In Canada, our tax rules are of a similar complexity to yours. The CRA (~IRS) publishes this document, which makes it relatively easy to compute income tax and other deductions: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/t4127-jan/t4127-15e.pdf

Related, there is an excellent webapp called simpletax.ca, which I've been using to do my taxes for the past few years. It's the most painless tax process I've ever had, so I love it, but it only works on returns going back to 2011. Every year I seem to have at least one friend ask me to help with their taxes - typically someone who hasn't done theirs in 10 years or more, has no idea where to begin, and whose situati…

Nice. I promise we're telling the truth. ;) The tax code changes a lot from year to year. Even if we had the tax resources to implement prior years (and the cost/benefit made sense), the CRA doesn't retroactively certify products.

I wish there was an easy, silver bullet answer for people who are behind on their taxes, but it really depends on each person's situation.

The better solution is to radically simplify the Income Tax Act. This would make the system easier for everyone and ultimately make products like ours redundant. It's the right outcome and one we'd like to see one day. Until we get there, we fill a critical gap. Free CRA software won't fix the problem and—I'd argue—would be a huge step backwards.

Re: Show HN: Income Tax Calculator

#49

Post by Kluny »

suter wrote: post #48
Kluny wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related, there is an excellent webapp called simpletax.ca, which I've been using to do my taxes for the past few years. It's the most painless tax process I've ever had, so I love it, but it only works on returns going back to 2011. Every year I seem to have at least one friend ask me to help with their taxes - typically someone who hasn't done theirs in 10 years or more, has no idea where to begin, and whose situati…

Nice. I promise we're telling the truth. ;) The tax code changes a lot from year to year. Even if we had the tax resources to implement prior years (and the cost/benefit made sense), the CRA doesn't retroactively certify products. I wish there was an easy, silver bullet answer for people who are behind on their taxes, but it really depends on each person's situation. The better solution is to radically simplify the I…

Ha, thanks, I figured you'd be on here. Yes, I really do believe it's a tough problem. I'll vote in favor of any solution that allows people to get their affairs in order more easily. Hope it happens.
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