Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 279 posts

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#71

Post by spangry »

fblp wrote: post #64
spangry wrote: post #56

Does the US have a employer withholding system (i.e. if you get paid $1000 in a week, your employer withholds and remits whatever the pro rata amount is for $52,000 annual income to the Tax Office)? We have that in Australia, and it definitely simplifies the process for workers at the end of the year. Personally, I've always liked the idea of a 'standard deduction'. People with a steady paying job for the whole year,…

Yes, the US does have an employer withholding system but there are so many more layers of taxes and complexity because the taxation system is less federalised. In Australia there is a single federal employment tax, and a single federal sales tax. States and counties typically collect property tax and fees from services. In the US both the federal and state governments collect income tax. The tax rates and deduction c…

Wow, that's a lot of complexity! I remember the various state sales taxes when I visited the US a few years ago (that weren't built into the menu prices). Between that and tipping, I swear Americans must be absolute guns when it comes to quick mental arithmetic.

On the tax complexity, at least on the bright side the only direction is 'up' from here :)

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#72

Post by narrowrail »

pharrlax wrote: post #65

Overlooked in this article and comments is the influence of one man -- Grover Norquist. He runs an extremely influential organization that administers a sort of purity pledge that, for most Republican candidates for Congress, is necessary to sign in order to avoid being primaried. He has decided that making taxes easier to do would make people more okay with tax increases, and so he has decreed that support for the k…

Norquist started Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is a politically conservative U.S. taxpayer advocacy group whose stated goal is "a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform

Doesn't sound like you are describing Norquist's organization they way they do in their mission statement. Do you have any references?

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#73

Post by theandrewbailey »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #28
i_feel_great wrote: post #6

In Australia, via the mygov tool, for a simple wage earner like me, 10 minutes. All the payroll taxes amounts are prefilled, maybe 10 questions in all. Got my refund in ~ 10 days. The Australian Tax Office has a fairly extensive developers program to encourage more/better tooling and compliance. Edit: The ATO developers programme: http://softwaredevelopers.ato.gov.au/

BTW, the refund is a super-cool thing about the Australian system that may not be super-widespread. The Icelandic system is a very similar pay-as-you-go tax system, so tax is predicted and withheld from your wages over the course of the year. But Iceland errs on the side of under-withholding, if they don't know what your income is going to be. As a result, come tax time, most people get a letter saying "you owe us 60…

In the US, lots of stores have promotions specifically around tax returns.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#74

Post by andrewvijay »

geon wrote: post #14
ekblom wrote: post #4

This years it took me about three minutes: log in, scan throug the numbers, sign to accept. Then i went for a coffee. That how we do it in Sweden.

You bother to check the numbers?

The numbers are gotten from the banks and employers so they are always right

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#75

Post by bemmu »

feld wrote: post #62
patio11 wrote: post #50

The NTA (National Tax Authority, cited as the Kokuzeicho in the article) doesn't figure out your taxes for you. Your employer does, as one of the (many!) ways in which they exercise paternalistic control of your life. If you do not have an employer, you get to go through a process which is almost exactly as fun as it is in the US, modulo a modestly competent online filing application. I spent $3k this year on account…

$3k??! How is that possible? I get personal and business taxes done for $200

As another data point, I also pay $2k - $3k / year for help to file taxes in Japan. But I also know many people who just do it themselves.

My justifications for paying:

- We've done the return ourselves once, but it was stressful to worry about not completely understanding everything and making some expensive mistake.

- Service in English.

- If tax officials ever wanted to ask me something, they would get responses in Japanese from a person who actually knows what they are talking about.

- Nice for making sure I get every deduction.

- Probably just doing the "blue form" return is already worth the expense because of deduction benefits. I probably wouldn't ever get around to figuring out how to do that.

The process in Japan seems reasonable, but seems to me more convoluted than in Finland. I was particularly surprised how you have to pay many different fees which in Finland would have been bundled together. Namely having separate bills coming on varying payment schedules for income tax, municipal tax, entrepreneur tax (5%) and health insurance. This seems inefficient and confusing to me.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#77

Post by FiatLuxDave »

I've taken to referring to the time that I spend filling out US Government tax forms as the "Norquist tax". After all, it's hours of my time which I have to spend giving work to the government.

Maybe if we all start calling it that, Americans for Tax Reform will realize that they are causing more harm than good by lobbying against a more efficient filing system. They may think that having us spend a bunch of time doing our taxes makes us better realize how much taxes we pay. In reality, it's just another form of government waste.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#79

Post by bostik »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #47

Here in the Netherlands my employer's data is all pre-filled in. Just have to log in to a mobile app and sign with my citizen's digital ID. (just a login with 2FA). All of that takes about 3 minutes, and it's pretty much sufficient for like 80-90% of my peers (fresh out of college). But with more complex deductions, you need to use the 'full web app', which is also pre-filled but comes with tons of questions. They ta…

The Finnish system has improved to the point where I can finally say that filing tax returns is a pleasant experience.

We get pre-filled tax forms which include salaries and all capital gains from dividends. If the figures are correct, you don't need to do anything: the return has been filed for you. If you need to change or update the information, then you can do it online.

The only time an individual (like me) has to actually add to the pre-filled data is when they have additional income from properties or land. Back in 2013, when the online system first started to accept rental income, I would still need to fill in every freaking month. Separately. In 2014, I needed to provide the personal details of the tenants, but at least the rental income and expenses could be aggregated. For tax year 2016, I only needed to provide the aggregate income and expense for the properties in question.

My tax returns used to be really complicated, and for nearly a decade the Finnish tax authorities tried to systematically tax me twice on the same income. I used to send documents and letters in every year. But that has changed. When I filed my taxes in March, it took me a grand total of 10 minutes.

If I hadn't had the rental income to deal with, it would have been less than 5 minutes. So yes: it's finally a pleasant experience.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#80

Post by fierarul »

feld wrote: post #62
patio11 wrote: post #50

The NTA (National Tax Authority, cited as the Kokuzeicho in the article) doesn't figure out your taxes for you. Your employer does, as one of the (many!) ways in which they exercise paternalistic control of your life. If you do not have an employer, you get to go through a process which is almost exactly as fun as it is in the US, modulo a modestly competent online filing application. I spent $3k this year on account…

$3k??! How is that possible? I get personal and business taxes done for $200

It's close to $1.5k in Romania so $3k for a US-Japan tax accountant doesn't seem bad at all actually.
Post reply on HN