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

nytimes.com

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

#101

Post by jacquesm »

tluyben2 wrote: post #22
jschulenklopper wrote: post #11

I don't know when the slogan of the Dutch tax authority, "We can’t make paying taxes pleasant, but at least we can make it simple" was introduced, but in my view it has been supported in three different ways: 1) a simplification of the tax rules - mainly by reducing the number of exceptions and tax deduction rules, 2) filing the tax forms digitally - they started with desktop applications, and now the main focus is o…

It is still no krentebol to work with taxes in NL. Better than most places but if you have a company it still is way too much red tape. I am very much for paying taxes and I would not even mind overpaying if it were a lot simpler. Here in Spain it is hell: I know why it is that but it makes not declaring far more attractive so we Dutch did something right. Still it is way too much hassle, especially for the small amo…

The only hard ones are VAT and pension plans. Everything else is manageable.

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

#102

Post by koolba »

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…

How much of that $5K is fixed and how much is variable (on number of employees)?

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

#103

Post by jeltz »

crisdux wrote: post #66
huffmsa wrote: post #16

"Hey, we here at The Government would like to make your experience paying taxes less painful. Hence forth, we're just going to take whatever amount we think is accurate, and you don't have to do anything! Just trust us!" Politely sir, take one giant step back from that and your beachfront property in Arizona, and diddle your own face. Now, serious answer? Because EVERYTHING about the US Government is intentionally de…

I'm not sure why other people in this thread think this is crazy. This is actually a widely held belief by Republicans. Many of them want paying taxes to be hard so people will be conscious of government burden. They believe making tax filing simple is a risk to our liberties.

I have read about this before, but it still sounds totally crazy to me. There have been plenty of inefficient and corrupt governments which still have managed to impose police states. To me it seems like a cult of personality for the leader is a greater threat to your liberty than efficient bureaucracy.

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

#104

Post by asdfgadsfgasfdg »

dazc wrote: post #67
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK equivalent: "Tax doesn't have to be taxing". The UK web filing system is also pretty good (part of the GOV.UK project), although if you're in a nice straightforward salaried job you won't have to use it at all.

I find it pretty annoying actually. I have been submitting my returns digitally for several years now and I haven't noticed any improvements? For example, it pre-fills some data but omits obvious stuff like my first name and email address which are highly unlikely to have changed since last year? Some non-relevant sections can be ignored but others need you to enter 0.00. Also, if there is an error in the electronic…

> For example, it pre-fills some data but omits obvious stuff like my first name and email address which are highly unlikely to have changed since last year?

They may be thinking that it is better to let you cache that information in your browser?

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

#105

Post by toyg »

pjc50 wrote: post #33
jschulenklopper wrote: post #11

I don't know when the slogan of the Dutch tax authority, "We can’t make paying taxes pleasant, but at least we can make it simple" was introduced, but in my view it has been supported in three different ways: 1) a simplification of the tax rules - mainly by reducing the number of exceptions and tax deduction rules, 2) filing the tax forms digitally - they started with desktop applications, and now the main focus is o…

UK equivalent: "Tax doesn't have to be taxing". The UK web filing system is also pretty good (part of the GOV.UK project), although if you're in a nice straightforward salaried job you won't have to use it at all.

> if you're in a nice straightforward salaried job you won't have to use it at all.

Until you have the gall to (god forbid) open a side business. After that, you'll forever be forced to file a tax return, even if you go back to being a regular employee. Because fuck entrepreneurship, amirite?

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

#106

Post by jMyles »

wobbleblob wrote: post #39

“We can’t make paying taxes pleasant, but at least we can make it simple.” I actually don't mind paying taxes, because I can see around me every day that the money is mostly put to good use. I can imagine if I lived in a place where there were little or no public services, bad public schools, bad infrastructure, five digit annual college fees, polluted tap water, power with frequent blackouts or brownouts etc, I'd be…

When it comes to philosophical objections to taxation, it's not the awful infrastructure around me that bothers me, it's the bombs dropped on other people's children and the bars that confine people for no morally justifiable reason.

My heart goes out to the people held in torturous conditions in prison on my tax dollar. I hope that I someday have the strength to resist and refuse to pay for this.

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

#107

Post by csomar »

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…

yeah I was not too convinced when I read the article. The government can easily figure out the taxes for your wage (which your employer did actually figure out) but they can't figure out the taxes on your real estate revenue, and maybe other activities (traded cryptocurrency? freelanced on the side? Airbnb"ing" some of your estate)

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

#109

Post by chimeracoder »

jacquesm wrote: post #100
bemmu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> 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. That's how it is in most countries because they're all different entities collecting.

> That's how it is in most countries because they're all different entities collecting.

Exactly. I pay city, state, and federal income tax in the US. My city is about 1.5 times the population of Finland, and that's only one of the three different forms of income tax I have to pay. At least that goes through the state, so it's only two departments, but that's again separate from the federal IRS. And that's just income tax, not other taxes I have to account for and pay as well.

The reason it's more complicated in countries like the US, Japan, India, etc. is because they're much, much larger, which requires more complexity to manage - both the size of the government itself and the revenue-collecting departments that need to support it.

If I only had to pay taxes to my city's revenue department and there were no state or federal tax in the US, I can guarantee that the process would be a lot smoother for me as well.

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

#110

Post by dogma1138 »

toyg wrote: post #105
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK equivalent: "Tax doesn't have to be taxing". The UK web filing system is also pretty good (part of the GOV.UK project), although if you're in a nice straightforward salaried job you won't have to use it at all.

> if you're in a nice straightforward salaried job you won't have to use it at all. Until you have the gall to (god forbid) open a side business. After that, you'll forever be forced to file a tax return, even if you go back to being a regular employee. Because fuck entrepreneurship, amirite?

You can close a self employed tax account in the U.K. You'll have to file VAT and Tax info for that tax year but that's about it.

If you do not go through the process and close your income tax, NI and VAT accounts then yes you need to file them even if you no longer have a side business in practice.

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