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

111–120 of 279 posts

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

#111

Post by msound »

On a related note, a Stanford tax law professor Joseph Bankman had run trials of pre-filled forms for a few California state taxpayers. Listen to his journey on Episode 760 of PlanetMoney podcast:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episo...

TL;DR:

* 99% of people liked the pre-filled forms

* He took this idea to California state congress, but Congresspeople were "warned" about him by Intuit lobbyists

* He hired his own lobbyist but lost by 1 vote in the Congress

Edit: Grammar

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

#112

Post by dingdongding »

bogomipz wrote: post #84

This is short and worth a listen, a Stanford Professor spent a year or so of his life piloting a program in California called "Ready Return", where the government filled out your taxes for you. Ultimately it was shot down by Intuit and H&R Block's lobbyists however. http://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-l...

And Republican lobbyist also. Their reasoning was "We don't want to make filing taxes simple, because if they become so people will stop hating taxes"

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

#113

Post by nightski »

msound wrote: post #111

On a related note, a Stanford tax law professor Joseph Bankman had run trials of pre-filled forms for a few California state taxpayers. Listen to his journey on Episode 760 of PlanetMoney podcast: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episo... TL;DR: * 99% of people liked the pre-filled forms * He took this idea to California state congress, but Congresspeople were "warned" about him by Intuit lobbyi…

ReadyReturn sounds like it only works if you have an extremely simple tax return. While that is great, I don't understand how the people with a simple W-2 are having such a painful time with taxes. It takes about 5-10 minutes to finish a simple return. What am I missing?

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

#114

Post by [deleted] »

msound wrote: post #111

On a related note, a Stanford tax law professor Joseph Bankman had run trials of pre-filled forms for a few California state taxpayers. Listen to his journey on Episode 760 of PlanetMoney podcast: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episo... TL;DR: * 99% of people liked the pre-filled forms * He took this idea to California state congress, but Congresspeople were "warned" about him by Intuit lobbyi…

[deleted]

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

#116

Post by sidlls »

caseysoftware wrote: post #96
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…

There's good evidence for this. That was part of the reason the Feds pushed employers to do withholding "on our behalf" during the 1930s. Prior to that, taxes were filed quarterly and then only a small % of people. But people actually saw how much they paid. Withholding was a clever and subtle way for us to never see part of our paycheck so then any tax return we get feels like a bonus when it was actually just an in…

How can one not know what they make post-tax, at least well enough to not be off by a few dollars? That is, after all, what one has to actually pay bills with. I know what my net earnings after taxes, retirement, etc. are to the nearest dollar, every paycheck. When I was substantially poorer (in academia, and prior to that school) I knew down to the penny (as a function of hours worked, even, when I worked hourly pay jobs).

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

#117

Post by sidlls »

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…

I view over-withholding as an interest free loan to the government. No thanks. I'd rather underpay by 1% than overpay. For me 1% is over $100/mo. I'd rather earn interest, dividends, whatever on that and then pay the balance.

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

#118

Post by ghaff »

chadlavi wrote: post #86

What I find truly amazing about the tax situation here in the US is the sheer unpredictability. You the employee are burdened with choosing the right formula to deduct taxes from your paychecks, but there is no ironclad way to ensure that you deduct only the exact right amount—or to check whether you've been deducting enough. For most people, tax time comes and either they get a bunch of money back (they deducted too…

If all you have is a W-2 and minimal deductions, in my experience it's pretty close unless you think +- $1K is "a bunch."

Once you have dividends, stock sales, mortgages, other revenue, etc. your employer really has no way to know what the right amount to deduct is. If you're consistently over or under, you can change the number of allowances on a W-4 form.

>Some people choose to not deduct any

You can take a large number of allowances but I'm not sure you typically can just not take any deductions. If you significantly underpay you may get hit with a penalty and will have to make estimated tax payments the following year.

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

#119

Post by hyperliner »

US tax payer here.

I'm going to stay away from discussing TurboTax from a political perspective.

However, I have used TurboTax since the first year I had income. It's super easy. As my income has gotten complex over time (from simple, one employer tax return to multiple employers in a same year, real estate, investments, and office expenses), I have found TurboTax worth the $90 or $100 it costs to purchase the software every year. I always purchase the $40 "Audit Protection" and have never used it: not once I have been audited.

It does take some investment of time. You need to read the questions, learn to figure out the forms that you get from banks, and be careful in inputing your data. But a lot of the sections are skipped anyway. I learned to stay away from buying stocks that are partnerships (pain the behind to do during TaxTime, not worth the hassle if you can find alternative stocks). TurboTax remembers my last year's numbers and that is also super easy. It helps me stay informed and keep responsibility for my tax situation and make my own decisions on what to do next year without "the government or the employer doing it for me."

I have always had the temptation to go to a full service (H&R Block, or some of the higher end ones offered by my bank), with the idea of maybe discovering that I have been overpaying all these years! But I have never done it, mainly because of concerns on identity theft. Today, all my data is in my computer and the only time the data leaves my network is when I send it to TurboTax for e-filing. This could also be avoided if I printed it and mailed it, but I rather not take my chances with lost mail.

I did have some large income a number of years back due to a sale of a company, and I was doubting myself about whether I was "paying too much." I simply asked folks around me, and they told me "nope, you are good" as the cash was distributed as regular income in my W2.

All in all, TurboTax has served me well. My investment is a total of about 10 hours or so spread over a few months. Every time I get a new form, I go to TurboTax and input it. Sometime around March I wrap things up and file.

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

#120

Post by syncsynchalt »

edwhitesell wrote: post #83
feld wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm with you here. I never spent more than $600 having a few W2s, some 1099s, the usual interest-bearing accounts, a C corp and a schedule C. Granted, I could have spent a LOT more if I didn't keep track of everything (i.e. needing a bookkeeping service too). Maybe that's where the additional expense came in.

You seem to be talking about US tax forms while the post you're replying to is talking about Japanese tax prep.
Post reply on HN