Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US? • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by krrrh » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 3:54 PM UTC

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…

One interesting, and somewhat ironic, historical footnote to this, is that Milton Friedman was part of the group that conceived of and implemented employer withholding as we know it while he was working at the Treasury department. Though by his account it was introduced during WWII and not in the 1930s.

ref: http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.be/2014/04/how-milton-f...

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

#122

Post by delecti » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 3:55 PM UTC

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…

> Some people choose to not deduct any [...] this feels like playing with fire to me

Well it should, because it's not really legal. If you aren't having taxes automatically deducted then you're expected to pay quarterly estimated taxes. And if you should have been having taxes automatically deducted and underpay by too much, then there's a fine associated with it.

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

#123

Post by coldcode » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

Perhaps it would be easier to have the government collect all of our income, subtract the taxes, and pay us the difference once a year. That would be even simpler.

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

#124

Post by rbcgerard » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #116

caseysoftware wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think the allusion was to what their all-in tax rate is. Everyone knows what their take home paycheck is, but ask the same person what their effective tax rate was for the year, and most people don't have a clue (over withholding, 401k deduction, mortgage interest deduction, state and property tax deductions, phase outs etc)

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

#125

Post by chaosphere2112 » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

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…

Grover Norquist is also the basis of one of my personal engineering mantras:

"I don't want to abolish dependencies. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

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

#126

Post by 77pt77 » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

fierarul wrote: post #80

feld wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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.

Isn't that like much more than 3K USD in the USA if you consider purchasing power in Romania?

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

#127

Post by II2II » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

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…

Wouldn't American employers also be spending a fair bit of money figuring out taxes for their employees prior to handing off the data and money to the IRS? And wouldn't financial institutions be doing something similar for their clients?

The systems described by the article seem to be using the data submitted by employers and financial institutions to generate a tax return, which the tax payer verifies or adds to (in the case of self-reported income). For the majority, filing taxes would either be a simple confirmation that the government has complete data or vastly simplified because a great deal of the work has already been done for them.

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

#128

Post by Waterluvian » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

I don't have the most complex tax situation: a wife, child, income, capital gains. But it takes me maybe 15 minutes in Canada to do.

I once screwed it up and they fixed it for me, yielding a larger return than I calculated (I accidentally zeroed the RRSP contribution carry over value).

Thought maybe this would help give perspective of what can be.

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

#129

Post by thescriptkiddie » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:28 PM UTC

dingdongding wrote: post #112

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"

I honestly can't think of a better example of how broken American politics are.

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

#130

Post by sampo » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:30 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #116

caseysoftware wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> How can one not know what they make post-tax, at least well enough to not be off by a few dollars?

In the US, I guess you can look at how much salary appeared in your bank account, and multiply it by 12, to get the yearly salary.

In European countries, there are holiday bonuses and in some countries a 13th month salary, so the yearly income is something between 12.5 to 13.5 times the monthly pay.