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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?

#231

Post by desas »

cmdrfred wrote: post #145
sidlls wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 point is they don't want Americans doing the math of taking their gross earnings and subtracting a percentage of it and being reminded of the specific percentage of tax paid and gross taxation every quarter. Taking it from each paycheck quietly is a softer blow than all at once.

Don't Americans get pay slips which state how much they earned gross, how much tax & social security they paid (in dollars) and much they earned net?

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

#232

Post by emn13 »

kelnos wrote: post #209
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…

Yep, it's all just psychological warfare. The destruction of the tax prep industry in the US would make me so happy that it would overshadow any negative feelings I might have about my tax payments being more transparent to me. The numbers quoted in the article are insane. Over $10 billion that could be spent on actual useful economic output, wasted. Hours and hours of individuals' time, wasted. It's disgusting. In s…

You realize it's much worse than that right? Because $10 billion is just the direct cost of those firms, not the opportunity cost or the social cost, nor even the manhours and software cost. The six-billion man-hours alone I'd value at a ballback of $120 billion; though this is hard to truly estimate. Given that many figures simply assigned zero value time not spent working (and that's clearly nonsense), and that somebody earnign $20 is hopefully worth more; that sounds conservative to me.

Complex tax systems also encourage simply avoiding engaging in anything that would make tax burdens more difficult to figure; they cause stress (a public health issue that's still consistently ignored); and they encourage cooking the books to make life simpler - which in turn is an enabler for fraud.

The real-world cost of US tax complexity is likely at a bare minimum 100 billion dollars; possibly as much as 10 that; and that's excluding factors that are excluded from GDP; i.e. the value of things like lifestyle/stress but also more economic-oriented factors such as reduced economic agility.

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

#233

Post by monster_group »

delecti wrote: post #122
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.

>And if you should have been having taxes automatically deducted and underpay by too much, then there's a fine associated with it.

And interest!

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

#234

Post by henrikschroder »

BoorishBears wrote: post #90
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.

It took me about 10 minutes here in the US. Log into Turbo Tax, have it pull my last year's information, update the income fields and click through a wizard. It cost 30$, and I can see how you could argue the fact I paid a private company for a convience other countries get from their government for free is sad, but I'll take it since my quality of life would drop significantly at a comparable salary in Sweden due to…

But the amount of taxation isn't connected to the ease of taxation. It's not an either-or.

Also, in the US, as other commenters have pointed out in this thread, implementing pre-filled returns would increase tax revenue, since it would reduce tax fraud considerably.

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

#235

Post by lern_too_spel »

secabeen wrote: post #171
rbcgerard wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Not everyone uses it of course, but TurboTax includes your effective tax rate in the Tax Summary they provide at the end of the process.

According to the article, people using TurboTax is why we have this problem. You are not going to convince anybody to use TurboTax in this forum.

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

#236

Post by rsynnott »

ue_ wrote: post #223
known wrote: post #52

Unlike US, Japan is a homogeneous society http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...

Of what relevance is the ethnic or religious or hair colour or eye colour make up of a nation to the ease of filing taxes?

I think there are some people who just automatically respond with that to any criticism of US public services, even where it's nonsensical (if the point of comparison is a country with a larger percentage of people born elsewhere than the US, say).

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

#237

Post by rsynnott »

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.

Paying tax is very simple in Ireland (the average person rarely has to interact with the revenue service, certainly not every year), but no-one really _likes_ paying tax, all the same. This idea that people wouldn't notice if it was easy seems silly; they still see it coming out of their salary.

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

#238

Post by henrikschroder »

chrismealy wrote: post #201
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.

I heard in a lecture that in Sweden the government revenue office is considered to have the best customer service and customer trust of any organization in the country. Can any Swedes confirm this?

Anecdote:

The year I moved to the US I had a pretty complicated tax situation. My company paid for accounting help to get my taxes filed for that year as part of the relocation package. However, the accounting firm had some issues with my Swedish taxes, and told my company it would cost an extra $25k to fully investigate the situation to properly finish my Swedish tax return.

That dragged a bit, so I just called up the Swedish tax agency, explained my situation, and they told me which form to fill out and how, and which rules applied, all in a ten-minute free phonecall.

I'll take that over "APRIL 15TH OR ELSE!!!", which is all you get from the IRS.

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

#239

Post by henrikschroder »

kspaans wrote: post #180
alkonaut wrote: post #168

I file mine by ticking a checkbox and signing with the normal national digital id app. This is Sweden. I do not understand how the hell this is still so complicated in the US. Just change it? My impression of politics and authorities is "if something is obviously broken then it's already worked on and probably fixed within a year or two". The reason crap isn't fixed in the US? Beats me - but I'll guess: because a lot…

To give you a small example: the deduction for moving expenses[0]. If you move for work (plus some other small conditions), you can deduct those expenses from your taxable income. This can't be claimed for you automatically, you have to ask for it. To automatically file your taxes would very likely mean you miss this deduction. It's the legions of (arguably) boutique tax credits like this that crank up the complexity…

Things like this exist in Sweden, and they aren't a problem.

When you sign on to the government tax website (or mobile app, or whatever) you are presented with all the numbers they have for you, which means whatever your employer(s) and bank(s) have reported on you. (Same as in the US, the IRS knows these things already, they just don't tell you what they know).

If you are fine with that, you sign it, and it's done. Denmark has their system setup so that if you do nothing, it's the same as accepting.

But if you have more information, if you have deductions to make, and there's plenty of those in Sweden as well, you just fill in the information in the very nice government tax app, and you're done.

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

#240

Post by mgkimsal »

greggman wrote: post #190
narrowrail wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

it's a matter of perspective . making taxes more invisible to some people, myself included, makes them easier to raise. so, the argument would be to first make taxes more painful. the best would be to remove auto withholding. if the average $50k a year family had to write a check for $3k to the government every 3 mouths they'd likely push much harder for lower taxes. less taxes means less money for government which w…

not sure what area they're in where a $50k/year family pays $12k in taxes. NY? CA?
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