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Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

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Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#231

Post by Karishma1234 »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #53
Karishma1234 wrote: post #40

As a rule of thumb I would not trust IRS to do my taxes but I am happy if they send me a draft and I have to just sign or make corrections.

In every country I'm aware of where the government does your taxes, you have exactly that option to accept (whether explicitly or through inaction) or to correct. I don't know anywhere that forces you to accept the government's calculation without a chance to provide your own.

In USA too you get W2 and other statements that give you all the numbers. Things only get complicated when you have several streams of income.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#232

Post by iris-digital »

ryanianian wrote: post #121
stephengillie wrote: post #3

I'm annoyed that there is no simple system for the IRS to tell me what I owe, and let me pay or dispute. Instead, we play this game where the IRS provides a bunch of complicated documents, I guess which ones to fill out and submit, then wait 3 years to see if I was randomly chosen to see if I was correct. So it's very easy to make a mistake for dozens of years, then suddenly be penalized at random. It's the worst kin…

> The IRS have all the data Not..entirely true. My 2016 taxes were professionally done, but we somehow forgot to include one of the something-something-1099 forms from a brokerage firm. The brokerage reported some RSU stock-sells to the IRS but didn't report the cost-basis, and so the IRS assumed the cost-basis was $0 and thus taxed the full sale as income (effectively double-taxing all the RSUs). They just sent a ta…

Return will still need to be verified by the taxpayer in either case.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#233

Post by setr »

rlanday wrote: post #209
wccrawford wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you're seeing is that most people know that up to 10mph over the limit is pretty safe in regards to getting a speeding ticket. That's separate from how fast they think is safe on the freeway in general from a physical standpoint. If there were no limits posted, they'd go even faster. So basically I'm saying that both you and the parent poster are both correct. It's just that more than just physical safet…

The claim that the average speed at which people drive depends on the speed limit, and the claim that it does not, cannot both be correct.

They're both correct, or both wrong, in that both of their reasonings are correct in having a noticeable effect on thd outcome, while their conclusion may not be.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#234

Post by scarface74 »

Joeri wrote: post #213
sDlEzAtyoNAz wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting those "excessive" velocities are not actually safe?

If you look at the stopping distances at 80+ mph I don't see how you can argue those speeds are safe.

https://www.thelocal.de/20160406/eight-things-you-never-knew...

While it may seem counter-intuitive, the Autobahn is safer than many motorways which have speed limits.

Whereas US interstates - with speed limits of 70 mph - have an average of 4.5 fatalities per billion kilometres travelled, the Autobahn only has a fatality rate of 2.7 per billion kilometres.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#235

Post by philwelch »

dcosson wrote: post #203
gamblor956 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS has actually run trials like this in the past. Very successful, at least for simply W2-based returns, since most people's taxable transactions get reported by companies anyway (i.e., mortgages/interest, other income, etc.) and most people use the standardized deduction. Inuit and Quicken subsequently lobbied to end those programs and even bar the IRS from running similar programs...

There was an interesting Planet Money episode about this [0]. Apparently the lobbying by Intuit is actually fairly minor compared to the opposition by Republicans. Some group of Republican legislators came together and agreed to oppose all tax increases, and also agreed to oppose many types of tax simplification. The thinking being that the more painful filing your taxes is, the more people will have a negative perce…

Most Republican "flat tax" ideas have tax simplification as a major selling point (e.g. Ted Cruz talking about filing your taxes on a postcard); if you can simplify the implementation of the existing tax schedule, you lose that selling point.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#236

Post by ProblemFactory »

filleokus wrote: post #95

I'm torn on this issue. On the one hand, in Sweden, taxes are extremely simple to file, and I love it for practical reasons. All work income (even from multiple part time jobs which someone said would be an issue) is declared by the employer, almost all saving/stocks/bonds/other stuff resulting in financial gains are reported by the broker/bank. I think many people don't change any of the data, almost 1 million (out…

> It is good that it's so simple to file it, but at least when just texting an okay it probably hides just how much people pay in taxes.

There are much better ways to make taxes understandable to people than making it complicated to file them.

For example, UK tax office sends everyone a letter with their total tax contribution and a breakdown on how it is used for different government services: https://i.imgur.com/a1MIiPC.jpg

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#237

Post by joefkelley »

woobar wrote: post #163
cortesoft wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how people drive. People don't look at a speed limit and then drive 15 over; they drive the speed they feel comfortable with, regardless of the speed limit. Studies have shown this: Q. Wouldn’t everyone drive faster if the speed limit was raised? A. No, the majority of drivers will not go faster than what they feel is comfortable and safe regardless of the speed l…

> they drive the speed they feel comfortable with, regardless of the speed limit My anecdata does not support this. When roads are not congested, I can see that most drivers accelerate from ~70+mph to ~80+mph right ofter the speed limit sign changes from 60 to 70.

I wonder if there is some kind of "steady state" vs "transition" effect that could explain this though. For instance, if you put up a sign that changed the speed limit from 70 to 80 but changed nothing else about the road, would you see an initial increase and then decrease after a few miles? Although I'd also guess that in reality if the speed limit changes to 80, there's probably other characteristics of the road that change so that the steady state might not regress back in this instance.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#238

Post by philwelch »

scarface74 wrote: post #171
Joeri wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn#Travel_speeds on a free-flowing section in 1992, the recorded average speed was 132 km/h (82 mph) with 51% of drivers exceeding the recommended speed. The autobahn has a long history proving that people feel comfortable and safe at excessive velocities.

The autobahn is different. The people who drive on the autobahn self select because they want to drive fast and they have a disproportionate number of cars that can handle the speed. I doubt I would have been driving my first car - a Mercury Tracer - on the autobahn. But 80 miles per hour is not an abnormal speed on the highway. The posted speed limit is so rarely enforced, that it still isn’t a deterrent. For instan…

I'm not sure I understand this point. The autobahn is just the German highway system. Do Germans who don't want to drive fast and don't own fast cars all emigrate to Denmark or something?

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#239

Post by avar »

The "Stanford Professor Loses Political Battle To Simplify Tax Filing Process" article[1] discussed here a year ago [2] is relevant to this topic, although in that case it concerned California state taxes.

That article also answers a question many here have ("why don't they pre-fill the form like "). It's because Grover Norquist, the well known promoter of the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" took the counterintuitive view that just making the process easier equated to a new tax, since taxpayers might end up paying taxes already on the books that they might have previously unintentionally evaded.

The same applies to any such improvements in the IRS filing process.

1. https://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521954033/stanford-professor-...

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13990391

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)

#240

Post by 13415 »

stephengillie wrote: post #3

I'm annoyed that there is no simple system for the IRS to tell me what I owe, and let me pay or dispute. Instead, we play this game where the IRS provides a bunch of complicated documents, I guess which ones to fill out and submit, then wait 3 years to see if I was randomly chosen to see if I was correct. So it's very easy to make a mistake for dozens of years, then suddenly be penalized at random. It's the worst kin…

Arguably it's not really comparable because of country size etc. but I really love the Portuguese IRS system. You log in from your PC, press a button (if you want), and the system auto-fills all of your tax data for you. You can then check that everything is in order, add deductions and proofs if you like or need. Press simulate to check what tax returns you will get. You may save and print everything. There is a help system built-in that explains every form. When you're finished with your review, press send, and the system will validate your forms and send them to the IRS.

Usually everything is filled-in correctly anyway. Takes 5 minutes for ordinary tax payers like me.

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