Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is a straightforward answer: It's also patent nonsense.
I am not agreeing with it just stating the fact.
If it's actually a fact, then you don't get to agree or disagree with it.
Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
251–260 of 438 posts
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
When most Americans talk abou the autobahn like this they actually mean the sections without speed restrictions
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#253Most of the rest of the world does this. If you only have W-2 or 1099 income, the government already has all of the data necessary to complete your taxes using standard deductions. If you have other income, itemize, or have other circumstances, you can continue doing your taxes as is. It is curious that some proponents (in the US) of lowering taxes intentionally make taxes more complicated so as to make people more o…
If by 1099 you mean 1099-MISC, which is what I think most people mean when they say "1099 income" without an additional qualifier, then the IRS almost certainly has no idea what detections are available to you, and there may be taxable things that they don't know about either.
I'm willing that in the vast majority of cases they do, and the small minority of cases where they don't isn't a good enough reason to not do this. Especially because, if you do fall into that case, you can just file your taxes as normal.
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#254I pretty sure almost everyone would agree that having the IRS fill out a return and send it to you for approval would be better (except for the Norquist zealots that think the IRS would "hide" deductions from you). Most tax filers have a single W2 income and use the standard deduction, so the IRS would just send you a form that has that. For the rest of us who actually don't use the standard deduction, at least it wo…
Sending a pre-filled form that we can append with any deductions would be the best. Hell, it could be a website. The web is great for filling in forms. I live in Virginia and about a decade ago we had an online website to fill in the state taxes. It was so easy. H&R block bought off the legislature to have it shut down and now they charge one of the highest rates in the nation to file state taxes for Virginia. The st…
I would settle for a list of data that they do have. I hate looking for every form and hoping it is complete and correct.
I just got a surprise from last year that a 401(k) rollover was (incorrectly) filed to the IRS as a distribution. No tax form was sent to me, but the IRS knew all about it and sends me a letter saying I owe them several thousand, interest is accruing and penalties are about to start. They had this data at tax time and I could have fixed it all before filing.
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Flat tax doesn't even simplify anything. The problem with taxes is to determine what the taxable income is. Figuring out the tax rate is trivial once you have that, no matter what the curve is. Flat tax is just another attempt to give big tax breaks to higher incomes.
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#256I'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…
Absolutely its complete BS. All companies use ERP systems like SAP and PeopleSoft which already calculate all of the complicated rules, so any changes to tax law are vetted (hopefully) by tax professionals and software engineers before release. Compare this with the average tax filer (or HR Block employee), who has no fucking idea what they're supposed to do.
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously? That's the basis of saying that the anti-tax pledge prohibits IRS tax prep? The number of deductions and credits is orthogonal to whether the IRS can save you the effort of collecting the information about what they think you owe.
Not the basis at all, just one example. Here's another good one that OP added at the end in an edit: > It’s no secret that the IRS and big spenders in Washington, D.C. want to socialize all tax preparation in America. The (ironically-named) IRS Office of Taxpayer Advocate has been pushing for IRS preparation of tax returns for years. There’s only one reason proponents want to do this—tax revenues. If the IRS invites…
"> Never again would taxpayers have to worry about the IRS filling out a Form 1040 for them against their will."
Because this is an actual problem for some people?
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Flat tax doesn't even simplify anything. The problem with taxes is to determine what the taxable income is. Figuring out the tax rate is trivial once you have that, no matter what the curve is. Flat tax is just another attempt to give big tax breaks to higher incomes.
That's true. I never said the Ted Cruz postcard gimmick was honest; if it was honest, then it couldn't be sabotaged by simplifying the taxpayer experience for the existing schedule of rates and deductions.
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#259I'm an American who was lived and worked in New Zealand in Australia. I couldn't believe how easy it was to do taxes there, there was basically nothing to do.
Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? (2015)
#26013 million in lobbying over five years to prevent more efficient tax filing for an entire nation and protect your business model. Sounds like an amazing deal for a company with 5 billion in revenue. I'm consistently amazed at just how little money it takes to buy off the government effectively.
It's not just that, anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist has outsized interest on the right and he gets republicans to sign a pledge to not raise taxes, and if they violate the pledge Norquist raises money and campaigns against them. The problem is, the pledge also requires signees also do not support legislation to make paying taxes easier. The radical anti-tax groups are so anti-tax that they see making it easier to pay…
A similar group of people are upset at the signs in California highlighting works projects done with the new Gas Tax money (SB 1) that's up for repeal in November. Their argument is that if people see the projects that are benefiting from that tax money, they'll be more in favor of keeping the tax.