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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)

#261

Post by gst »

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…

I'm citizen of Austria and resident of the United States.

Austrian tax returns are much simpler because in the majority of cases they don't exist: Your employer and your banks automatically withhold the correct amount of taxes (capital gains are taxed at a flat rate and don't influence regular income taxes). Marriage status doesn't matter for income tax as the same tax brackets apply to everyone. Deductions are much less common but if you have any deductions you can let the government know and they'll automatically refund your tax within a week or so.

One reason why Austrian taxes are so much simpler is because there are much fewer special cases: The US has all those different credits and deductions that lower the taxes in certain situations, e.g., the "First-time homebuyer credit repayment". Meanwhile in Austria all those subsidies for, e.g., lower income people aren't included in the tax system, but are available via completely separate programs (e.g., if your income is very low the government pays parts of your rent and helps you with heating costs in the winter, but you have to submit a separate application for that).

Not sure which system is better. One thing I noticed is that in Austria I never applied for any subsidies even while being a low-income student (why would I apply for social services if I don't really need them?). Meanwhile in the US my tax advisor makes sure that I get all the credits and deductions that I'm eligible for.

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

#262

Post by intopieces »

I want to see a study comparing the two: Return-Free and Traditional. If return-free ends up with the government collecting more in taxes than the average traditional+Intuit fees, I would be opposed to it.

I fear that people would consider whatever form the government sent them, with whatever number it had on it, the final say, resulting in the government not being accountable for the taxes they collect.

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

#263

Post by dragonwriter »

dfjliasjg wrote: post #256
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…

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.

> All companies use ERP systems like SAP and PeopleSoft

No, not all companies do that. Maybe “most very large companies”, but that's a different thing altogether.

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

#264

Post by s73v3r_ »

Karishma1234 wrote: post #222
jedberg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We believe making it simple would also make it simple to raise taxes and people will not realise how much money they are paying to the government. In other words you think people are too dumb to do the math, but yet are smart enough to make intelligent protests against taxes when they have to write a check?

I do not make any value judgement here about other people. I do not want money taken away from people without they explicitly agreeing to it (even though disagreement might mean jail).

You agreed to follow the laws of the country in which you reside by continuing to reside there.

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

#265

Post by newman8r »

InitialLastName wrote: post #212
newman8r wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true then I feel bad for the guy. Would probably be best for the IRS to give people amnesty in that situation.

I feel worse for the people whose actual, involuntary problems they are trivializing by presenting (true or not) their situation as a "lifestyle choice". If it helps, some other comments in this thread indicate that there's no need to file a tax return on yearly income under ~$10,000 so this person and others in their situation would likely qualify. I don't think the IRS should give amnesty for past willful nonpaymen…

If you never filed the tax returns in the first place or willfully evaded, you couldn't discharge that debt in bankruptcy.

Maybe amnesty isn't the solution, but if you're living out of your car and have IRS issues looming over your head, escaping that life could be pretty tough, and that sucks.

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

#266

Post by nsporillo »

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.

Usually when the speed limit bumps up from 55 to 65, it means the stretch of highway is actually more safe. Whether it is a long straight away with few on/off ramps, or the end of construction - the jump in speed limit usually does correspond to the level of safety of the upcoming stretch of roadway.

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

#267

Post by s73v3r_ »

chatmasta wrote: post #6

“Your taxes” is such an overloaded term that it’s almost comical to refer to it as if it means the same thing for everyone. There is basically one straight-forward case where the IRS preparing taxes makes sense: that of full time employees whose only income is from their job which issues W2s. For everyone else — which includes: - People working multiple part time jobs - People with non-standard investment portfolios…

"There is basically one straight-forward case where the IRS preparing taxes makes sense: that of full time employees whose only income is from their job which issues W2s."

And as it turns out, this is the vast majority of cases. Just because there are a few other cases where it doesn't work out does not justify not doing this.

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

#268

Post by phil21 »

sokoloff wrote: post #174
baddox wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The radical anti-tax groups are so anti-tax that they see making it easier to pay taxes as support for taxes. So they want it to be difficult to pay taxes to make it easier for them to argue against taxes entirely. I don't know if getting rid of taxes entirely is really a goal for many of these people, but what you describe doesn't sound that unreasonable. Making paying taxes easier does sound like support for taxe…

I’d love to see the end of payroll deductions and to make annual taxes due the Monday before Election Day. Doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have taxes, but we’d have a tight temporal and psychological link between what we pay and the selections we make at the ballot box.

Right. I'd love to see the end of Payroll deductions in addition to making it stupid-simple to file and pay. Let me visit a website and toss my bank account info in.

Practically it would never happen so it's difficult to argue for other than on ideological grounds. I think we as a society would find out that a huge amount of the population would simply be incapable of budgeting even quarterly tax payments. The enforcement costs would be immense.

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

#270

Post by gwbas1c »

Coding_Cat wrote: post #92
volkk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the worst kind of selective enforcement - random enforcement. Very similar to the way police behave w/ regards to speeding tickets. Set extremely low speeds that don't make sense on highways. Allow most people to go 10-15 above. But then also sometimes choose random people to screw over when it's the end of the month and they need to hit their quotas.

>Set extremely low speeds that don't make sense on highways. Allow most people to go 10-15 above. I doubt people really speed because the limits have been set too low and the people know better what is an ideal speed limit. I think people_think_ they know better what the speed limit is, and/or reason "well if 60mph is okay, 75 mph can't be that bad, I'm barely speeding and I'm in a rush". At least, that's the attitud…

It's regional. I've seen an interview on MA TV with a State Trooper where the cop basically said that 5-10 over was totally OK on a newly-opened freeway.

Then again, MA speed limits tend to be lower than surrounding states.

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