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Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

propublica.org

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Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#551

Post by vonmoltke »

lagadu wrote: post #500
jacobolus wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks in Europe comparable to the ones you are talking about here (i.e. the 50th–85th percentile) are generally much more financially stable/comfortable than in the USA. Varies a lot from country to country, but in general they have e.g. more-or-less functional healthcare systems, better parental leave, more vacations, easier access to childcare, stronger worker protections, ....

A lot of what you mentioned on our side of the pond is paid for by our social security contributions, not from our taxes though.

Social security contributions are a tax, just one earmarked for a specific budget rather than the general fund.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#552

Post by rebuilder »

mac01021 wrote: post #481
rebuilder wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If private tax filing products saved money for their users, as compared to a hypothetical, IRS-produced product, what are these companies worried about? They'd have a clear competitive advantage over the IRS product.

How could they save money, though? The tax code is the same in both cases, and most people's financial lives are not complicated enough to make it any kind of challenge to get the best refund.

Then the conclusion is the same: no reason not to let the IRS provide their own tax filing service.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#553

Post by moduspol »

_archon_ wrote: post #546
RayVR wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second argument is about raising all relevant barriers to submitting your tax return. If I were in this camp I’d be pushing for everyone to have zero withholding and carry cash to a tax filing center. Ideally, there would be very few tax filing centers so you would need to travel far and wait in line. My bet is that within the first year of this taxes would be massively reduced. Also, very few people would actual…

I don't understand what anyone would gain from this. Citizens would be more cash-rich throughout the year, then cash-poor when tax time came. Over the years, people would learn to squirrel away similar amounts to what they're withholding now. Withholdings exist now as a forced savings plan for the poor and a free loan system for the .gov for the upper class. > My bet is that within the first year of this taxes would…

The easier and more "automatic" any tax is, the easier it is to hide, and the less people understand that they're paying it. And as they become less aware of what they're paying, it becomes easier to take more.

OP is acknowledging the inverse is also true, and that if "automatic" aspects of the system were removed, people would become much more aware of what taxes they are paying, which would lead to public support for reducing the amount.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#554

Post by chronolitus »

peteforde wrote: post #398

One thing I don't understand (possibly as a Canadian, possibly just as a conscious person) is how little it costs to bribe your highest-ranking politicians. The article suggests that tax filing is an $11B industry and that companies spend ~$6M lobbying your corrupt senators. The chair of the Ways and Means committee received ~$16k in donations from Intuit/H&R. Wait, what? Never mind how inexcusably transactional this…

Maybe we can't comprehend it, the same way that I can't comprehend, say prostituting myself for money. If I consider the prospect, it would have to be for ridiculous sums. Yet everyday people are selling themselves for - from my point of view - a pittance.

I guess, if you're in the business of selling your principles (corrupt politician), you're suddenly competing with a wide pool of equally corrupt people, probably with cutthroat tendencies, who are willing to go cheaper than you and take your place? Could be that driven, principled, smart people are hard to find, but people willing to be corrupt politicians are dime a dozen and replaceable.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#555

Post by indigochill »

_archon_ wrote: post #546
RayVR wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second argument is about raising all relevant barriers to submitting your tax return. If I were in this camp I’d be pushing for everyone to have zero withholding and carry cash to a tax filing center. Ideally, there would be very few tax filing centers so you would need to travel far and wait in line. My bet is that within the first year of this taxes would be massively reduced. Also, very few people would actual…

I don't understand what anyone would gain from this. Citizens would be more cash-rich throughout the year, then cash-poor when tax time came. Over the years, people would learn to squirrel away similar amounts to what they're withholding now. Withholdings exist now as a forced savings plan for the poor and a free loan system for the .gov for the upper class. > My bet is that within the first year of this taxes would…

The anti-tax group wants to make paying taxes as painful and inconvenient as possible based on the assumption that if taxes suck, more people will be more actively in favor of reducing taxes (as opposed to, you know, making the process not suck).

It's not about reducing liability at all right now, it's about making more people anti-tax.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#556

Post by cascom »

mikestew wrote: post #175
cascom wrote: post #7

What propublica left out: To be clear the Intuit’s of the world are not acting altruistically, however they’ve created an odd alliance with anti-tax advocates who 1. Think that any government provided system will favor the government over tax-payers and make it easier to sneak in stealth tax changes and 2. The anti-tax lobby cynically (and correctly) understands that in order to keep taxes unpopular, making them pain…

2. The anti-tax lobby cynically (and correctly) understands that in order to keep taxes unpopular, making them painful is useful. If that's an example of their swift thinking, I'll be sure to vote against anyone that carries even a whiff of their ilk. Because if such a candidate could not see a distinction between taxes and the process of paying them, we're probably not going to get along intellectually, let alone po…

I think that rules out all mainstream politicians

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#557

Post by syn0byte »

jumbopapa wrote: post #538
ecopoesis wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to enrich Intuit and other tax preparers that lobbied for this.

That's for point 1. Point 2 is a completely different camp.

Point 2 is after-the-fact rationalization so they don't have to admit point 1 in public.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#559

Post by dragonwriter »

u801e wrote: post #544
nkozyra wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that make the lower class the only ones that had to file anything at all (for the tax credit), put temporary financial strain in place when waiting for credit for purchases and actually make the IRS more complicated and onerous for most Americans? I get the attempt to sidestep the regressive counterarguments normally in play with sales tax replacement systems, but I think this system would be equally regress…

> Wouldn't that make the lower class the only ones that had to file anything at all (for the tax credit They shouldn't have to do anything more than file a W4 whenever they start a new job or their income statutes changes. That's certainly less burdensome than even just the 1040 form now. > put temporary financial strain in place when waiting for credit for purchases What I proposed would be a credit that would be ap…

> They shouldn't have to do anything more than file a W4 whenever they start a new job or their income statutes changes.

This works if everyone has a exactly one job at all times that is their sole source of income, but fails otherwise. Of course, if the conditions it works were always true, irreducible complexity (that is, excluding the complexity that is maintained simply because both conservative politicians and tax-prep businesses have an interest in making tax prep onerous unless you pay for an additional service) for taxpayers of the current to tax system would be significantly less.

It doesn't, even in the case it works, address the problem that a regressive tax with a flat credit is...still a regressive tax.

Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing

#560

Post by consp »

kokx wrote: post #532
janandonly wrote: post #508

To me (as a Dutchman) this sounds crazy. Here in Holland the only way to file your taxes as in individual (I don't know about company's) is to login to the government tax website (with my digid (a government issued digital identity)) and then to simply check if all the information that they have collected on me is correct. It usualy is. All I have to add is my deduction items, and BAM! it's done. Also, we automatical…

The dutch tax service even has a great slogan for this ideology: "Leuker kunnen we het niet maken. Wel makkelijker". Roughly translated, this means: "We can't make it nicer. But we can make it easier.". Every year, they add some improvements to the entire system. They basically prefill your entire income and capital. Including stocks, dividends and other things. The only things you need to fill in yourself are some o…

For those who are concerned about privacy: the banks are required to file your 1st of January balances and only the whole sum, not the specification and only the Social Security number in combination with the balances. You can specify more detailed (e.g. 'green' investments) but that is up to you.
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