Whenever you see a bill called “X First” for some X, you know who it’s going to shaft - X.
Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
591–600 of 717 posts
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#592Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting in theory but in practice most Americans do not have the financial literacy to budget properly to meet taxes. What happens when you don't have the cash to pay? Do we then see a whole new sector of predatory loans? Imprisonment? Increasing unpayable fines? None of those are good ideas, yet when things like this happen, our system has already fallen into these pitfalls. Witholding is an essential idea. What…
This is actually how things were done pre WW2. If people were able to budget for it then, why not now? The current system makes filing taxes and getting refunded seem like a reward, it should probably be a bit painful to do your taxes. Without the painful transparency, it becomes too easy for the government to nearly invisibly turn up the tax rate on individuals to pay for whatever boondoggle or foreign war they see…
> Without the painful transparency, it becomes too easy for the government to nearly invisibly turn up the tax rate on individuals to pay for whatever boondoggle or foreign war they see fit.
Non-sequitur. Taxes are already seen on every pay stub and tax return. Even if taxes weren't explicitly state, simply having less money is painfully transparent.
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#593Earlier quoted context omitted.
The U.S. used to primarily have for-profit firefighting. Switching to a state-run system drove out the commercial providers. And that's by all accounts, a wonderful thing. Business for the sake of business is not necessarily good. If the business does not provide real value any longer, it shouldn't exist.
So why not have the government run everything then? Government for the sake of government is never good.
Who are you arguing against? I never suggested anything of the sort.
Some things lend themselves very well to for-profit businesses. Others do not. Firefighting and filing your taxes to the government strike me as two things the government can probably handle better than capitalists.
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#594Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find the Dutch way (slightly) crazy, as someone from NZ for the most part, you just don't file taxes and it works out. If you have a more complicated situation you might need to, but otherwise there's no point. Everything is withheld correctly. At least the Dutch ones tend to just be click-click-check-done, so it's not too bad. But it was sad moving to filing annual tax returns from a much simpler system.
> I find the Dutch way (slightly) crazy, as someone from NZ for the most part, you just don't file taxes and it works out. This is generally the case as long as you do not deviate. In the past I requested to delay having to file taxes and they rejected my request because I did not have to. The 'but' is that as soon as you screw up, or one of your bosses screws up, or you forgot to file something, you have to file fro…
Also from NZ. Is 'file taxes' a synonym for a post-facto 'tax return' when the government overcharges, due to charitable donations etc? Otherwise I can't imagine any reason why I as an NZ employee would ever need to consciously think about _paying_ tax :)
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#595Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…
The US has the most idiotic tax system. Your employer, your mutual funds, your 401k, your bank -- everyone reports what you make to the government. The government already knows what you owe (excluding those that itemize). They should just print out a summary and hand over a bill / refund.
This is not done because the IRS doesn't have the power to enforce its tax system, and if it reported the information it had to the people, the people could know they can slip away with not paying anything that wasnt properly reported.
First, a transparent system of the IRS would lower revenue. Second, the deductibles system is very complex for the IRS to pre-calculate it, so they are unable to do it.
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#596Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is to enrich Intuit and other tax preparers that lobbied for this.
These anti-tax activists seem to be playing the role of Useful Idiots for the much more substantial reason 1, bearing in mind that the very existence of such companies making tax filing easier does indeed destroy point 2 entirely (in addition to the what OP pointed out which also takes away any credit this idea might have had). From a european perspective, having tax returns that are not pre-filled, and having a tax…
As a former US student, and paying my student loans.. I also cannot easily _pay_ them while living abroad. It requires I pay fees to transfer money to a bank account, and pay directly from this account. I cannot use an overseas account nor a credit card or paypal etc. So on top of the ridiculous amount they want, I have to pay money to even pay money.
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will say, vote with your dollars. If you don't like Intuit's lobbying, please don't feed the beast and use their services.
I might be getting old, but more and more I see “vote with your XXXXX” to be the litmus test for situations there is no decent solution left anymore. It’s not even an advice in the end, just a reminder the customer lost the battle, and the only alternative is to leave the field with what’s left on their posession to go roam the desert.
You are completely correct, it's an admission of defeat, of helplessness.
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#598Planet Money covered tax filing a few years ago and visited it again recently: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... My understanding is that the main opposition appears to be (1) the tax preparation lobby to protect their business interests and (2) anti-tax activists that believe that making people calculate their own taxes will make them more aware of how much they are paying in taxes. The…
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…
Yeah ,withholdings are garbage from an anti-tax pespective.
Great example of that today is that most americans believe the trump tax reform didnt help them (only 17% believe it helped them) but it literally and factually increased the income for 80%. At least one reason for that is that withholding was reduced, but refunds were reduced as well. Availability bias makes people remember refunds, but not their monthly payments.
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#599Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has the most idiotic tax system. Your employer, your mutual funds, your 401k, your bank -- everyone reports what you make to the government. The government already knows what you owe (excluding those that itemize). They should just print out a summary and hand over a bill / refund.
This is not done because the IRS doesn't have the power to enforce its tax system, and if it reported the information it had to the people, the people could know they can slip away with not paying anything that wasnt properly reported. First, a transparent system of the IRS would lower revenue. Second, the deductibles system is very complex for the IRS to pre-calculate it, so they are unable to do it.
Especially with the tax reform, most folks will be taking the standard deduction. Making the common case easy is still worth pursuing, even if some people will still itemize.
Re: Congress Is About to Ban the US Government from Offering Free Online Tax Filing
#600Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I haven't heard an anti-tax argument in this topic, but this is a main argument between economists and statists.
Economists will always say that the tax should be explicit, and it should be placed for the people that ultimately pay for it. But pro-taxes people, mainly the government, want higher revenues first, which means putting a tax wherever you can, and that is about what is politically feasible, not about what is economically sound.
The end result is a hybrid of both interests. For example, San Francisco charges sales taxes, known to be regressive and punishing to poor people, but at least you know you are paying them on a ticket. Other countries, like europe, hide the VAT taxes, so it looks like you are not paying taxes at all. VAT reaches 10~20%, sales taxes in SF is around 6%.
Making it explicity DEFINITELY reduces it.