361–370 of 489 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They know all of your income down to the cent If you have a W-2 job and all your investments are in a bank or brokerage, but they still don't know your filing situation, dependents, other income, or deductions. Not that I'm justifying the current system. It's just that the IRS only knows the big picture for most people. The rest is complicated.
Don't they know that from the W-4? Or does that not go to the IRS
Now we're just left with this illogical part of the tax system: The State: Pay me taxes or I'll put you in a cage! Citizen: OK, how much do you need? The State: You tell me, but if you're wrong you'll regret it!
This change means the state will stop saying "you tell me" and start telling people.
Excellent news, and congrats to Propublica for in no small part making it happen. This wasn't just a shady operation -- Turbotax openly lied to customers about its free file program, it deliberately suppressed the program from search results, it lied to veterans. It was 100% acting in bad faith during negotiations with the IRS. Sometimes topics like this end up becoming kind of ideological or partisan; but in this ca…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why wouldn't citizens demand a public tax filing process? Because they don’t want to make it easy for the government to impose lots of taxes. Americans have the lowest taxes in the developed world. Not especially for rich people, but for everyone else: https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/I... . This isn’t the work of some secretive cabal of billionaires. Rich people hire accountants to do the…
> But a platform of “we’re going to make taxes painful so the government is afraid to raise taxes” gets a lot of votes. I've never heard anyone promoting the idea of keeping taxes complicated to avoid higher taxes. There's nothing inherent in complicated taxes that stops the government from raising rates. Conservatives have long wanted the flat tax (file taxes on the back of a postcard) and lower taxes, so simpler lo…
Your theory is wrong.
There is no reason the IRS shouldn't have a simple, online fillable 1099EZ that makes the calculations and validations for you. And while their at it, match the SSN to the w2 info that they have on file. This would take care of 80% of the population. Just don't outsource it. I'm sure USDS could have it ready in less than a year.
One caveat is that you can't attach forms you've been sent from your bank or employer or whatever; you have to transcribe your W-2, any 1099s, 8949s, etc. This can be tedious. I don't know if e.g. TurboTax somehow makes this better.
I am sure that there are people for whom free file fillable forms is not enough, but IMO these people should probably be working with a CPA.
[0]: https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it comes down to who people trust. Americans on the whole don't trust their government quite a lot. If the government just said "you owe X in tax this year", nearly everyone's knee jerk reaction would be that the government is overestimating and cheating them. On the other hand, you can pay a flat fee to let a third party fight the government on your behalf. That's something that many Americans like the sound…
> Americans on the whole don't trust their government quite a lot. If the government just said "you owe X in tax this year", nearly everyone's knee jerk reaction would be that the government is overestimating and cheating them. That's why most governments that do self-declaration services make it so you can review what tax rules they based amounts off of. It's not like tax law is super easy elsewhere and without comp…
Right, but since no regular person understands the rules, they can't really double-check. Especially since sometimes you can file stuff under different rules that produce different results, despite both being valid (I say this based on experience from another country, but I suspect the same is true in the US).
We need pre-filled tax forms. https://priceonomics.com/the-stanford-professor-who-fought-t...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I've guessed wrong, I've also been rewarded with unexpected large dollar figure checks in the mail. I did once make an error that cost me, and someone at the IRS was excellent in working together over the phone to get things square.
> I've also been rewarded with unexpected large dollar figure checks in the mail. But did they also send any interest? Notice if you owe them, you also owe interest, unless you negotiate. If they owe you, you don't usually get the interest sent do you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, The GOP control of the senate is clearly not due to gerrymandering, or at least not any gerrymandering that happened in the past 100 years. I think gerrymandering is an issue, but it's only a fraction of the reason why representation is not particularly proportional.
> or at least not any gerrymandering that happened in the past 100 years. This is the /very/ important distinction. Our entire country was gerrymandered when they gave every state 2 votes in the senate. It's truly crazy how few Americans can sway the makeup of the senate/house/EC. Edit: removed "(and 3 base in the house)" because that's not correct, I was mixing it up with the EC in my head.
That's not gerrymandering. That's the result of a federal system of government where every state is represented equally in the senate, and on the basis of population in the house.
It's fine if you don't like it, but it's not gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is manipulation of district boundaries. Senate representation of entire states is something else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think are more steelman'ed version of the GOP argument is: when government does things badly, they can go VERY VERY badly. It's a risk viewpoint. Whereas the progressive viewpoint letting government do more and more things. The other risk is bloat. Once a government program exists, it is very very hard to stop it and get the funds back ( from a political perspective ). It's unpopular to fire people. When government…
Competition also plays a role here... not that there should be competition in filing simple tax returns... but competition often leads to better goods/services. There is not much to incentivize a government run program to be better other than the current administration cracking the whip so they can get re-elected.