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Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

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Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#111

Post by mattlondon »

Robin_Message wrote: post #72
vages wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! Do you have an example of a form from your home country (assuming you don't live in the US)?

Most UK citizens never fill in a tax form. VAT is handled by shops for you. Council tax (local tax based on property value) you are sent a bill based on the value of your property. There are various exemptions and deductions for exceptional cases, but otherwise you just pay the amount. Income taxes are deducted by your employer from your paycheck under a system called PAYE (pay as you earn). It works basically perfec…

> Most UK citizens never fill in a tax form.

Note that if you earn over £100K, and/or sell more than £45K in shares/options in a year (so probably a lot of people on here from the UK/London-area who work for a BigCo?) then you must fill in a tax return even if all of your income is otherwise PAYE. In this case it takes just mere minutes but I guess they like to check everything really is simple.

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#112

Post by dewey »

KirillPanov wrote: post #81
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any good reason this isn't the case in America yet?

Security. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26140809

That's not really a good reason for that as we have online banking, public tax records and other sensitive services available through the web for a long time.

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#113

Post by OJFord »

mattlondon wrote: post #110
vages wrote: post #15

Related fun (and sad) fact: In Norway, the tax submission forms are online and so user friendly that you don't need a tax filing program like this. Edit: Here is a link to an explanation for the form, in English, which was revamped in 2020: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/taxes/tax-return/tax-r... The submission form is essentially a wizard that asks you questions related to your situation and your past year. D…

The UK system is similar - a web-based form, starts off asking you some basic questions ("Did you give to charity?" "Are you a director of a company?" etc etc) then tailors it directly for your needs, with the "obvious" stuff being pre-filled from your usual employer-deducted taxes. The wording is clear and simple to understand (...most of the time - some of it is a bit "legalese" in places but it is getting better e…

Probably at least 80% of Britons don't even need to do it, it's only if you're self-employed, have capital gains over the allowance, extra pension contributions and you're a higher rate tax payer, etc. that you even need to self-assess.

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#114

Post by oigursh »

jsmith99 wrote: post #66
Hamuko wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people actually bother claiming their home office as an expense for 2020. It's pretty easy to do (I did it), but the benefit isn't that massive and inaction is easier than action. The standard flat deduction for "work-related expenses" is 750 euro and you can bump that to 900 euro if you worked remotely for >50% of the year's workdays. Of course, if you actually incurred more expenses (and kept trac…

In the UK, if you've had to work at home at all this year, you just tell the tax authorities online by ticking a few boxes on their website and they automatically adjust your PAYE code (what Americans would call withholding) so you pay less tax. It means that you don't have to fill out a tax return just because of simple adjustments like this.

have you got a link to that please?

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#115

Post by emteycz »

ajmadesc wrote: post #98
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are other countries not victim to lobbying in the way America is? Is it just a double-edged sword that we have to thank for making us (one of) the economic powerhouse(s) of the world? At the same time, it feels like it to blame on why we can't have anything nice when compared to European countries. Am I out of line/uneducated on this matter? I very well could be. I hate just chalking the root of problems up to so…

American lobbying practices are criminal offences that would land you with corruption charges in Europe.

And that's why all the lobbying here is done behind close doors. It doesn't mean it's gone.

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#116

Post by piva00 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #70
llarsson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden, the employers are responsible for reporting your income and banks your profits on sales of stocks, funds, and real estate. So "doing your taxes" is, for most people, just logging in and saying "yes" to the computed value. You can even just send a text to do so.

In the US, IRS takes the tax cut before you even see your funds in the bank account. This can be adjusted by filling out the dependents #. Basically, allowing you to have some ability to adjust based on your needs. The IRS knows everything about your taxes. The filing process is about allowing the citizen to make deductions and providing flexibility by default . I actually prefer it this way. Note that I’m not saying…

All of that is the same here in Sweden, the main difference is: we get a pre-filled tax form with everything Skatteverket (the Tax Authority) knows about your income. You are free to adjust as you need, you can make deductions as you would in the US, we just don't have to pay for software to help fill out our forms.

Why you would prefer to have to re-enter data that your government already has and that they will match against your own data I don't really understand...

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#117

Post by tikkabhuna »

oigursh wrote: post #114
jsmith99 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, if you've had to work at home at all this year, you just tell the tax authorities online by ticking a few boxes on their website and they automatically adjust your PAYE code (what Americans would call withholding) so you pay less tax. It means that you don't have to fill out a tax return just because of simple adjustments like this.

have you got a link to that please?

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

Did it today. It takes 5 minutes. You need the normal HMRC account though.

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#118

Post by coldcode »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #38
llarsson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden, the employers are responsible for reporting your income and banks your profits on sales of stocks, funds, and real estate. So "doing your taxes" is, for most people, just logging in and saying "yes" to the computed value. You can even just send a text to do so.

Is there any good reason this isn't the case in America yet?

Besides those two, a third one is that the IRS has been starved on resources for a long time, mostly (but not exclusively) by GOP politicians who want to make it hard to audit their rich benefactors. I had a friend who worked at the IRS his whole career until retiring (international tax law) who described the horrifically ancient systems they were forced to work with and the seriously budget limitations they had to live with. The IRS manages to miss enormous amounts of tax because they cannot afford to investigate the more complex situations, so in that aspect the politician's goals are successful.

Yet investment in the IRS is highly likely to result in recapturing the huge amount of legal taxes they miss, if they were only able to. Clearly the status quo is insufficient to actually collect the taxes currently on the books.

Of course tax law in the US is also politically designed to make policy that results in favored industries and organizations and to make this as obfuscated as possible, resulting in crazy complexity, which of course also benefits the tax prep industry.

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#119

Post by syshum »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #31
m463 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the good reason: some people are philosophically opposed to easy taxes - people should be painfully aware of the money they are giving to the government. (sort of like folks who have VAT complain about advertised US retail prices which don't include tax) The bad reason: Lobbying by intuit and parties to prevent easy tax preparation. Their ROI on regulatory capture is very very good.

> the good reason: some people are philosophically opposed to easy taxes - people should be painfully aware of the money they are giving to the government. That’s only a good reason if you’re opposed to the actual programs and/or outcomes. If you favor those programs and outcomes, making people “painfully aware” of their cost almost certainly undermines them. Which... > The bad reason: Lobbying by intuit and parties…

>>That’s only a good reason if you’re opposed to the actual programs and/or outcomes. If you favor those programs and outcomes

Most of the people that philosophically opposed to easy taxes, are philosophically opposed to taxes in general and by extension most of the programs the taxes fund.

I am one of those people, doubly so for income based taxation which IMO is unethical. I prefer a Henry George Style single tax system for public finance but that is beyond the scope of this thread

Re: Show HN: ustaxes.org – open-source tax filing webapp

#120

Post by syshum »

senux wrote: post #29
m463 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the good reason: some people are philosophically opposed to easy taxes - people should be painfully aware of the money they are giving to the government. (sort of like folks who have VAT complain about advertised US retail prices which don't include tax) The bad reason: Lobbying by intuit and parties to prevent easy tax preparation. Their ROI on regulatory capture is very very good.

The "good reason" you provided, even if it were an actually thought out consequence of the US system, isn't really delivered. In reality, people are painfully aware of how annoying filing taxes is and hopeful that they will get some money back later. The system is so convoluted, most people pay someone else to take care of it for them. Not to mention, most people barely understand what's happening when they are filin…

yea, I would much rather the IRS be mandated to send out a Yearly Statement itemizing every dollar spend by Category in the previous year by the US government, at minimum at the Broad Category level (i.e Social Programs, Military, Administration, etc)
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