31–40 of 127 posts
As an non-american this baffles me. Why is there so much distrust towards the government, police, and military in US ? Isn't the US the oldest democracy ? Society is built on trust - once that doesn't exist then nothing gets done.
People saying "Intuit controls the government" are missing the forest for the trees. The IRS doesn't compute your taxes and send you a bill because then you'll forget you ever had the money in the first place. Lots of people want to make paying taxes painful, so once a year you have to spend hours facing the reality of how much money the government is taking from your paycheck.[1] Intuit just jumped on the bandwagon.…
As an non-american this baffles me. Why is there so much distrust towards the government, police, and military in US ? Isn't the US the oldest democracy ? Society is built on trust - once that doesn't exist then nothing gets done.
In other countries it's the employers that pay pretty much all of your taxes. They just keep the taxes from your salary and then when they pay their own taxes they also pay yours. I do think there's a slight disadvantage in having the taxes essentially "hidden away from you". This could be somewhat alleviated if instead of 10 different taxes there are just 2 or 3 at most, to make the whole thing more understandable.…
The big advantage is that you never have the chacne to spend all the money you have to save for taxes; makes budgeting a lot easier.
Unfortunately, this only works correctly when you have a single employer. If you have multiple employers, you need to send a form to the authorities and they will determine how much you overpaid or underpaid.
And if you're self-employed, you're on your own; you have to file your taxes yourself. But in that case most people hire a tax adviser to do it for them.
In other countries it's the employers that pay pretty much all of your taxes. They just keep the taxes from your salary and then when they pay their own taxes they also pay yours. I do think there's a slight disadvantage in having the taxes essentially "hidden away from you". This could be somewhat alleviated if instead of 10 different taxes there are just 2 or 3 at most, to make the whole thing more understandable.…
We do get our tax reports already filled-in by the IRS though. It's getting better each year. For now most people just check everything is there and whether it is correct and just sign and send (everything is done digitally of course).
I am a CPA and unless you have dealt with the IRS over the long-term, I think most of America has no idea how incompetent the IRS is. You would be frightened if they prepared your taxes for any more than the simple return, ie some W2s. I would not even want the IRS to automatically prepare taxes for "simple" forms such as 1099-Int/1099-Div or 1099-B for stock sales. And I do not say that from a "job security" perspec…
I agree, and I stand no benefit in job security from not having the IRS do it. The IRS will assume that the entire 1099-B is income, even though your cost basis (and therefore actual income) is right on the form. That said, I'd love to see Intuit go away.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>So…why do I have to pay the Intuit tax every year? Because you choose to?
Because Intuit bribes, er contributes to, Congress.
Of course I would, since they already do . Whatever I submit is checked by them anyway, and it's generally too expensive and painful to challenge them. So…why do I have to pay the Intuit tax every year?
Even before it became that easy, it was always possible to get a so-called “R75” statement before filing. R75 contains all the information that the tax authority has on you for a given tax year, including all filings from employers, banks, stock brokers, lenders, etc. That way it was easy to see if you missed anything and to double check the return.
(Today R75 is easily available online.)
IRS has a lot of information from W-2 and 1099 filings, but it’s not possible to quickly and easily get that. A FOIA or Privacy Act request would probably not be processed in time to be useful for a tax return, and it might raise suspicion. Mailing all the reported information to taxpayers, without pre-filling a tax return, would be a good first step to making tax time easier in the US.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't the US the oldest democracy? No. Not by about 2500 years in ancient Greece.
Oldest, continuously and currently running, democracy.
http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-80426,0...