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Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

nytimes.com

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Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#41

Post by Shivetya »

wtbob wrote: post #4

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?

Well they don't check them when you submit them as they don't have all the information at the same time you do. Your W2 by law must be sent to you by the end of January I believe, however delivery to the IRS is not required by the same date.

As such fraud creeps in.

You pay Inuit because there are nearly eighty thousand pages of tax law that even IRS workers cannot properly comprehend all because politicians use the IRS as a political tool to benefit those they like and punish those they don't.

Hence why any attempt to overhaul the tax process is quickly denounced by supposed neutral groups; groups at the beck and call of powerful political interest. There is an entire FUD industry built to keep the current system to benefit of the political class and those well off enough to pay them.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#42

Post by mannykannot »

onion2k wrote: post #17
1971genocide wrote: post #6

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.

Isn't the US the oldest democracy? No. Not by about 2500 years in ancient Greece.

If you ignore half the adult population. Universal adult suffrage is about a century old. The US was an early adopter, but not the first.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#43

Post by quesera »

rayiner wrote: post #14

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.…

Can't you just file separately?

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#44

Post by ahomescu1 »

1971genocide wrote: post #6

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.

> 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 ?

I don't think you speak on behalf on all non-Americans. As an Eastern European, I can perfectly understand mistrust of government and police (and I think people from many other countries can share these feelings).

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#45

Post by kire456 »

> Then Intuit mobilized against ReadyReturn, hiring lobbyists to oppose the effort in the capital and financing candidates who pledged to overturn it.

> “People in other states who had been interested in it started saying, ‘We just don’t want to pick a fight with Intuit.’  ”

Excuse me for not understanding US politics, but.. How is this not considered blatant corruption?

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#46

Post by jlebrech »

maxerickson wrote: post #30
onion2k wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the US the oldest democracy? No. Not by about 2500 years in ancient Greece.

I think for the connotation in the parent comment you might say that the US became a democracy in 1920 or 1965 (but we still deny, for instance, children, the right to vote). (at least, I tend to think that the modern concept of democracy is bound up with self determination, something that ancient Greece sort of did not have, nor did the US when it was founded)

if children could vote, the world would be too fun to handle.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#47

Post by fennecfoxen »

1971genocide wrote: post #6

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.

> Why is there so much distrust towards the government, police, and military in US ? Isn't the US the oldest democracy ?

The US became a democracy in no small part because there was so much distrust towards the government, police and military right there at the get-go... and the distrust of the system that is built into the system (the whole three-branch, checks-and-balances system) is one of the reasons it has never veered off into a deranged dictatorship like, say, ancient Rome.

(I mean, the power and longevity of the FDR administration was pretty insane -- probably the closest we got to that -- but nothing like Julius Caesar).

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#48

Post by runarb »

higherpurpose wrote: post #7

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.…

Is it so that employers don't subtract your taxes in the US? How does that work? Do you get one big invoices in the mail for a year of tax?

Here in Norway one normally pays around 45% of one's salary in tax. The employer has to subtract the money from your pay directly. Because no one sees the money before it goes to the government, many people don't really think much about it. If that on the other hand got one big bill at the end of the year I think there would have a lot more outcry on all the waste of taxpayers’ money that is going on.

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#49

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

a3n wrote: post #13
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #10

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.

Intuit is obviously a parasite, but do you have to use their products?

Re: Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes?

#50

Post by jqm »

1971genocide wrote: post #6

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.

What really baffles me is how others DON'T intrinsically mistrust those in power. Human nature is human nature after all.

NSA revelations, "I'm going to close GITMO", "weapons of mass destruction", "I did not have sexual relations with that women"... This list goes on and on.

Trust is out of the question at this point for many people. The word gullible comes to mind.

For the record, I don't mistrust the government. I think most of it is low level bureaucracy that somewhat functions, (albeit a bit inefficiently), and basically keeps things running. But it is run by people. And historically most people have been lazy, a bit stupid, and corruptible. But there isn't necessarily a pernicious conspiracy. And I would let the government prepare my taxes. As long as they have good software and it isn't a politician doing it.

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