Would You Let the I.R.S. Prepare Your Taxes? • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by rtkwe » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:46 PM UTC

runarb wrote: post #48

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 b…

In the US there's commonly withholding on your paycheck for your state and federal income taxes and Medicare/Social Security. You can tell whatever company does your paychecks to withhold more or less depending on if you know you have a lot of deductions (married, supporting children, etc.).

On my paycheck I have a break down for how much is being deducted this period then year to date.

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

#62

Post by rayiner » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:48 PM UTC

quesera wrote: post #43

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?

If you're married you can't file separately. You can "married filing separately" but those brackets have an even higher marriage penalty.

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

#63

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:49 PM UTC

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.…

Wow, rayiner. You're in rare form today. I don't often notice an emotional post from you, especially one with a sentiment that I share.

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

#64

Post by timedoctor » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:51 PM UTC

This is a ridiculous idea. Might work for people who have a very simple tax return but the IRS could not possibly calculate my tax return it's incredibly complicated and is not based only on information that they have access to.

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

#65

Post by rayiner » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:52 PM UTC

aikah wrote: post #19

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.

Some people in US think the IRS has no legitimacy > Society is built on trust Well in US there are like 2 levels of government, the state gvt and the federal one. Some people think the federal gvt is despotic and abuses the powers granted by the constitution.

The irony is that the state governments are way more corrupt and despotic. Almost all the "police brutality" news you hear isn't DEA agents or FBI. It's municipal law enforcement.

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

#66

Post by harryh » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:55 PM UTC

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.…

I don't think the marriage penalty is patriarchal bullshit. It's just recognition that couples have lower combined expenses than two single people and hence have more income available to pay for taxes.

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

#67

Post by UnoriginalGuy » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 12:56 PM UTC

timedoctor wrote: post #64

This is a ridiculous idea. Might work for people who have a very simple tax return but the IRS could not possibly calculate my tax return it's incredibly complicated and is not based only on information that they have access to.

So what you're saying is "It might work for 90% of the population with only a single job, but since it doesn't work for me personally, let's not."

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

#68

Post by jokoon » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:00 PM UTC

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.

I'm also non american, and I'm always surprised how much american politics piss me off.

Maybe I'm kinda scared since it's the most powerful country in the world, so the whole world might be influenced by how crappy those politics are. Capitalism is everywhere, tax dodging is rampant, and it all seems to seed from american capitalism.

I'm not anti american, I love so many things about the US, but there are particular aspects that are just so senseless.

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

#69

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:01 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #41

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…

Intuit doesn't know tax law better than IRS workers, they just spend lots of money lobbying Congress to prevent simplified filing processes.

Intuit is one if the powerful political interests you refer to, an integral part of the FUD system you talk about built to keep the current system as-is for their own benefit.

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

#70

Post by belorn » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:03 PM UTC

I am a bit confused by the article, where it initial talks about how the system would be return-free, and that it would save everyone from doing record-keeping. But later, it talks about a system very similar to Sweden where tax returns has been prefilled with financial data, which people have to verify and sign. That system is not return-free and you still need to do record-keeping, since the numbers reported in by the employer could be incorrect.