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IRS will study free tax filing options

propublica.org

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Re: IRS will study free tax filing options

#11

Post by sillystuff »

mangoTangoBango wrote: post #6
landemva wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do away with the whole dog and pony show. Eliminate the personal income tax. Everyone in personal tax side of HR Block and IRS can find some other career which is useful. Rake the beaches or something.

Just do a 10% flat federal sales tax + negative income tax if below a certain threshold. But this is way too logical for the main political parties to implement.

> 10% flat federal sales tax

Rich folks only need so many mansions, yachts and designer sweat pants. This would further shift the burden of taxes onto lower income folks who spend 100% of what they earn.

The IRS could just present a form behind a login with an itemized fully calculated tax return with an accept? "yes" / "no". They already have all the information they need, and already do the work when checking returns for errors.

Taxes are a pain because both, corporate capture of government by powerful tax preparation companies and also because a certain political ideology wants paying taxes to be as unpleasant as possible to make the concept of taxes as unpopular as possible.

Re: IRS will study free tax filing options

#12

Post by landemva »

mangoTangoBango wrote: post #6
landemva wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do away with the whole dog and pony show. Eliminate the personal income tax. Everyone in personal tax side of HR Block and IRS can find some other career which is useful. Rake the beaches or something.

Just do a 10% flat federal sales tax + negative income tax if below a certain threshold. But this is way too logical for the main political parties to implement.

I would support federal sales tax (exclude uncooked food at grocery stores and some base amount of home energy use) if federal personal income tax is abolished and if sales tax is implemented and enforced by States (like the current road fuel tax which States collect and send part to feds).

Can't reply to a nearby comment, so -- few rich people have taxable personal income because they either don't receive W-2 income or they hire people to structure and pursue the deductions. In other words, yacht owners are rarely rich people and instead are owned by companies (controlled by rich people) so it is a business expense.

Re: IRS will study free tax filing options

#13

Post by refurb »

Rackedup wrote: post #2

How about automated filling options....

I lived in a country that did this.

I would get a message that my pre-populated form needed review.

I’d then track down all my statements that fed into those numbers - charitable deductions, payroll, retirement, investments. Then I’d sit down and add it all up to make sure the numbers were right.

Not a whole lot different than doing my own returns in the US.

Far simpler, of course, but not because the forms were filled out but because the tax code was just way less complex.

Re: IRS will study free tax filing options

#14

Post by [deleted] »

sillystuff wrote: post #11
mangoTangoBango wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just do a 10% flat federal sales tax + negative income tax if below a certain threshold. But this is way too logical for the main political parties to implement.

> 10% flat federal sales tax Rich folks only need so many mansions, yachts and designer sweat pants. This would further shift the burden of taxes onto lower income folks who spend 100% of what they earn. The IRS could just present a form behind a login with an itemized fully calculated tax return with an accept? "yes" / "no". They already have all the information they need, and already do the work when checking retur…

[deleted]

Re: IRS will study free tax filing options

#16

Post by cheeselip420 »

Any government bureaucracy with forms and worksheets should be 100% replaced with software. Change my mind. I do think api.irs.gov would be terrifying though given the ACA debacle...

Note that I'm not saying we don't need agents or enforcement or anything like that - I mean the paper-pushing, form-filing bullshit that eats up countless hours of time.

Re: IRS will study free tax filing options

#18

Post by thisarticle »

sillystuff wrote: post #11
mangoTangoBango wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just do a 10% flat federal sales tax + negative income tax if below a certain threshold. But this is way too logical for the main political parties to implement.

> 10% flat federal sales tax Rich folks only need so many mansions, yachts and designer sweat pants. This would further shift the burden of taxes onto lower income folks who spend 100% of what they earn. The IRS could just present a form behind a login with an itemized fully calculated tax return with an accept? "yes" / "no". They already have all the information they need, and already do the work when checking retur…

> Rich folks only need so many mansions, yachts and designer sweat pants. This would further shift the burden of taxes onto lower income folks who spend 100% of what they earn.

This is a feature not a bug of that plan. There’s no amount of tax that’s too low when the answer to “How much do you need to be happy?” is more.

Re: IRS will study free tax filing options

#19

Post by boppo1 »

cheeselip420 wrote: post #16

Any government bureaucracy with forms and worksheets should be 100% replaced with software. Change my mind. I do think api.irs.gov would be terrifying though given the ACA debacle... Note that I'm not saying we don't need agents or enforcement or anything like that - I mean the paper-pushing, form-filing bullshit that eats up countless hours of time.

I use Free fillable forms + instructions. There are too many edge cases for software to catch. If they just cleaned up the freefillableforms.com ui to look like it's from this decade and perhaps auto-find relevant instructions, it would be the best possible tax experience.
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