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Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

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Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#161

Post by int_19h »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #109
int_19h wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the laws that get passed apply to them.

But the laws that get passed apply to politicians also.

When it comes to taxes, the problem is that politicians tend to be already rich enough that they need some kind of professional help doing taxes, so passing legislation that effectively forces the same onto others doesn't directly affect them in that sense, while it does аffect the campaign contributions they receive from the companies that sell this kind of software.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#162

Post by II2II »

thegrim33 wrote: post #14
tmountain wrote: post #8

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

I guess it was originally done this way because in the past people actually had some semblance of privacy and the government didn't actually know a great deal about people's income. Eventually, privacy was eroded away year after year to the point where the government now knows an extreme amount about each citizen. I guess I'd refrain the question - instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government know…

> instead of asking why do we need to do taxes when the government knows everything about us that they could do it for us

They cannot do everyone's taxes since what they know about many individuals is incomplete.

> should we really have that little privacy?

Put that way, the answer is no. On the other hand, virtually everyone demands services from their government and very few people want those services to be transactional (e.g. most people demand roads, few people want to pay based upon their usage of those roads). That means the government needs some form of revenue. For various reasons, it has been decided that a person's income should be a portion of those revenues. In order to ensure that people are paying their dues, the government needs to collect some information. Are there other ways the government could get revenues? Sure, but all of them are going to be problematic in some form or other.

> Of course, those ideas, liberty and privacy, small government, etc., isn't really fashionable with the latest generations and most people would gladly give up their freedom and privacy to save having to fill out some paperwork.

One has to be careful about generalizations. Even though a desire for liberty and privacy may be universally appealing, we would find that people's views on what those terms mean varies from generation to generation and from individual to individual. Note that I said the meaning changes, not a person's desire for it. As for the desire for small government, well, some people want small government and other people don't. It is a far less universal ideal.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#163

Post by deadbabe »

tmountain wrote: post #8

It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but it is expected for the same population to have the financial literacy to file their taxes accurately. Going further, the IRS already knows the details of most people’s taxes before they file, yet everyone is expected to complete what amounts to a complex task for many people. I cannot fathom why it is still done this way.

If the IRS takes responsibility for filing everyone’s tax forms, then it could potentially shift liability to them if they were to make a mistake. Whereas if people are filing their own forms, the blame can be put on the taxpayer for any errors.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#164

Post by noodlesUK »

bedobi wrote: post #63
Barrin92 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? I've lived in Sweden where taxes are not just automatically filed but every citizen can trivially look up anyone's tax returns and nobody ever saw it as the government being intimately entangled with anyone's life. Privacy violation would be to look into how and on what you spend your money, not that everyone pays their share of taxes. That tel…

Uh plenty of Sweden see that as a huge invasion of privacy Sweden also doesn’t have secret ballot In Sweden, anyone can look up your address, phone number, social security number, your car registration etc etc This is not cool or desirable

Party affiliation, which is mandatory in some U.S. states for voters (e.g. Oregon) is available to anyone who wants to access the registration dataset from the Secretary of State.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#165

Post by throwaway173738 »

LoganDark wrote: post #57
monero-xmr wrote: post #11

Most Americans don’t do their own taxes. They go to H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt, and if your family makes under $60k you are almost certainly paying no income taxes and are receiving a refund via the EITC, getting a check back. So people think tax preparers are voodoo priests that do their incantations to get free money because the average person can’t understand the jargon, can’t handle forms, and the whole endeavor…

> if your family makes under $60k you are almost certainly paying no income taxes How is this possible? Where I live, you can expect to pay around 30% of your income as tax almost regardless of how much money you actually make (as long as it's above something like $600 a year).

Where do you live? In the US federal taxes are capped if you’re below the standard deduction. You still have to pay social security and medicare taxes but those are about 6%. Some states have an income tax but most do not. Do you live somewhere where there is an income tax?

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#166

Post by noodlesUK »

VS1999 wrote: post #60
Barrin92 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we change the way the government is intimately entangled with our lives? I've lived in Sweden where taxes are not just automatically filed but every citizen can trivially look up anyone's tax returns and nobody ever saw it as the government being intimately entangled with anyone's life. Privacy violation would be to look into how and on what you spend your money, not that everyone pays their share of taxes. That tel…

That you've "lived in sweden" implies you have the luxury of hopping to whatever country suits you most. Nobody wants to hear a cosmopolitan's take on how we have too much privacy and how the government should be more involved in our lives. If the government mistreats you, you can just go to a nicer country.

Around 500 million people living in the EU have that privilege. It’s pretty common for people to exercise it and in no way makes you part of the jet set.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#167

Post by collinmcnulty »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #130
loeg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FICA taxes aren't regressive.

"Regressive" in this context really doesn't mean anything, it's a label that is reached for when politically convenient. So I agree.

Regressive has a specific meaning regarding taxes. It means that the rate of the tax decreases with income. Whether a tax is regressive or not is a factual question.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#168

Post by headsman771 »

nkrisc wrote: post #150
static_motion wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-US citizen here: you have to declare what you paid the nanny to the IRS? Where I'm from, only the receiving end of the money needs to declare how much they earned. The only reason we file expenses is for tax deductions. The US tax system has always seemed so hostilely complex to me.

It’s worse than that. For example we were also supposed to withhold 50% of the social security tax that the employee is responsible for, or if we pay the full amount for them (which we did because we didn’t know we were supposed to withold that), then we have to declare that as additional income for the employee, and more I’m sure I’m forgetting because I started to lose it at that point.

You don't have to do any of that. Its their job to report income and pay taxes. Withholdings are a "convenience" not a requirement. Furthermore you weren't their employer, they provided a service to you.

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#169

Post by kanbara »

nkrisc wrote: post #100
neltnerb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what made it difficult? Not knowing what was required for sure? Figuring out how to fill out the 1099-MISC? Knowing how to file it with the IRS/state? I remember it being a bit tricky at first but once I knew the right form it only took a few minutes. The hard part for me is keeping track of rule changes. Payroll service works though =)

No 1099, it needed to be a W2. What made it difficult was: finding out we needed to do anything at all, finding out what that “anything” even was, finding instructions for doing it, parsing the instructions and figuring out if we were reading the correct instructions, figuring out if the various exceptions and other special clauses applied, researching those, then figuring out how to actually do any of this, and so o…

> “all this for…” — you’re employing someone for 40% a full time duration. of course you need to do the right thing, ensure they get the right wage, if you need to pay benefis, etc.

this is such a privileged position and you think you should’ve just been able to pay cash and potentially screw someone over?

Re: Claiming high user satisfaction, IRS will decide on renewing free tax site

#170

Post by jrajav »

krashidov wrote: post #74

Stupid question but what is the point of taxation if we don't care about deficits anymore?

I couldn't say stupid but I could say there's a whiff of bad-faith arguments in the air...

But of course the direct answer is that throwing the full faith and credit of the US (that is, in showing earnest and steady effort to pay off its debts, something that worldwide investors count on) straight out the window would immediately tank the value of the dollar, which wouldn't be good for anyone paid in dollars.

If the implication is that we should not bother to run our finances honestly and responsibly because of some idea that the checks written by lawmakers aren't for things we all agree on, then it seems like a bit of a non sequitur. The time to decide on that is when we decide who writes those checks, but we have every incentive to commit and honor our debts after that.

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