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Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

nytimes.com

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Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#241

Post by danjoc »

kelnos wrote: post #217
danjoc wrote: post #191

I'm the only American I know that does my own taxes. I've never paid anyone to do them. I've never use software to do it. I print the form, and fill it out with a pen. It only takes me a few minutes. I even filed my own C corporation taxes once long ago. I'm not a CPA or tax lawyer or in any line of work related to taxes.

My handwriting is terrible; I'd at least want to use a form-fillable PDF, and having the ability to copy/paste figures between forms and a digital calculator would make me feel better about not making arithmetic or transcription errors. I used to use TaxAct to do my taxes, but unfortunately they aren't simple enough anymore that I even feel comfortable using that without making a mistake. I just got my completed retu…

>I'd at least want to use a form-fillable PDF

I used to do those, but honestly, it's just easier to do it with pen and paper. Either there is automath in the form that screws up if you fill in a field out of order, or they make the form so it cannot be saved. PDF editing software sucks too. It's very unfriendly on Linux. I would suffer through it when I used OS X, because I worried about legibility in the small boxes. I'd never go back to that now. It's a huge pain. The pen is mightier than the keyboard with tax forms.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#242

Post by jonathankoren »

patio11 wrote: post #50

The NTA (National Tax Authority, cited as the Kokuzeicho in the article) doesn't figure out your taxes for you. Your employer does, as one of the (many!) ways in which they exercise paternalistic control of your life. If you do not have an employer, you get to go through a process which is almost exactly as fun as it is in the US, modulo a modestly competent online filing application. I spent $3k this year on account…

> Your employer does, as one of the (many!) ways in which they exercise paternalistic control of your life.

That's an odd characterization. Most people would think getting the equivalent of pre-filled 1040EZ as controlling.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#243

Post by BoorishBears »

henrikschroder wrote: post #234
BoorishBears wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me about 10 minutes here in the US. Log into Turbo Tax, have it pull my last year's information, update the income fields and click through a wizard. It cost 30$, and I can see how you could argue the fact I paid a private company for a convience other countries get from their government for free is sad, but I'll take it since my quality of life would drop significantly at a comparable salary in Sweden due to…

But the amount of taxation isn't connected to the ease of taxation. It's not an either-or. Also, in the US, as other commenters have pointed out in this thread, implementing pre-filled returns would increase tax revenue, since it would reduce tax fraud considerably.

From my comment right below:

>Obviously given the choice of a comparable tax burden and simplified returns I'd take it

I'm not against simpler taxes, I'm just saying I don't blindly envy Sweden's taxes, just the part where it's easy

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#244

Post by danjoc »

alexbeloi wrote: post #193
danjoc wrote: post #191

I'm the only American I know that does my own taxes. I've never paid anyone to do them. I've never use software to do it. I print the form, and fill it out with a pen. It only takes me a few minutes. I even filed my own C corporation taxes once long ago. I'm not a CPA or tax lawyer or in any line of work related to taxes.

Is this facilitated by keeping good financial records throughout the year or do you not care about deducting everything you can?

My standard deduction exceeds any itemizing I could do. I'm healthy and debt free.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#245

Post by BoorishBears »

kelnos wrote: post #212
BoorishBears wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lucked out with the integrations lining up with most of my accounts this year(and personally I think the charitable donations wizard takes that long but I guess it depends on the nature of them), but even in years where it took days of slogging through wizards I still think about what the alternatives around the world are and I'm pretty ok with it. Obviously given the choice of a comparable tax burden and simplifie…

And yet people somehow still manage to live happy, financially-secure lives in Sweden. There's a lot more to consider about livability than just "what would my tax burden look like?" I would much rather pay more to a Sweden-/Europe-style system and feel like I was actually getting something for my taxes, vs. the current state in the US where I only feel like a small fraction of my tax bill actually goes toward expend…

Geeze, no one is saying all there is to quality of life is a tax burden, and no one was talking about the Trump administration or how the government spends its tax. I don't support his administration but the whole dragging the Trump administration into everything on HN is getting old (taxes in the US have been messy for a while now)

I'm saying I in my current living situation feel I benefit from a lower tax burden and higher base salary more than ease of filing taxes would. In a few years that might not even hold true, and me benefiting more from the former doesn't mean I'm against the latter, they're tangential issues that happen to have a correlation in the US vs much of Europe (but obviously lack causation)

And to your point about reasonable expenditures, simpler tax structure won't suddenly change how the US government would spend money...

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#246

Post by nebabyte »

pharrlax wrote: post #65

Overlooked in this article and comments is the influence of one man -- Grover Norquist. He runs an extremely influential organization that administers a sort of purity pledge that, for most Republican candidates for Congress, is necessary to sign in order to avoid being primaried. He has decided that making taxes easier to do would make people more okay with tax increases, and so he has decreed that support for the k…

> He runs an extremely influential organization that administers a sort of purity pledge that, for most Republican candidates for Congress, is necessary to sign in order to avoid being primaried

How

in the hell

is that legal

Ugh, subproblems everywhere. Fucking campaign finance private-sectorizing the practical viability of taking public office.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#247

Post by marssaxman »

ams6110 wrote: post #221
obstinate wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seventy percent of households take the standard deduction or have no income: https://taxfoundation.org/who-itemizes-deductions/

For most people, taxes are not as complicated as they are made out to be. If you can file a 1040EZ you can fill out the form in 10 minutes. If you have a "normal" return with mortgage interest it's still not that difficult. Most people are just afraid of making mistakes (it's not a big deal if you do, you'll get a notice and you file an amended return). Or maybe they just feel their time is too valuable to spend an a…

Making sense out of the ambiguously-worded instructions has always been the complicated part for me. I have always found this to be infuriatingly stressful, so I hire professionals to deal with it.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#248

Post by caseysoftware »

cmdrfred wrote: post #145
sidlls wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can one not know what they make post-tax, at least well enough to not be off by a few dollars? That is, after all, what one has to actually pay bills with. I know what my net earnings after taxes, retirement, etc. are to the nearest dollar, every paycheck. When I was substantially poorer (in academia, and prior to that school) I knew down to the penny (as a function of hours worked, even, when I worked hourly pay…

I think the point is they don't want Americans doing the math of taking their gross earnings and subtracting a percentage of it and being reminded of the specific percentage of tax paid and gross taxation every quarter. Taking it from each paycheck quietly is a softer blow than all at once.

It would be fascinating to change Tax Day from April 15th to the first Monday after the Federal election in November.

I'm not willing to predict the results but it would cause some interesting debates.. imagine everyone being in the middle of their taxes when they cast their votes.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#249

Post by sveiss »

toyg wrote: post #105
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK equivalent: "Tax doesn't have to be taxing". The UK web filing system is also pretty good (part of the GOV.UK project), although if you're in a nice straightforward salaried job you won't have to use it at all.

> if you're in a nice straightforward salaried job you won't have to use it at all. Until you have the gall to (god forbid) open a side business. After that, you'll forever be forced to file a tax return, even if you go back to being a regular employee. Because fuck entrepreneurship, amirite?

It's a single phone call to cancel self-assessment for income tax and national insurance. Probably a second to cancel a VAT registration, but I've never had to do that.

Re: Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

#250

Post by sveiss »

cjhanks wrote: post #151
eloisant wrote: post #54

It's a breeze in France too. Login to the government website, verify that everything preloaded is correct, add the few things they don't know about and you're done. It's a mess in the US because Turbotax and others make money on that complexity and do lobbying to keep it that way.

I am not sure I get it... it took me less than 2 hours to enter my W2's, import my brokerage liabilities, and insert my itemized deductions. All for about $60. You know what would be worse than that? A system which has absolutely no competition or financial incentive to improve....

You're making a false comparison.

The majority of UK residents don't need to file a tax return. The correct tax/national insurance/student loan deductions are withheld from their paycheques, and in case of problems, a phone call will normally sort them out.

Some people need to file returns. (Those that don't need to can also choose to.) Those people that do can file on paper, though the Government website, or using third party software. There's around 30 listed software providers for personal tax.

The fact most people have never seen a tax return in their lives hasn't prevented competition for tools in the more complex cases.

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