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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

#251

Post by artdigital »

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…

In Australia, when doing the yearly tax filing, the ATO website already prefills all/most of the amounts because they already know those anyway

Your job is it then to correct things, fix wrong ones and submit what they couldn’t get automatically

The ATO website is also veeeery nice! I was surprised how simple of a task doing taxes was

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

#252

Post by jhanschoo »

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…

> liberty and privacy, small government, etc., isn't really fashionable

Your negative freedom and ownership of property is recognized and enforced by the tax-funded awesome power of the state. If you like small government there is no lack of countries that you can emigrate too where the internationally-recognized government is too weak to enforce its protection over much of its society. These are usually places that are too unstable to be palatable to someone from a developed nation.

> should we really have that little privacy?

As someone else mentioned, the government already has to know that to know that you are paying the right amount of tax given your means. Alternatively, consider simplifying tax laws so that it needs to know less. Also, look at regulation that limits what the government can do based on the information that it has on you; for that matter, businesses too, for privacy's sake.

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

#253

Post by nxm »

ghaff wrote: post #135
bedobi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you own property in the US, I can look up your address, your landline if you still have one, probably not that hard to find SSN, etc.

The SSN is not something you should be able to find easily

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

#254

Post by nxm »

mikestew wrote: post #83
loeg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're probably right about that?

I’ve paid no tax and I’ve paid lots of tax. I did not care in either case how much I was paying in taxes (it is what it is). What I did care about is how much of a pain in the as it is. Mail me a goddamn postcard telling me how much I owe and be done with it. And then to find out one political party would prefer that I suffer so I’ll vote the way they want? Yeah, fuck those guys, I’m voting for the other ones.

Well perhaps you don’t care, but majority of people care and feel the impact of higher taxes. I’d rather not have the government waste more of my money

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

#255

Post by nxm »

LoganDark wrote: post #50
worik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s amazing that 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy below 6th grade level, but... Stop there! Really? "6th grade" is age eleven? That is mind blowing!

I wonder if they went through school and just didn't retain it, or if they were simply not educated at all.

It’s also practically impossible to fire bad teachers, and standards continue to go down in many states in order to mask the poor performance of their schools.

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

#256

Post by throw0101c »

dantheman wrote: post #149
bedobi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your address? Your ssn? Your phone number? In Sweden, anyone can look it up. https://ratsit.se

of course your address, phone number, income, etc should all be private just because the phone companies shared this didn't mean it's a good idea; and they always provided a way to be unlisted

> of course

"Of course" makes it sound like it is obviously / objectively true, but it is a sentiment that is not necessarily true, either in the past, or even in the present everywhere on the planet.

> your address, phone number, income, etc should all be private just because the phone companies shared this didn't mean it's a good idea

This information was public in the past before the phone companies existed. May I introduce you to the concept of city directories:

> A city directory is a listing of residents, streets, businesses, organizations or institutions, giving their location in a city. It may be arranged alphabetically or geographically or in other ways.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_directory

> City Directories were created for salesmen, merchants, and other interested in contacting residents of an area. They are arranged alphabetically giving lists of names and addresses. These often list the adult residents of a city or area.

* https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/City_Directories

They can date back to (at least) the 1800s and continued into the twentieth century:

> City directories were published yearly. The Archives has them from 1834 to 2001 (except for a few years in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, and in 1987, when they were not published).

* https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/accountability-operat...

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

#257

Post by Turing_Machine »

superb_dev wrote: post #242
lesuorac wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. No, just a singular reason: Prohibition.

Taxes existed before prohibition, right?

Sure, but before that most taxes were in the form of excise taxes and import duties, at least in the US. Alcohol taxes were a big portion of that. When the prohibition amendment was enacted in 1919, that money went away -- in theory because people were no longer purchasing alcohol, in reality because they were purchasing untaxed bootleg alcohol. The effect was the same: a big hole in Uncle Sam's revenue stream.

Enter the shiny new income tax, passed just a few years before (1916). This had been sold to the public using Bernie Sanders-style "millionaires and billionaires" rhetoric, but, as is the inevitable way with such things, it was soon being applied to thousandaires and hundredaires. :-)

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

#258

Post by web3-is-a-scam »

smnrchrds wrote: post #238
web3-is-a-scam wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My employer submitted all my T4 information to the CRA. My investment services submitted all my tax forms to the CRA. UFile downloaded everything for me, autofilled my return, submitted it online back to the CRA and charged me $30 for the privilege. LMAO

That's why I use one of the free options. Both GenuTax and WealthsimpleTax are free to use and user-friendly, albeit in different ways. What extra thing does UFile do to justify its price?

At the time it was just the convenience of getting it done and moving on since I’ve been using it for over a decade. Next year I will probably just use WealthSimple, since I have fair amount of investments with WS anyway.

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

#259

Post by PopAlongKid »

loeg wrote: post #209
torstenvl wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FICA taxes are, as a matter of inarguable, objective fact, regressive, which is to say that people who make more money pay a lower rate of FICA taxes. This is due to two facts: (a) FICA taxes do not apply to interest or capital gains or other income sources that apply solely to middle class and above; and (b) FICA taxes do not apply to income above ~$160k. Please do not post misinformation.

The FICA system, of which taxes are one component, also pays out a lower proportion to higher earners. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/bendpoints.html It is incorrect to describe the system as regressive. It's a little weird to lump it all together as FICA taxes, too. Social security is more of a mandatory pension program that caps both contributions and benefits for high earners (in addition to progressively lower ben…

The question was, why doe EITC exist, not is the reason still relevant today (although I'd argue it is). The additional medicare taxex you mention have only existed for about ten years, EITC goes back to the 1960s as I recall.

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

#260

Post by everforward »

kayson wrote: post #30
thegrim33 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. You still had to file taxes, though, so they would know about your income, if only a year behind. I read somewhere that tax withholding only started during WWII (and it was supposed to be temporary). It's really the withholding that wou…

Federal individual income tax wasnt a thing until 1916, so it just wasn’t an issue. I believe state income taxes only started shortly before that.
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