311–320 of 350 posts
Almost none of the “free” or affordable options work the minute you put in an international address. Uncle Sam is one of the rare cases of taxing its citizens abroad, but everything about getting taxed abroad is more complicated.
As an expat for 10 years now, I’ve taken that as the “you gave up on America“ tax
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> Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. Because the IRS isn't allowed to tell you what you owe. You're supposed to calculate that yourself... (And it's so damn complicated that it's worth paying someone to do it, unless you were the kid who did the math textbook for fun.) Eventually, the IRS calculates what th…
> (And it's so damn complicated that it's worth paying someone to do it, unless you were the kid who did the math textbook for fun.) The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple. Unless you're extrapolating your own experience to everyone else, that is.
The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple.
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> Where we're going, operating systems will either be ad filled messes or locked down walled gardens. Linux?
Funny you bring that up, because 27% of all US Government systems run Linux. The problem is that the government doesn't give back any money, or contribute much code to the FOSS projects that they rely on. If they gave back proportionally like Linux Foundation Platinum sponsors do, they would get a return on their investment just in that they run enough Linux to benefit from contributing. China has given money to FOSS…
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Because complexity is how you get loopholes, and The Powers That Be will never give up that option
That's absolutely true, so I guess a better question is "Why do so many people online get excited about free filing systems, without also getting excited about reducing the complexity of the tax code as a complement to those systems".
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> (And it's so damn complicated that it's worth paying someone to do it, unless you were the kid who did the math textbook for fun.) The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple. Unless you're extrapolating your own experience to everyone else, that is.
The vast majority of taxes that are filed by US taxpayers are simple. I assume you meant "tax returns" (instead of taxes). Have you ever paid income tax in another country (other than the US)? Many highly advanced countries do not require a tax return as long you are a regular salaried employee who makes less than X (usually a pretty large number). Even interest paid from a bank account or capital gains from securiti…
I just think it's disingenuous to paint all US tax returns as this difficult, complex beast.
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It’s not just that. Remember this is normal in the US. Paper sucks. Tax filing helpers (people/software) have always cost money. “The government sucks” and won’t try to help you. And, oh yeah, ads and tax prep stores everywhere . No one questions it. They don’t like it, but they accept it. Just like so many other things in the US because we’ve never seen anything else.
I’ve paid taxes in countries where it pre-filled forms. Guess what I do? I get all my forms together. Look up the numbers on the forms. Double check the entries on the fillable forms are correct. Then I get my paystubs, I check the deductions, double check the prefilled form is correct. So what did it save me over the way US taxes are done? The form prefilled the numbers, that’s it. All the rest is the same. Same col…
I'd wager that ~90% of people where I'm from where we have pre-filled tax forms does their taxes in less than 5 min (ah, looks reasonable, click).
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I’ve paid taxes in countries where it pre-filled forms. Guess what I do? I get all my forms together. Look up the numbers on the forms. Double check the entries on the fillable forms are correct. Then I get my paystubs, I check the deductions, double check the prefilled form is correct. So what did it save me over the way US taxes are done? The form prefilled the numbers, that’s it. All the rest is the same. Same col…
> So what did it save me over the way US taxes are done? The form prefilled the numbers, that’s it. All the rest is the same. Same collecting forms, same doubling checking math. I'd wager that ~90% of people where I'm from where we have pre-filled tax forms does their taxes in less than 5 min (ah, looks reasonable, click ).
It's your money. You'd be smart to spend more than 5 minutes to make sure it's 100% right
You fill your shopping cart with a bunch of groceries then you have to write down what you think it all costs. The shop keeper then checks if you got it right. Then they call the police for each 12.3th customer who got it wrong. The odds to get it wrong are so big the help of a different company is needed who will add up the shopping cart for you.
You cant make it up.
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That's absolutely true, so I guess a better question is "Why do so many people online get excited about free filing systems, without also getting excited about reducing the complexity of the tax code as a complement to those systems".
How many people have you met who are excited about free filing systems, but not excited by simplification of the tax code? Personally I've never met such a person.
There are lots of comments along the lines of "xxx is cheap" Why on earth do you need a third party for your tax calc and resolution? It is surely the antithesis of the "land of the free" and all that stuff. In the boring old UK I login to a govt. run website to do my annual tax self assessment. My P60 is already filled in (that's my PAYE - pay as you earn, my normal salary) I'm a company director too so I have divid…