481–490 of 610 posts
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> Why is the system still this backwards? Intuit lobbying hard to keep tax rules complex.
Intuit isn’t the problem. Politicians are. See Milton Friedman on this subject. A complicated tax code is used to reward and punish people. The tax code was complex long before Intuit came around. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TruCIPy79w8
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The central problem is the refusal of US governments (state & federal) to pay people money to do things they want to encourage rather than give them tax credits and whatnot.
Well, Intuit lobbying/bribery has a lot to do with it in the last couple decades.
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Grover Norquist wants to cut government spending. It's difficult to do that directly because people often like government services. Instead he suggests cutting taxes. This is easier to sell to the public because no one likes paying taxes. This will drive the government into debt, forcing spending cuts due to the risk of default. This plan is called "starving the beast". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast…
This seems like an internet meme and a "just so" story that once you dig turns out not to be true (the "let's make it more complex" part). Sources would be nice.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax...
His stated reasons are so fantastically stupid that I can't imagine them being legitimate. Return-free filing is the best tool we have to achieve his claimed goals of reducing the complexity and confusion of tax season. Can you think of an innocent explanation for his opposition?
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Have you gone through TurboTax's filing process? It starts with ~$149 upgrade for me, I believe. They have countless add-ons that popup throughout the filing process beyond just that (annual audit defense membership, get your refund faster, etc). So many up-sells and cross-sells, it is pretty disgusting. I stopped using them last year because it was just too much. I can easily see how someone could end up with a mult…
So they're trying to completely fill the price shadow underneath the $500 or so a very basic "entry-level" accountant relationship would cost — and fill it with a zero-marginal-cost roster of non-product products and non-service services. Terrible.
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Pretty much every other major developed country operates like this. Here in South Korea for example filing taxes is as simple as logging into some government portal, verifying that the information they already have on you is correct, and making any corrections if necessary. 10 minutes, done. The U.S is unique in forcing its citizens to waste countless hours and pay hundreds/thousands of dollars every year doing the u…
> Why is the system still this backwards? Intuit lobbying hard to keep tax rules complex.
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In Europe VAT is a line item on every invoice. And apparently in the US you have to do some mental gymnastics to manually add sales tax to the listed price to figure out how much to pay in the first place. Of course most people have no idea how much VAT they pay for Amazon purchases in a year, but that's mostly a product of them not knowing how much they spend on Amazon in a year. If they know the latter, the former…
In the US, it's still a line item on your receipt. Most places don't include sales tax on the shelf tag or price sticker due to complexity. You can have state, county/area, and/or city taxes that apply. In NYC, for instance, we have a 4% NY State sales tax, a 4.5% NYC sales tax, and a 0.375% NYC metro area sales tax, totaling 8.875%. Clothes aren't taxed in the metro area sales tax so are 8.5% unless they're under $1…
I wrote to both of the representatives in my state, let's see what I hear back.
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You can file taxes without a software package, if you want. You have to file because they want you to report things they don't know about, and also if you want to claim itemized deductions.
Here in Norway, the government fills out our tax forms for us with all of the information that has been reported to them by our banks, our employers, etc. It is then our responsibility as tax payers to look over the tax forms, add anything not included, and adding any additional claims for deductions. By comparison, the needless busywork that the IRS puts the tax payers through is nothing short of ridiculous really.…
The busywork comes mostly from the arcane and convoluted nature of US tax code, notably the parts that describe deductions and credits. US governments use such things as a way to implement policy, and the crap just piles up over time. Can you deduct X? How much of X can you deduct? Are you eligible for a credit? Or just part of a credit? Or none of it? etc. etc.
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This is how is works in Australia. The Australian Tax Office will pre-fill your tax return online with income from your wages, interests, managed fund distributions, dividends etc. That maybe enough for simple tax returns, you can just accept their values and submit. What they don't know is your income from sources like rental income or crypto. They also don't know deductions you are going to claim. In this case you…
Pretty much every other major developed country operates like this. Here in South Korea for example filing taxes is as simple as logging into some government portal, verifying that the information they already have on you is correct, and making any corrections if necessary. 10 minutes, done. The U.S is unique in forcing its citizens to waste countless hours and pay hundreds/thousands of dollars every year doing the u…
cries in German
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Take 5 minutes to complain to your elected representatives every time you file taxes.
The only people that your representative listens to is the ones that fill their political war chest with a lot of money.