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Millions of Americans mess up their taxes, but a new law will help

wakeuptopolitics.com

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Re: Millions of Americans mess up their taxes, but a new law will help

#61

Post by adabyron »

Ekaros wrote: post #54
jofzar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not joking, in Australia the tax "filing" takes like 2 mins, you literally go, next, next, look at the details, "yep looks correct" put in your claims, and then submit. You are all done. Unless you have something wack going on its not even a process. I have had signups which are more complicated then it. American taxes on the other hand mega suck, and have 9000 pitfalls.

Finland doesn't even ask you to approve. They send you a suggestion and if you do not amend it by deadline they take it as it is. And amending is online form where everything is clearly explained, links to documentation. And longest time it takes is actually to look up numbers from your own records.

In the US, property tax typically works that way for many people. You get something in the mail that says this is what your tax will be. If you happen to have a loan for your house, the bank in charge of your loan handles it.

The only opposing political argument I've heard is that if income taxes were this simple, many people would be overpaying. I think that argument has many obvious flaws. Unfortunately few US citizens demand anything of their politicians on this topic or other topics that would dramatically improve their lives. Instead they care more about vanity topics that don't even effect them.

Re: Millions of Americans mess up their taxes, but a new law will help

#62

Post by IAmBroom »

loeg wrote: post #19
JSR_FDED wrote: post #4

Taxes in the US are unnecessarily stressful. I remember going to H&R Block and being sent home to find some piece of supporting documentation because it was “really important”. I turned the whole apartment upside down but wasn’t able to find it. Went back to the tax preparer in a state of high anxiety. When I asked what would happen if I couldn’t find the document and was told the impact on the final assessment could…

It's to H&R Block's benefit to make you feel that taxes are stressful and you need 3rd party help, though. That you were stressed out about this interaction is H&R's fault; not the law or the IRS.

I think it's perfectly fair to blame the law and the IRS for doing H&R Block's bidding.

Re: Millions of Americans mess up their taxes, but a new law will help

#64

Post by loeg »

IAmBroom wrote: post #62
loeg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's to H&R Block's benefit to make you feel that taxes are stressful and you need 3rd party help, though. That you were stressed out about this interaction is H&R's fault; not the law or the IRS.

I think it's perfectly fair to blame the law and the IRS for doing H&R Block's bidding.

In this interaction, I would blame the specific H&R rep GP talked to, not the company in the abstract. They provided him bad, vague information. It doesn't matter what the law is -- if a tax rep gives you bad, vaguely threatening information, that's going to cause stress, and it isn't the law's fault.

Re: Millions of Americans mess up their taxes, but a new law will help

#65

Post by workfromspace »

belZaah wrote: post #46

This is insane to me. Not only is the US tax code so complex you need a specialist to help you fill in the tax return but those specialists apparently also have a justified expectation of income and thus can’t be replaced by a freaking web app. Let alone a pre-filled one. I spend 15-20 minutes on my tax return in Estonia and only take that long, because I have some savings in places that do not do the reporting for m…

> We are not the most capable country nor have the best engineers (hello, I’m the former CIO of Estonian Tax and Customs)

As a long-time Estonian resident and engineer, how can I help? (My email is in my profile)

Re: Millions of Americans mess up their taxes, but a new law will help

#66

Post by buckle8017 »

jenadine wrote: post #50
buckle8017 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're vastly under estimating how complicated the us tax code is.

I have no idea about tha US tax code. An explanation would be welcome.

The US tax code is enormous and changes often enough that there is no human alive that has read the entire thing.

It's relatively easy to calculate the maximum someone with only ordinary income needs to pay.

However to pay less you need to understand all of the potential tax deductions, of which there are vastly more than most people realize.

Re: Millions of Americans mess up their taxes, but a new law will help

#67

Post by ghoul2 »

As a RA-ship student in the US, I still had taxed withheld on my meager grad student "salary", and was required to file a 1040NR-EZ. I obviously did not want to spent 50$ at H&R block, to claim like 200$ back. Fortunately the local library had sessions where you could grab a blank form (the library had boxes full of them), and someone walked a bunch of us (i think there were like 40 in the room), to filling it out. The session mailer had already listed the stuff we were supposed to bring with us at the session. Even if someone forgot, they could leave a place holder and take care of it later.

The session was an hour long, and I was done with my return by the end of the hour. I dropped it off in the mail on my way back from the library and that was the end of it. From the subsequent year onwards, a pre-printed form arrived in the mail with like 90% of the stuff prefilled, and it took like 5 minutes to fill out the rest and drop it in the post box.

I honestly didn't think it could have been any easier - of course, not having taxes withheld from a far-below-minimum wage salary would have been nicer.

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