Comment by foxglacier
20 hours ago
Doesn't America have uniquely complicated tax that requires you to keep all your receipts to claim all sorts of confusing deductions? How can the IRS know what you spent your income on if you don't tell them?
I've had the misfortune of having to fill in a W8-BEN-E form [1] and the first time, I just gave up and refused to work with the client because it was too complicated. The 2nd time, I got an LLM to tell me how to fill it in. Just look at the dense jargon - nonparticipating FFI, deemed-compliant FFI, Restricted distributor, International organiztion (hint, that's the wrong answer), Excepted territory NFFE, Passive NFFE, Direct reporting NFFE. There are 32 of them! What the hell is all that? Well 99% of cases are just one of those buried among the rest but you wouldn't know which without some advice.
For most people, those deductions are less than the "standard" deduction you can take instead. For most of the people who do itemized deductions, it's mostly just your mortgage payment and state taxes, which the IRS already knows about, and maybe charitable donations.
And even if you do have a lot of things to report, why not just report those things directly and let the IRS calculate your taxes, rather than you having to do it, fill out a complicated form, then the IRS does the calculation anyways to make sure you did it right?
The majority of Americans are W2 wage earners that take the standard deduction.
For a truly uniquely complicated tax system please move to Germany.
While I fully agree that there are a lot of complicated rules for edge cases, for simple (non self employed) cases it is very straightforward. In fact, you don’t have to do anything at all in many cases and still won’t be screwed over as the German IRS will assume typical deductions. There is an official free filing software and if you spend 20-30 USD a year you’ll get access to super easy to use professional filing software. My situation is more complicated than most and I spend 2hrs a year for my entire family
Why stop there? If you reside in multiple countries, then it really gets fun.
I highly doubt that it's more complicated than the French or German tax system.
They make even the simple case more complicated than it needs to be. In these other countries, most people don't need to file anything, it just works with what the state already knows. You don't have to provide a load of supplementary info to get the correct outcome. I can only guess you think this way because you've not done taxes in another country.
Based on what?
The French tax system is pretty simple. Taxes are high, but simple. The website you use to file your taxes is also pretty simple, and every single field has a button that explains what it is about and in which cases you should write stuff inside.
The only annoying parts are if you have accounts outside of France, you have to declare them. And if you get dividends/capital gains in foreign currencies outside of the EU, you have to calculate yourself how much tax you owe using a bunch of tables per country and currency.
For basic taxes yes but you have annex forms which are 20 pages long in the french system.
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> Just look at the dense jargon ... There are 32 of them! What the hell is all that?
For every form I've ever had to file with the IRS, there's a corresponding set of instructions. Those instructions inevitably have a definitions section and/or define the terms in-line.
The instructions for form W8-BEN-E are at [0]. The definitions section starts at printed page 4 and continues through to printed page 7. Some terms you mentioned (like "Excepted territory NFFE") are not in the definitions section, but are described in their own sections.
I'm definitely not going to claim that it's foolish to consult with a tax lawyer (or similar such thing) when one is significantly uncertain about one's taxes. I'm definitely going to object to your implied claim that the IRS dumps a bunch of jargon on you and leaves you to rely on general-purpose search engines to figure out what the fuck they're talking about.
[0] <https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw8bene.pdf>
Just follow the instructions? From your linked PDF:
> The time needed to complete and file this form will vary depending on individual circumstances. The estimated average time is: Recordkeeping, 12 hr., 40 min.; Learning about the law or the form, 4 hr., 17 min.; Preparing and sending the form, 8 hr., 16 min.
> Just follow the instructions?
I spoke in objection to one very specific claim:
> [The] implied claim that the IRS dumps a bunch of jargon on you and leaves you to rely on general-purpose search engines to figure out what the fuck they're talking about.
Feel free to imagine that I was addressing something else. It's a free country and all.
You also might want to look at the estimated average time for a non-business taxpayer to complete a 1040. If the 1040 estimate methodology is typical, then those estimates are pretty pessimistic.
When you say America you certainly mean USA? Or is America a country now?
Technically, America is neither a country nor a continent. But the USA is the only country on either of the continents of the Americas to have the word "America" in its official name. Give the Americans a break.
It's the only country in Americas that US citizens think is important.
America is colloquially the USA. The Americas is something else. South America is something else. North America is something else.
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