Comment by terminalshort
19 hours ago
Which is basically how it works here too. If you just have W-2 income from an employer it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the form. Sure, the system you mention is more convenient, but the difference is minimal.
The IRS already has most of my tax information and knows the tax code. Why must I deal with a third party (and potentially have to pay them) to electronically file my own taxes?
The same reason you pay exorbitant sums for healthcare, education, transport and much more.
The US is not a county optimized to provide quality services inexpensively. It is a business optimized to maximize profits.
You don't have to do that. There is no such requirement. You can fill out the forms for free.
But that's a bad solution. (Otherwise why do TurboTax et al even exist in the first place?)
IRS should just have a public free filing solution for everyone. If you have complicated taxes or want to do your own filing, you can still do that.
1 reply →
You don't have to pay.
https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...
As for "having most of your tax information", they don't. They know your reported income. You see that on your W2s/1099s/etc. What they don't know is whether or not you had a kid this year, or whether you lost a kid this year, whether you got married or divorced, if your spouse is claiming the kids this year or not, the number or amount of your charitable contributions, whether you have deductible mileage expenses, or a million other things.
This argument could be put in a museum as a perfect illustration of the "Perfect is the enemy of good" maxim.
Would just relying on the information from your employers cover all possible edge-cases? No.
Would it dramatically simplify the process for (tens?) millions of people? Absolutely.
3 replies →
In France the web site asks you if your household details changed.
No? 2 more clicks and you are done.
Yes? 2 + nr of changes clicks and you are done. Took me an extra 5 seconds when my son left.
You can make your taxes as complcated as you want but for 95% of the population foling taxes takes a few minutes.
2 replies →
I use free fillable forms. There are zero people on the planet who insist they are remotely as easy as Direct File.
Do these other countries described above know whether you had a kid or got divorced?
2 replies →
The system he mentioned is usually equally simple for self-employed.
When I have had 1099s from consulting work it has also been very easy to file. Not quite as easy as Direct File could make it, but pretty damn easy.
In theory, yes. In practice, no.
Also, Americans have to file both fed and state taxes (with different rules)
Lol not really in practice.