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Comment by Robin_Message | Hacker News Reader

Most UK citizens never fill in a tax form.

VAT is handled by shops for you.

Council tax (local tax based on property value) you are sent a bill based on the value of your property. There are various exemptions and deductions for exceptional cases, but otherwise you just pay the amount.

Income taxes are deducted by your employer from your paycheck under a system called PAYE (pay as you earn). It works basically perfectly if you have one job, and can even cope with multiple jobs, variable income, etc.

If you have an issue with incorrect income tax, there is a friendly call centre who are generally knowledgeable and can fix things with minimal effort on your part; and they also handle some common exceptions (e.g. dividend income under £10,000) over the phone rather than via a form.

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> Most UK citizens never fill in a tax form.

Note that if you earn over £100K, and/or sell more than £45K in shares/options in a year (so probably a lot of people on here from the UK/London-area who work for a BigCo?) then you must fill in a tax return even if all of your income is otherwise PAYE. In this case it takes just mere minutes but I guess they like to check everything really is simple.

> Council tax ... exemptions and deductions for exceptional cases

The 25% off for single occupancy is very common rather than being an exceptional case, but yes applying for it is very easy via an online form (if you are organised and apply as soon as it becomes relevant) or a visit or phone call to the local council office.

Also applies to multiple occupancy if all or all but one of the occupants are full time students.

I would 100% opposed to this type of opaque tax system where the amount of money taken by the government is never reveled to the people it is taken from.

I don't think anyone would support that, but that's not what happens -- you can see the breakdown of gross/net salary & taxes on every payslip you receive from your employer, as well as on your annual P60 https://www.gov.uk/paye-forms-p45-p60-p11d/p60

This would be more similar to the IRS sending you a filled out 1040 along with a note:

> We have provided a pre-filled 1040 based on your W-2s, Form 1099s, 1098s etc. We have made the following assumptions while preparing: > your marriage filing status remains unchanged since last year, > your dependents remain unchanged since last year, > you have no income beyond that reported to us, > you do not qualify for any deductions/ credits beyond those indicated in forms we have received. > > If all of the above assumptions are correct, you may sign the enclosed form and return it. Otherwise, you may use the provided pre-filled numbers and worksheets as a starting point, and make the necessary changes.

In the above scenario, one can very clearly see the amount of tax one paid, and the amount of income, as both are clearly indicated on the "postcard"-sized main 1040 form (which is a good joke as basically everybody will have one or more additional forms they need to attach to it.)

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