Intuit lobbied to keep the tax system complicated. In theory the IRS could do your taxes for you and ask for corrections. For most people, they have all the information needed to do taxes and would save people a lot of stress and money.
Soon we will be getting the automatic calculation, for a fee, and taken from source. It's already starting to happen, medium and other digital economies are doing that. Forced to collect from source , and they pass on the cost of the system to tax payers.
If we don't attack the idea of tax, I think it will never end.
In the more socialist capitalist countries, taxation is an effective way to mitigate the effects of the parasitic merchant class.
But don't make the mistake of thinking the American experience is the universal one - one of the reasons these anti-tax arguments fall on deaf ears internationally is that a lot of countries actually do use tax to look after their citizens to some degree. One of the reasons Libertarianism never caught on globally is because there's little appetite for dismantling government institutions that are, for the most part, working.
The problem isn't tax, it's the behaviour and culture of the government.
France: over 20% vat, about 50% on income for median pay. Uk: 20% vat, over 40% of median pay. Malaysia: 10% gst Vietnam : 10% gst, over 33% income
Those aren't the only taxes, just the most obvious ones. Western and Asian countries, from very developed, to somewhat developed, and under developed. Please show me where those taxes have benefited the people.
Any tax critic in here is always downvoted. I only ever saw 2 comments as a response. Why is it most dont see that taxes are just a way to fund barely checked agencies causing either havoc, or failing at their task?
When you try to defect from paying tax, you may have in your mind the people not killed with your money, but others in society will (correctly) recognize the people not saved with your money and wish to punish you. This is basic tit-for-tat group behavior. Tit-for-tat makes it possible to solve the prisoner's dilemma cooperatively.
I don't think the downvotes should necessarily be interpreted as punishment, though, it could also be because people think the above rationale is so obvious that your post has negative value (little information, noisy).
I'm sorry if the questioning of taxes is noisy information, and I glad you took the time to answer with arguments.
I agree there is a group behavior at play there. You mention education, my own education was nearly in full paid by tax payers. I only had to sustain myself during all these education years, and I spent the rest of my life re educating myself, which came at lower cost but greater effort than getting educated by non government funded bodies.
Fire and health are different issues, which I'm sure would also be handled better than with public funds taken by force.
Informational maybe, but the taxing system we have today wasn't what founded America and made the great country it had become. We can look at specific issues such as turbofax and questionable lobbies, but these are plugged onto a taxing dogma that would need to be discussed more than the intricacies of its implementation.
I appreciate your explained view, I can only agree with what you've taken the time to point out.
Things usually only get difficult when you are self-employed or have difficult deductions.
Plus you always need extra forms for savings etc.