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Comment by cranekam | Hacker News Reader

> You just plug in the data from your W-2.

This is still a lot more work than in many countries, and you still need to either fill in a paper 1040 (plus state taxes where appropriate, and some of those (cough CA) are far from simple), use tax prep software, or someone like H&R Block.

In the UK, if you're in the majority of people who have one job and straightforward finances (e.g. not renting property, no CGT, etc) you need to do nothing at all for your taxes. Your employer deducts tax from your wages and that's it. I guess technically you should verify that your "tax code" (the mechanism used to inform employers of what needs withholding) is correct but again, unless your situation is more complex that is a standard figure shared by the rest of the employed workforce.

My parents never filed a return in their entire lives.

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> This is still a lot more work than in many countries, and you still need to either fill in a paper 1040 (plus state taxes where appropriate, and some of those (cough CA) are far from simple), use tax prep software, or someone like H&R Block.

Not in my experience. The online options the IRS provides free of charge is pretty easy, and many states have similarly simple online forms for free.

https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...

Although I do not dispute other countries do have it easier, and do it better than the US.

Each country has a different idea of what matters for tax purposes. The IRS doesn’t necessarily have all the information that would be relevant to calculate taxes for most people (you have to include that information when you file, so they are in a position to check). They know your income and could probably figure out other wage-earners in the household based on their addresses. They don’t necessarily know all the people you provided more than 50% of their support for the year, or how much you paid on interest for mortgage payments (assuming you pay a mortgage), or how much you spent on deductible medical expenses, or deductible business expenses, or whether a child was born (presumably you’re paying 50+% of the baby’s expenses) and which month that happened, or whether somebody moved out and you no longer pay 50+% of their support, etc.

The IRS does a terrible job with the information it does have. One year, I had a typo in my daughter’s social security number. The IRS sent me a note that her number didn’t match the previous year’s return. I assume that they believed the previous year’s number was right, but instead of saying “we’ve amended the return by using the social security number that appeared on last year’s return,” they said “we’ve amended the return by removing that dependent and recalculating taxes; if you disagree with your higher bill, you’ll need to send us the following paperwork with the correct social security number” (of course, “correct” meant “the number we already have on file” more or less, but I had to figure out what that number was by looking at my own copy of the previous year’s return). Luckily, the previous year’s number was correct; otherwise I would have had to amend the previous return and then refile the current year’s.

A lot of this comes from the US aversion to explicitly re-distributive federal policy (i.e. sending people checks), and a preference for implicit mechanisms (i.e. tax credits, refunds and deductions).

and even if you have to fill up a tax return it is very straightforward to do it online.

I am 100% opposed to this model. I am even opposed to Automatic Deductions

People should have some "skin" in the game of taxation, if we allow the process to become seamless overtaxation becomes a real problem.

Even today people do not treat their Gross income as their income, they look at net. This is the wrong way to look at it.

I believe people should have to physically pay the government every month just like you do your water bill, your groceries, etc.

If people had to write a check, or trigger an electronic payment to their local taxing authority every month there would likely be more focus on where that money is going, and why the government things they deserve a huge chunk of my income (hint they do not)

This prevents the government from just raising taxes and hiding these increases.

If their take home goes down because of increased taxation, people will notice.

depends but I would say they would notice less, and would not have as strong reaction to it as they would if they had to write the check themselves.

We have history of this as well in the US, a prime example of this is property taxes. When a state raises the income tax rate there are a few grumbles but hardly anyone actively protests, however if property taxes go up people can be found literately in the street protesting because it causes their mortgage to go up (as most people pay property taxes via escrow with their lender)

This is direct payment of taxes monthly where the person received the money, then has to pay it out, has a vastly different psychological effect than if the money is seized before ever being received by the person

I maintain that the ONLY way the government can get way with the MASSIVE amounts of taxation everyone pays is for 2 primary reasons

1. Distributed collection 2. Automatic Collection

If either was not in place the government would have huge amounts of civil unrest because by an large most people would instantly recognized they are being fleeced by the government no different than a mugger on the street

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