Hacker News Reader

Comment by sausagefeet | Hacker News Reader

In Sweden you can pay your taxes with an SMS. Basically, from what I understand, the taxes are so simple and the infrastructure already there for the govt to know your income that unless you are doing something funky you just confirm you taxes by sending a text. Quite nice.

View on HN

In Norway you don't need to confirm the taxes at all. You get a simple tax form on a web page and if the information is correct you don't need to do anything. If you need to correct it you just update the form online.

That approach might have disadvantages, especially with senior citizens and poor people who might not have ready access to the Internet. They are the ones who usually miss out when essential services go online-only. But then again, we're talking about Scandinavia here, so the size of the affected population and the severity of the problem would be a lot less than in the U.S.

It doesn't really. If you are not able to access the internet you can go to the government office and get it done, I guess. At least that is what we do in Denmark. Or we send out a person with a laptop to the home of the old person so they can be guided if needed.

That said, it is rather few where this is needed. Most old people over here are intelligent enough to learn IT-stuff.

Um. Public libraries.

The US is an outlier in developed nations in lacking basic social amenities.

Poor people in Norway? Surely you jest!

Same thing in Finland, except you can do it by mail or online. The tax form arrives by mail, which you can then either mail back after filling it out or just go online and do the same thing.

No need for the "except." My Swedish tax form came, and provided the information about how to confirm/pay, with online, post, and SMS options.

The "except" compared to Sweden is that if the information is correct, you don't need to do anything. The default on no action is to confirm it.

Ahh, thanks. Which reminds me, I need to tell the Swedish government that the form they sent me is correct.

Same in Norway. They still permit submitting your tax forms by regular mail.

Here in France you get a pre-filled form by regular mail. You can correct it if there's something wrong and then send it, or do those steps online.

If that's the case, why don't they just take your money? It's not like you have a choice.

Sweden also has a codified legal system that fits into a single book iirc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com