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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

This is true. They would have to send you a simple form to ask you for those things. Or change the way those things are reported. But fun fact, ~80% of tax returns could be calculated by the IRS with no input from the taxpayer, based on the actual returns that they get now. In other words, 80% of returns don't have any information they don't already know. That's mainly because most taxpayers have a single W2 income and just take the standard deduction.

Although you're wrong about the mortgage interest deduction, that is reported by the bank per address, and you have the list your primary address with your state tax authority, which the IRS gets a copy of.

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“A simple form to ask you for those things” is what we have today. Or is the IRS failing to simplify these forms to the utmost degree?

I think you’re seriously underestimating the amount of data the IRS would have to proactively collect. “We get your tax obligation right 80% of the time!” isn’t an acceptable SLA. Kids are born, houses (and electric cars!) are bought and sold, community college classes are enrolled in, …

Re: Primary residence: Uhh, OK, so I report to my state tax authority who reports to the Feds. I thought the point of this thread was that somebody else would do all this for me, but for the evils of Grover Norquist and Intuit?

That is not what we have today. For starters, that form starts with "tell us what is on your W2". They already know that. They don't need it.

There is a reason TurboTax is popular -- because it's a better interface for asking those questions.

But look at other countries. They don't ask you to fill out a form. They send you a bill and ask if they missed anything. For 80% of taxpayers, they would send the bill and the taxpayer would say, "yep, that's right". And your taxes would be done.

The rest could keep doing it the old way.

> Kids are born, houses (and electric cars!) are bought and sold, community college classes are enrolled in

All things they already know about! Because when you claim those things on your taxes, they cross check that to try and catch you in a lie.

The IRS is not keeping a database of real estate transactions and birth records. Let alone modest charitable contributions or fluid household composition.

When the IRS audits you, they don’t come with their own evidence beyond the basic income reporting that yes, they could pre-fill into forms. It’s up to you to produce documentation that justifies your filing.

Our tax code is complicated. It relies on voluntary (but potentially audited) reporting and compliance. If you want to argue for a simpler tax code, great, but at the end of the day, either the IRS needs to collect a lot more data or we’re stuck with self-reporting.

Again, for 80% of filers, none of this matters. They have their one W2 and take the standard deduction. The only thing the IRS needs to know is what's on the W2 and their marriage status, which they absolutely do have because if you get the marriage status wrong they send you a letter (and it's a matter of public record anyway).

So for 80% of people, they would never have to fill out a tax form at all. They could just get the tax bill and have it auto-pay (or more likely auto-refund).

And for the next 10% of people, who only take a small set of deductions that you can take on top of the standard deduction, you don't need even a two page form, you just need a wizard that asks a few questions like TurboTax.

And then for the rest they can opt to fill out the regular forms if they don't agree with how the IRS calculated their bill. This is how it works in pretty much every other civilized country (and a lot of uncivilized ones too).

You're missing that those 80% are not the same people every year. The IRS definitely doesn't keep a database of who is married or not, nor are they scouring every counties database for changes. I'm not sure where you're getting the "they will just send you a letter" part.

Sounds fine to me. Sometimes you have a simple W-2. Sometimes you need to report life changes. "Efficiency" means those 20% figure it out when they have to.

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