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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

Ignore all the deductions and other stuff. It's a mess and should be fixed, but for this simple issue, it's not relevant.

I get W2s, 1099s, 1099-Rs, 1099-INTs, THX-1178s, ABC-123s, etc. I have to manually copy the stuff from boxes 1-30 on each of those onto my returns. I'd file my taxes in January expect it takes weeks for all the various organizations I deal with to make those and send them through the mail.

I shouldn't have to enter any of that. The government already knows it, they'll check my return against it. When I start my return, it should be pre-filled.

It's sad that Intuit and H&R Block fight this; though I'm not surprised. I'd say the government should provide a direct copy of the 1040 form online with this boxes pre-filled. Intuit and H&R Block should make their money by making easier forms and providing guidance.

Note that "keeping the government forms complex" doesn't count as "making easier forms".

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I wish all of those would get reported/filled in automatically also. If you have to file for yourself, it's a massive PIA to get all of that info. And in 2013 it's far harder - in the past, I used to get paper copies of everything but this year I received lots of "Please create an account here and then you can download your ABC-123". It takes a day to collect and collate all of the ABC-123s. PIA indeed. And the IRS already has that info - it's double-entry accounting except that it's worse since you are judged on your ability to do it correctly. So yeah, that part of it could certainly be improved!

I don't think they were fighting against online access to IRS data. I think they fought against pre-filled 1040 forms becoming default return without you actually having to do almost anything. The former is innocent and useful, the latter may be a bit more controversial, since the incentive of the IRS is to maximize the taxes, having IRS create the returns may not provide the best option for the people who use it.

> the incentive of the IRS is to maximize the taxes

I'm not sure this is the case. IRS funding is not a static percentage of tax revenue. Sure, the tax money goes into one big pot, but IRS funding is not dependent upon the money they bring in.

Yes, but penalties do so there is a big incentive to maximize income from penalties. I was hit by this recently, by not filing a no-income return, and not certified mailing another return that was lost, but I wasn't alerted until 2 years later when they levied $4k in late fees. It used to be easy to get out of these penalties, but there are several accounts from uppers at the IRS that they have been sitting in meetings discussing cracking down on fee collection, no longer waiving fees etc.

Though IIRC, part of "paying" for PPACA (really, just to get the CBO numbers to work out) involved increasing the IRS enforcement budget on the premise that with more money they could bring in enough additional tax revenue to produce a negative net cost.

Don't oversimplify. Prosecutors also aren't pay percentages of the sentences they get, still many prosecutors are zealous to get longer sentences. Because it's their job. The job of IRS is to extract taxes, more they do, more successful they are. People like to be successful.

I think you mean THX-1138s.

Total operation cost: six thousand credits under budget. Congratulations. Be efficient, be happy.

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