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    > The solution is not more government nanny-state ideas. 

    > How about requiring every person who receives 10% or more of their yearly salary back in a refund to attend classes on how to maximize their tax benefits?

How are you not contradicting yourself there? Less nanny-state, but forced classes...

    > If you're too dumb or unaware of your surroundings to know that you can file your taxes for free with a little bit of effort, you need education.

I think you're being extremely unfair; this is like saying "only an idiot would pay for webhosting, with a little bit of effort you can host your own site for free".

I'm well educated, good with math, and generally observant....and yet I would still be up shit-creek if I had to do my taxes all on my own. I wouldn't know where to start, other than just searching around the 'net. I could figure it out eventually I'm sure, but it'd be a no-frills return that would probably rank very high on the "audit me!" list, and inevitably I'd end up spending more money, and taking around 10x's longer, than if I just settled for an online service (free or otherwise).

Just because I see spending a smallish amount ($25-50) to save several hours (if not 12+ hrs) of time, with the a decreased chance of audit, doesn't make me dumb nor unaware of my surroundings.

"The solution is not more government nanny-state ideas"

"requiring every person who receives 10% or more...to attend classes"

This seems like a bit of a non-sequitur. Don't provide an easy (and free) way for people to submit their taxes without going to a CPA, but do force people to go to some classes? How is that less of a "nanny state"?

I admit it sounds contradictory. I guess I equate a nanny-state to the government taking care of something FOR you so you don't have to worry about it.

To me, a required educational course about taxes and personal finance would be akin to a driving course--not so much absolving you of responsibility as preparing you to accept it.

Let me guess, we should trust corporations?

What? This post criticized corporations (Jackson-Hewitt in particular). The point was that people need to take individual responsibility for their tax liability.

> The point was that people need to take individual responsibility for their tax liability.

There are people in the military who get married just to claim a higher housing allowance (this despite it being against the UCMJ). Yes, we should be individually responsible but it's not practical to actually expect that from people.

How many people make < $100,000 (required for the 1040EZ), withhold the "default," and get a $10,000 refund?

(And re: "default", I've looked and looked, and can't find such a thing. How do you determine a "default" withholding from a W-4 other than just taking your expected income tax for the year and dividing by pay days? If you do that, you shouldn't have a $10,000 refund...)

For what it's worth, in 2012 I made less than $100,000 in AGI, withheld the W-4 default for my filing status (Single, Independent), and my refund was $650. More or less right on the mark.

Edit: Aha! Found it[0]. $100k biweekly is $1923/week of gross pay; let's ignore medicare and social security, etc. For Single/HoH, that's $344.20 + 28% of 1923-1732 = $397.68 weekly or $20679.36 / year[1]. Since our expected total tax is $18,500, we get back $2,100 in refund. Big-ish, but not $10,000. And only 2% of $100k.

[0]: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/calculate-employer-federal-wi...

[1]: page 44 of http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p15.pdf

Honestly, my examples were based on true stories about people that I know that I've heard in the very recent past. One person makes far, far less than $100K and received just below a $10,000 refund.

"you're too dumb or unaware of your surroundings"

Lol, first time I've heard a libertarian arguing for more paperwork and government programs.

Libertarian paternalism is a thing, even if GP probably doesn't know what it is. It's actually interesting to learn a bit more about, since it's effective as a political-philosophical position, even if it's got holes as much as any other position.

If you get a libertarian paternalist who really doesn't know what he's talking about, you can easily watch him justify totalitarianism in the name of freedom. It's horrifying.