Taxes!

I must calculate each one, and find we qualify for perhaps one in ten of them.

How about figuring out if you qualify and then doing no calculations for the ones you don't qualify for?!?

my (canadian) taxes are extremely simple. i have one employer. they give me a form. i fill the details from that form in on a website that is free. i hit submit. i get a cheque for $7.78 6 weeks later.

I mean I am sure this is just an attempt to use "calculate" as a synonym for pondering, but during a process with actual calculations I think I'd be a little more tight with the terminology.

I have no kids nor significant deductions, but I do own a house and refinanced a mortgage last year. The turbotax site (good ol' intuit corp) took maybe... fifteen minutes this year? To be fair, I have all my tax documents in one pile (bank interest statement, mortgage interest statement, employer tax form, etc) and I'm basically clicking through the same workflow year to year.

It's just a series of "did you do any of the following this year" question lists, followed by a quick data entry question for anything where you answered in the affirmative.

I think the government could easily have a TurboTax-style thing themselves but some lobbying keeps it a private industry.

sorry, that was an xp over jim's description of sublime simplicity

I think the government could easily have a TurboTax-style thing themselves but some lobbying keeps it a private industry.

― mh, Tuesday, March 13, 2018 1:58 PM (one minute ago)

"easily" is questionable. They do subsidize private industry software fees for low-income people with simple returns through the free file program. Should they expand on that? I forget which situations/forms Turbo Tax doesn't cover/exceeds the abilities of the software. I'm sure they increase what it can do each year.

Some background on how Intuit lobbies against tax prep simplification:
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episode-760-tax-hero

well, not "easily" without completely fucking up the current competitive landscape for tax software

they could just nationalize intuit :)

"Easily" in terms of contracting/bidding, determining the parameters,(does it cover everything, how many different languages should it be in, etc.), the user interface, the actual programming is probably pretty simple.

HAHAHAHA

xp - Intuit is not alone -- H&R Block lobbies just as hard for that.

sorry, spent the afternoon reading about business process management tools and the idea that the if/then logic of the tax code is simple to implement blows my mind

tbh the *code* part could be, but only if you used an off the shelf decision engine. the *configuration* would require a staff of full-time business process management advisors, easily

as someone who has paid taxes in four countries, i feel pretty confident in saying that anyone defending the US way of doing it has a kind of sickness

so, uh, that part would also not be easy, either? AHAHAHAH

Is the complexity coming from the interview-based interface of a consumer program like TurboTax? The tax prep chains (Block, Jackson Hewitt, et al) have similar interfaces for their software. Professional programs don't have that.

xp - how do businesses pay taxes in other countries?

the interface probably has its own complexity but I don't really do that kind of stuff

so you *could* use an off the shelf process management engine, but then you have this entire layer of analysis: how do we define eligibility for a specific deduction or exemption? it could be age, income, location, or a weird combination of those things. are they all the same type of qualifiers, or do we have a bunch of different types to define? do deductions interact with each other, and do they do so in a specific way?

there are just a million small process pieces that the IRS has probably modeled out as well, but having all of this as some software-defined state machine is a hell of a lot of analysis and configuration

the process to submit to individual states alone is probably a nightmare

I have a coworker whose partner works in a part of the company that handles employee data, as a software developer, and someone dropped the ball when it came to documenting and handing off the tax return process. She got called in to work on that and did something like a 72 hour week just to get it up and running. Every single state had a different way of submitting the employee income tax file for businesses, and several didn't work.

no idea about business taxation. speaking solely about personal tax here.

seriously, the complexity of the tax code, for the most part, is good, in that economics and issues are complex, and it should reflect that.

lol the complexity of the tax code and its practical implementation in the US is not "good". it is madness and this is stockholm syndrome.

the tax code is not the right place to implement granular redistribution of wealth or personal incentives. if you do you end up with the insanity we have here.

do what the rest of the world does and have like 4ish income tax brackets and handle the rest with cash benefits (that can be means-tested, if you insist or are a tory).

no you have to do all of the things in one place, and that place is a long-form questionnaire

it's just the right way

my family's joint tax return including worksheets is 90 pages this year btw

we'd offer you citizenship to make it easier but we don't really do that these days

working on that, but i wrote diane feinstein a strongly worded email today that ended "i hope i become a citizen so i can vote before you retire", so i may not get it now.

when i permanently move out of the usa, i can't wait til a man wearing a fedora and holding a briefcase hunts me down at my workplace to inform me i need to submit my usa tax form(s)

xp although my tax life will not get any simpler. non-resident visas are different, but h1bs etc. and green card holders are all "US persons" for tax purposes.

no idea about business taxation. speaking solely about personal tax here.

many self-employed people pay their business taxes through the personal tax system. Individuals that are landlords with rental income (and expenses) also pay/report that income through the personal tax system. A lot of the complexities are a result of those things. The purely personal part is fairly simple for most people.

do what the rest of the world does and have like 4ish income tax brackets and handle the rest with cash benefits (that can be means-tested, if you insist or are a tory).

and presumably there are a variety of government departments that handle the different cash benefits?

yes the government handles it

and presumably you are paying more in taxes for the government to handle these things, rather than having a system where the individual has to do a modicum of work on their own behalf?

... or pay a person or company of their choice to do that work?

that seems counter to self-interest, at least for me. For me, it's like arguing that people shouldn't have to cook their own meals, meals should be provided by the government at the prices restaurants charge, no matter if that's significantly more expensive than making your own food, or if they make mistakes.

making tax relief to those who need it dependent on their ability to correctly file their taxes seems kind of cruel and unusual tbh

especially when a lot of those situations involve people who are disabled, poorly-educated, or elderly

my understanding is there was a cabal of evil tax prep companies who successfully lobbied against the IRS (already having most of the documentation needed) providing the option of doing your taxes for you, the resulting cost to the gov't being negligible since they'd have to process your taxes anyway.

xp I think it's more like saying "this is an affirmative government program to make sure these groups get resources" as opposed to "you can keep some of your money if you navigate the system properly and possibly pay a third party to do the paperwork for you (we do not reimburse for the latter)"

lmao yes a 90 page document is a "modicum of work". very good. this is insane.

what costs the economy more: having a not-for-profit centralized shared resource handle something with the economies of scale and fairness that implies, or having every tax payer resolve a complex problem/pay rent-taking for-profit businesses to solve it?

also btw benefits are better than deductions because you can pay them to people who don't pay tax such as poor people.

lmao yes a 90 page document is a "modicum of work". very good. this is insane.

I am guessing that most of those worksheets were filled out by a computer, and it isn't like you personally had to write a 90 page document.

also btw benefits are better than deductions because you can pay them to people who don't pay tax such as poor people.

I really get the sense that you don't really understand the US system and only the parts that apply to you, because there are several sizable benefits that poor people get through the tax system, and one of the main reasons many pay for tax preparation, as opposed to utilizing free resources, is because companies like H&R Block offer "fast refunds" so they can get their $4000 - $6000 in one to two days.

the resulting cost to the gov't being negligible since they'd have to process your taxes anyway.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, March 13, 2018 2:57 PM (ten minutes ago)

I wouldn't be surprised if there was already a prototype program developed, but it would be a significant cost -- the way they process the returns is a bit different. And their software/systems are super antiquated.

ah yes the poor people assistance program where they can pay a corporation to more quickly receive a once-yearly assistance stipend

I really get the sense that you don't really understand the US system and only the parts that apply to you, because there are several sizable benefits that poor people get through the tax system, and one of the main reasons many pay for tax preparation, as opposed to utilizing free resources, is because companies like H&R Block offer "fast refunds" so they can get their $4000 - $6000 in one to two days.

― sarahell, 13. marts 2018 23:05 (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is absolutely insane

and then they'd take the check to the check cashing place down the street and pay fees for that -- it just really reinforces the inequities in society. And maybe they give additional welfare benefits instead of the Earned Income Tax Credit ... but some agency will be responsible for administration of it.

Actually, you can get subsidies in your paycheck based on the EITC amounts, so in theory, it's not a once-yearly stipend. Employers are required to give notices to employees about it. But I've maybe seen 1 w-2 with that in over 15 years doing taxes for people. There are variety of reasons, some logical, some not.

Like Obamacare was modeled in a way on the Advance EITC concept -- where you get advance payments of the credit, with the idea that you should be getting benefits on a regular basis, and not just one big chunk, once a year -- and then you "settle up" at the end of the year, and maybe you get a bit more credit, and maybe you have to pay some of it back.

I am guessing that most of those worksheets were filled out by a computer, and it isn't like you personally had to write a 90 page document.

correct. i didn't fill out any of it myself. i paid someone. i assume he used a computer.

guess how many pages my tax returns were in australia, germany and the UK btw. (clue: think of a non-negative integer smaller than 1, that is coincidentally equal to the size of my annual tax refund in those countries.)

I really get the sense that you don't really understand the US system and only the parts that apply to you, because there are several sizable benefits that poor people get through the tax system

what benefits does someone with no income get through the tax system?

and one of the main reasons many pay for tax preparation, as opposed to utilizing free resources, is because companies like H&R Block offer "fast refunds" so they can get their $4000 - $6000 in one to two days.

hahahahahahahahahaha

people with no income aren't required to file tax returns.

Right so they cannot get benefits implemented through the tax system.

This is absolutely insane

― Frederik B, Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:17 PM (one hour ago)

the fast refunds are kinda like the payday loan model, where the fees and interest you pay are reallllllly high, but people pay them. I would point to the numbers, and say, the fees for this would be x, and of the amount you are entitled to, you would only receive y, and they would do it anyway. It made me really aware of my economically privileged upbringing.

Right so they cannot get benefits implemented through the tax system.

I'm not even sure what you're arguing. People that get no benefits through the tax system, that don't have to interact with the tax system, which you think sucks ... so ... your point is?

a benefit system implemented through tax credits and deductions is (i) an unnecessarily complicated way of disbursing money that is more cheaply done through cash benefits (ii) of absolutely no use to people with little or no income (the people who need the benefits) (iii) tremendously popular with tories.

to take an example, parents with children are given a tax deduction in the US. in germany they are given money. the german way is cheaper for the state (and the economy) to adminisister, and it results in the poorest people getting the benefit too.

sadly the german way puts rent-takers like turbotax out of business though :-(

the german way also means that people miss out on the opportunity to lend the federal government $4-6000 dollars for a year, and then pay h&r block a fee to get the loan back in a timely fashion :-(

there should be billboards explaining to people how to adjust their withholding properly so as not to do that but it's basically a secret

my federal refund was like $300 so i was very patient waiting for it