Ethan Cecchetti
Moved to @I saw this on another account, but I'm reposting it in order to add alt text.
Hugo@usernameswift I don't understand why these services are so prevalent in the US. Over here we just type in how much we made and we're already halfway done. Is it so complicated to file taxes in the US?
@hugot A lot of tax systems confuse me. It's pretty bad here in Canada as well; I'm not sure why the tax system was allowed to get like this.
Packy Anderson@hugot @usernameswift Yes.
It could be simpler, but tax prep services were afraid of going out of business, so they paid politicians to make it illegal for the government to make it simpler. In exchange, they're supposed to provide free tax prep for people with low incomes, but they make it nigh impossible to find that service.
shadow_absorber@usernameswift completely despicable actions and treatment of people just to profit a tiny bit more
Finnley Dolfin@usernameswift @tonytins I need an explanation on this because as far as I know filing taxes has existed before TurboTax.
tonytins@FinnleyDolfin @usernameswift TurboTax prevented the government from creating their own easier system.
@tonytins @usernameswift Well, taxes have never been easy. Even the 1040-EZ has all these calculations one needs to do and process a bunch of if/then statements in their head. If they truly were easy then tax preparers wouldn’t exist
@FinnleyDolfin @usernameswift Let me rephrase that to "free." Regardless, computing has advanced enough that this really shouldn't be an issue, let alone one that we have to pay for.
Taking off the other person @tonytins
If we had a flat tax that would work for reported income. But there’s unreported/underreported income, deductions, weird tax situations. Which is why there are many many confusing forms.
@FinnleyDolfin Unreported and sudden events makes sense, but we're already taxed on everything we shop. Furthermore, the fact that we have to pay for preparers over something that is our civic duty really makes no sense.
@tonytins sales taxes, excise taxes, and property taxes (consumption taxes) are considered to be regressive taxes which means they have greater impact on lower-income.
Income tax is progressive, and ideally should be taxed at a rate higher if the person is a high earner. This helps create an equitable distribution on the tax burden.
Income taxes are typically spent on specific government services, typically on the federal level.
Fees for tax preparation may be deductible.
curiousbear 🏳️🌈
@FinnleyDolfin @tonytins @usernameswift It’s just, some countries have mostly automated filing systems (I have used 2). The tax collection agency prepopulates the forms with information from your employers and other sources, and you have the chance to manually twiddle things before submission. Complex cases exist, but for 90%+ of the population this is not the case (or at least most of the forms are taken care of automatically).
@curiousbear @tonytins @usernameswift
This still doesn’t explain why we never had a simple return before TurboTax existed if TurboTax’s lobbying is the reason why.
@FinnleyDolfin @tonytins @usernameswift Likely there was a gradual increase in filing complexity over the years while the technology to simplify filing was still developing (as in indicator, Intuit bought TurboTax in 1993). TurboTax was developed in this environment and the money it made was used to try to preserve that environment. I think this article gives a broader idea of their actions: https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free
@curiousbear @tonytins @usernameswift
I know about TurboTax and H&R Block lobbying. But I would assume tax preparers would have benefited keeping tax law complicated long before TurboTax existed.
The other question is if TurboTax and H&R didn’t lobby, would we have the easy way? Knowing our government, probably not.
@FinnleyDolfin Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of temptation going around :) For what it’s worth, I think the US will eventually put a prefilled tax return system or similar in place. These ongoing efforts just need to succeed once and no-one will want to go back.