The USA system – both federal and state-level – is a bungled attempt at doing all of these things simultaneously: revenue collection, grant issuance, welfare, equity, economic incentives, and monetary penalties. And the results show: it’s woefully unfit at any of these objectives, and the agencies responsible for administering this convoluted mess are left to divine the intended objective and hopefully reach some sort of sane conclusion.

As a reference for fellow Americans, the idea that child welfare is administered through the tax system is not common through the world. That is to say, a “child tax credit” would just be a issued directly from a government agency, with maybe one form to set up direct deposit. Same with economic incentives: rather than a “refundable heat pump tax credit”, other countries just give out grants when you show that you’ve met the qualifications. Remarkably, the USA already have such a system, in the form of municipalities or local utilities that either issue these grants themselves, or work with local suppliers to implement point-of-sale discounts (eg LED light bulbs).

Separating such concerns from the taxation system means that people who don’t file taxes – usually because they’re below the 0% tax rate, which would be the standard deduction at the USA federal level – can still get the full benefit of welfare and grants.

It also avoids the absurd result where the tax authorities have to figure out whether a particular piece of HVAC equipment meets the qualifications set out in the tax code. The IRS (federal) or equivalent state agency does not specialize in such determinations, so there will inevitably be mistakes if they have to do this. Instead, an agency like the USA Dept of Energy would be much more qualified to administer that task.

Finally, because of the litany of such “elective” tax credits or deductions – meaning that whether they apply or not is highly dependent on preconditions – it makes it functionally impossible for the tax agency to give taxpayers a prefilled tax return form. How can the IRS know if you bought a heat pump this year? Or had a child? Or paid points on a home mortgage loan?

Simplifying the tax code is a prerequisite for prefilled tax forms, but not by the typical neoliberal nonsense of flat-tax rates or whatever. Instead, it comes when the tax agency can focus on doing a single job – revenue collection – and work towards doing that task well.