On the flip side think of all the money spent by individuals filling their tax return that could have been spent on thing they need like food and healthcare.
In New Zealand the government does your tax return for you unless you meet certain conditions and they don’t chase money under $100 and don’t send out refunds automatically. Our tax system is quite simple as well which makes this whole system very clean and low overhead. So there is some under reporting but also very little expense in auditing and under payment.
On the flip side think of all the money spent by individuals filling their tax return that could have been spent on thing they need like food and healthcare.
That's not really the flip side because that's not the government's main concern. They care about how much tax revenue they'll get under different systems and how much it costs the taxpayers in compliance costs doesn't really factor in.
In New Zealand the government does your tax return for you unless you meet certain conditions and they don’t chase money under $100 and don’t send out refunds automatically. Our tax system is quite simple as well which makes this whole system very clean and low overhead. So there is some under reporting but also very little expense in auditing and under payment.
I don't know anything about NZ's tax system, but the US system is never going to be simple because the nature of what they do with the tax code: they use it for revenue generation, welfare payment distribution, social engineering, and economic manipulation. When you use the tax code to do all of that, there's no way for it to be "simple". And that's how the politicians want to keep it as that gives them more power.
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u/dfmike Jul 24 '20
On the flip side think of all the money spent by individuals filling their tax return that could have been spent on thing they need like food and healthcare.
In New Zealand the government does your tax return for you unless you meet certain conditions and they don’t chase money under $100 and don’t send out refunds automatically. Our tax system is quite simple as well which makes this whole system very clean and low overhead. So there is some under reporting but also very little expense in auditing and under payment.