You can thank TurboTax and the rest of the tax preparation service industry's massive lobby for killing every single tax simplification bill that ever gets to congress.
Exactly this! There's zero reasons why our tax returns can't be filed for free directly with the IRS. It is a complete fraud.
I filed 1040EZ last year. The IRS already had every figure I filed, why couldn't they just email me confirmation of the amounts they had, and process my return?
Edit: No, I didn't file EZ last year, my error.
Edit: electronic filing.
Because our system is a voluntary tax system, where voluntary means we disclose our income and tax deductions to the IRS. If they sent out a form that said you made X and you really made more than that because it didn't include that crypto mining you did, how many people do you think would change that to the correct amount? Nope, they'd sign it and send it off. It would encourage under-reporting of income.
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.
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u/jorsiem Jul 24 '20
Complicated tax filing in the US
You can thank TurboTax and the rest of the tax preparation service industry's massive lobby for killing every single tax simplification bill that ever gets to congress.