The internet sucks
Every year around this time I think about how much the internet sucks.
I access all my financial stuff from each of various institutions online. I access my salary stuff online. I do my taxes online, and I eFile.
So when I do my taxes, why do I have to fill in a hundred little forms all by hand every year? Why can’t I just go to the IRS and say: here are the financial institutions I patronize, and here are my places of work, I will now click this button and you will generate my tax forms for me right here and now?
It’s all online, why can’t someone aggregate it?
PS: My taxes are simple, other people’s are more complicated. I get that.
PPS: Dear implementer of above idea, do it right. Do not give the IRS (or H&R Block or whomever) my account numbers. Love, Mike.
Agreed! That said, filing online was probably easier this year than it’s ever been before for me, which was nice.
This is how taxes are done back home. Even for complicated situations, the government figures it all out and you either get a refund check (or cheque, as the case may be) or you don’t.
It was a large point of culture shock for the Mr. once he realized what an ordeal taxes are for us. It seems to focus people very keenly on their personal finances, more than happens (in general) elsewhere. On the other hand, when a new budget (national) is passed in Ireland, everyone pays attention, reads it line by line, and discusses it. Whereas here very few people put in the effort or have an interest.
Did you lose interest in bbPress.
Haven’t seen a forum post from you in nearly 6 month :(
If your taxes really are simple (1040EZ), turbotax lets you create your federal tax form online for free. Here is the link.
http://turbotax.intuit.com/
Turbotax is the best tax preparation software out there but it’s expensive. Hope the free version works for you.
How about no income taxes, and maybe a high sales tax instead.
Only pay on what you buy, keep the rest of your money :)
… oh what a concept.
Maybe you just want the government to do everything for you. Did you ever think that the only way for the IRS to do such a thing would be if you were to give up your right to privacy? Is this a trade you’d like to make? And if you say yes, should we all be subjected to this even if we don’t agree? Let’s just get rid of anything that has to do with personal responsibility. As a matter of fact, let’s not do anything for ourselves, let’s have someone else do everything for us. Let’s just skip over socialism, let’s go straight to communism. People need to pay attention to how they influence the people around them and how those people around them influence the rest of the world and how some of those people get into a position of power and then try to take advantage of the lazy people and convince them to give up certain civil liberties in exchange for an “easier” way of life. Becareful what you wish for.
I don’t know how the IRS works. Don’t my employer and my financial institutions already report everything to the IRS?
In any case, you will note that, in the post above, I call for an aggregating service. The service need not be hosted by the IRS. My “wish”, as you’ll note, also calls for such a service to not require I hand over account numbers and other sensitive information.
This fantasy is possible without jeopardizing my privacy or the privacy of anyone else.
I think you’ve missed a point. Your boss already had to withhold taxes from your paycheck in the first place. If there was anything non-stupid about the system, you wouldn’t file taxes at all. You’d just get a note from the IRS saying “We’re in ur wrk, haz ur money. Haha!”
I think mostly they set it up this way so that deep down inside, we’d all know just how pwned we really are.
Tous le monde fait compliqué alors que parfois ça peux rester simple.
And that’s your reason why the internet sucks? There are much more and better reasons, all involve people and not taxes.
consider yourself lucky friends… i live in denmark.. over here the income tax is as high as up 71 % yep you heard right, it starts about 41 % and the more you earn the more you pay in tax… and besides that we PAY FOR WATER !! yep everytime we open our Water Faucet we have to pay for it… I HATE that part of my country…
The IRS currently collects all this information from your employers and financial institutions. It is trivially easy for the IRS to just send you a yearly letter, saying “We believe you should get a refund of $X. If you disagree, go file your taxes here.” Apparently, there is a group within the IRS who proposes exactly this system ever year. And, every year, the republican veto the proposal. The thought process being that if we make it hard for people to file taxes, they will associate taxes with pain and annoyance and government bureaucracy. Then, maybe they’ll vote for us when we claim that taxes are evil and should be lowered.
@Cinn
I do not think it is just the Republicans. The “two” parties are more alike than most people like to see. I consider the “lesser” of two evils to still be evil.
Still it would be nice to be able to just agree with the IRS about what we “owe.”
Wishful thinking but its just a matter of time until that happens. But if you need a tax shelter buy Pasadena Real Estate