Yup. An example a good friend of mine noticed is how public transportation (urban, suburban, and rural) over here in the US is woefully underdeveloped compared to many other countries. And it's most likely because of the large car companies.
@@Animalace3 There's a saying for that "Cities weren't designed around the car, they were bulldozed to fit the car" which is true and very obvious if you compare photos of cities 100 years ago with today, specially Houston.
True! Anything that can make money were gonna be exploited in US & they'll make sure that it stayed that way. US is runned by corporates & capitalists for themselves. The Electoral College system made it so they can push politicians around, although the founding fathers didn't meant to be that way, but they've made sure it to maintain so they can exploit its loopholes. They can revise it for the 21st century but didn't do it so Presidential Candidates beg in their knees to be elected in exchange for more favorable benefits for capitalists. No body wants to talked about it but US is headed for Mega Corporations route if given enough time in the future. Note: Mega Corporations is a government system in the game Stellaris where it is run by the rich for the rich.
@@Jose04537 You mean "Cities in US were design for Ford". Just watched a documentary on how many countries have superb & wonderful planning in coordination for public transportation but not in US. Ford owned US transportation.
"As a citizen of this country, you are required by law to pay taxes." "Ok, do you know how much I owe?" "Yes." "Are you going to tell me?" "No. You have to figure it out for yourself. And if you get it wrong, we will throw you in jail."
@@Dustinavollmar A lot of nations does tax prep free. My country (Chile) was the first to do it since the 00's with income taxes, and since last year also with monthly sales taxes. If you have a small company, you can generate bills or invoices for free in the tax service's site (also available for freelancers), and all that information will be use for monthly taxes. Or you can buy a paid system, but all the information is sent instantly to prepare the forms.
@@Dustinavollmar There's quite a few countries that just send you a bill along with the calculations and you only need to file paperwork if it's not right and pay the bill. There's no reason why the US couldn't do that as the IRS already has virtually all the information to do most of the tax returns for the taxpayer. For at least half of the taxpayers, the IRS has 100% of the information to file already, and they largely just compare what you send them to what they already have and decide whether or not to audit. It's ridiculous. Then because they're wasting that money dealing with lower income personal income tax returns, it makes it that much harder to audit the rich people that are withholding huge sums of legal tax obligations.
It is actually a citizen DUTY to pay taxes. Nobody "likes" to pay taxes, but when you see the return via strong social programs it makes sense to me. Even if I had the choice to be the only one that did not need to pay taxes, I would probably decline such an offer tbh.
@@Lobos222 You've missed the entire point. Yes, taxes are necessary to keep a country running. Other countries have taxes. But those countries also don't have an incredibly complicated tax system that requires its citizens to spend even more money to hire someone to help them figure it all out. And, guess what, that system is kept in place because of the millions of dollars those businesses throw into lobbying and straight out bribing our law makers.
@@TitularHeroine can i join in on the mu hahahas? Roger would be out of a job here in the UK where normal workers don't file tax returns and businesses tend to hire accountants.
A few years back the IRS literally sent me a letter informing me I received 14 cents too much, due to improper filing. Which then required me to use a secondary government website when I submitted my taxes to ensure I didn't defraud the government again. Over 14 cents
As an Irish man without having to deal with that broken ass system of taxing , that is genuinely so hard to believe or comprehend and I really want to believe you're making it up because I feel angry and sorry for you if that's true
I made a mistake in filing last year, not in the US, and just got a letter and the amount I had to transfer. I just took a picture with my banking app and that was it. This was about a few hundred Euros, not 14 cents.
I owe KY 25 dollars from 2 years ago so they're taking it out my check and I had to sign a form 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. KY literally sends me a check for $1.35 every year lol
In Sweden a man got so fed up with having to calculate his tax from all kinds of income every year so he wrote a program to do the job for him. Skatteverket (Sweden's version of IRS) was so impressed they bought the program from him and now use it every year to pre-calculate peoples tax.
@@NikoBellaKhouf2 And in Sweden they'll tell you exactly what you owe, or more often how much they owe you back. I did my taxes on the 3rd of April this year, it took less than 5 minutes, cost nothing, and I got about $650 transfered from Skatteverket to my bank account on the 9th.
Amazingly easy if you are literate. Had to sell my first to avoid it being declared a hobby. Thank you standard mileage deduction for owning not more than four vehicles.
@@rayn1ful UA-cam is not normally where you go for tax advice....but since I'm a CPA in the US, I can try to help! I'm not sure what the equivalent to a social security number is in Canada, but the form sent to the government should have that ID number on it. If it's there, you should look up the company and try to contact them as to why they sent that to your government. If it's a significant amount and your government is hassling you, reach out to a local CMA for assistance.
@@rayn1ful I agree wirh the other person, either you've been a victim of identity theft, OR, someone is currently trying to scam you. The fact that you can't reach this company sounds questionable. I watch a lot of scam baiting videos and such scammers will often change their phone numbers and just start up new scams. Also, check and see if the debt related to this company shows on your credit reports (in the US, you can get one free credit report from each credit bureau once a year, but not sure if Canada has a similar thing).
Imagine you going to Walmart. Calculating the price of your groceries. Giving Walmart your money, And making a receipt that they check to make sure you made correctly even though they already have a receipt. That's how taxes work. Making your own receipts
@@DarkForse Who knows? People choose to reelect the same broken, corrupted politicians each election. The politicians have the people too worried about polarizing issues that they get people to vote against their own self-interest.
It’s a huge scam. I one over paid for a audit. I called the irs to check the status and the person on the other end was like “oh you overpaid. We owe you money” but they said it like “if you didn’t call to talk to us we would have just kept everything you gave us but you caught us in the act. Our bad
@Cynical Afflictional #ThisIsNotFinancialAdvice but I just gather my W2s and such, then sit at a computer and read the 1040 instructions, filling the form out line by line as I go. I don't rush my way through them, I give myself a block of few hours to do it in. Then I double check everything. If you're reading thousand page books to find a couple extra bucks the government might owe you outside of just following the annual instruction book, well what's the ROI on that time?
I've only once let someone else do my taxes, and that was only because my mother had already paid for it. It's also the only time my taxes were messed up.
@@zaxxon4 That too is why I just do mine online. I just have a W-2, nothing complicated. It hurts my heart when I see people, usually those on the lower income scale like myself, allow themselves to go to a tax prep location that's going to charge them money they really don't have and often can make errors, delaying money they desperately need.
As an accountant, it hurts me how accurate this is....also basically any time the government isn't regulating something like they should be, its because they are being paid to keep it that way
I just realized how much I DON'T miss working as a clerk at an accountant's office... E-filing is almost more frustrating than paper-filing income tax returns
@Blake Belladonna I doubt it. Charles and David Koch, Dan and Farris Wilks, the Federalist Society, and everyone else who created our one-Dollar-one-vote political system don't have much of a concept of BladeRunner (1st ranked on the Retro Top 40 Movies of '982) or They Live (40th ranked on the Retro Top 40 Movies of '988 against more than 250 movies made per year back then), and nobody ever told them the thick mist and neon lighting might make people more comfortable who watched them. Probably because it would raise too much suspicion if someone traced those aesthetics back to BladeRunner.
Yea, and even worse, thanks to the pandemic and the IRS having to work on reduced staffs due to CDC mandated social distancing requirements, paper returns take forever and a day to process. If you do mail the return in, be prepared to get a letter from the IRS a year an a half later saying you haven't filed.
@Blake Belladonna I need to issue a correction anyhow. Like, literally the day after I posted that, I got an update from Intuit informing me that they opted to NOT renew their "Free filing" contract with the US government. I guess it was good for the year we knew about it...
@@chrisnemec5644 not just because of the pandemic funding has been slowly been cut for the irs for a while now. Recently they got approved to hire 5000 more people so maybe they’ll be a tad faster lol.
@@3nertia Um no, In actuality, the average US citizen pays more in overall taxes for what they actually get than any other nation. Yep, and by a massively wide margin. We pay the most and get the least while the wealthy get wealthier, the corporations get wealthier, and the other 99% foot the bill. USA! USA! USA!!!
@@3nertia Believe what, the truth? Of course I believe the truth. I never asked you or anyone else to take my word for it. Do your own research, you will find out the facts.
Back in college I got audited by the IRS saying I owed them ~$800 because the school supplies I put down where not required (aka NOT in my syllabus). The main item of discrepancy was a $600 lap top. I argued that paper and pencils aren't on the syllabus for English classes, and a laptop is required for computer science courses. They still said I had to pay, or see them in court I said see you in court. Drove 3 hours to Los Angles, met with the IRS before I went to court with bank documents showing supplies I bought and courses I was taking. They were shocked I showed up, sat down with me, and they were right in the end... I did over calculate my taxes. I ended up owing them $27. Months of back and forth emails with the IRS, me driving down to LA, them spending hours of time working my case to get $27. Government tax dollars at work.
@@himecool3452 My time was wasted in the sense it was unnecessary that the IRS came after me. But if I didn't fight it I would of paid $800 rather than $27 (plus $40 in gas).
@The Shah of Iran why should there be a middle man when it comes to paying taxes? it should be the government and the people, especially when it comes to individuals paying taxes, I under stand corporations or businesses wanting help on taxes as that's where it can and should be more complicated, but on the personal level there should be no middle man.
@The Shah of Iran Taxes aren't complicated for like 70% of people. They literally just have to pull data from their w-2 and subtract the standard deduction & maybe some credits. Easy to do in FREE software. Things get more complicated when you own a business, rent property, and trade stock because the Gov isn't keeping track of those items for you. Most of the time those things get more complicated to be in the taxpayers favor by allowing you to deduct expenses. Most people can't even explain how tax brackets work or what withholdings on a paycheck are for (2 easy concepts) and pretend it's excessively complicated. Just wait to till you have to deal with the parts that ARE actually complicated...
So true! That being said, I've never paid anyone a cent to do my taxes. I've always done them myself on paper forms and see no reason to change. Complete forms, drop in mailbox, refund lands in bank account a few weeks later. Never had any problem.
With my diagnosis, and probably because the state I live in cares a little more about people like me than other states, they have people, paid by the public sector unless I'm mistaken, doing tax returns for me and everyone else with similar impairments. But the rest of the 1st world already exempts everyone, both neurotypical and autism spectrum, of fending for themselves in filing tax returns.
@@dominicfucinari1942 Indeed, in the UK it's all done automatically by your employer, if you're not employed then you don't pay tax pretty much, we can earn £12500 (about $15000) before we have to pay any tax and that's enough to cover any welfare payments. You only have to self file if you're self employed/running your own business, but it's pretty simple even then.
I'm Australian and earning middle income. I file tax returns every year myself by clicking through the federal treasury website and checking all the details that it pre-filed is accurate. I provide a couple updates to my details here and there and correct one or two things here or there. I claim the standard deductions as I'm not rich so I don't have to keep a shoe box full of receipts. The whole process takes me about 40 mins most years. Don't get me wrong, our tax code is insanely long and complex as well. We simply didn't allow accounting lobbyists to convince our law makers to intentionally make filing our taxes difficult.
Yeah, we could've had an easy system like yours, and a few years ago the IRS was ready to go live with e-filing straight through the agency, but tax prep companies bribed our politicians to stop it. Now, those companies run the "free file" systems the government is legally required to offer, but they're almost impossible to find and use. And if you need to itemize your deductions they FORCE you to pay for their service, even though it's not technically legal for them to do so.
Many countries make it far easier but it probably takes me an hour to do my US taxes with minor cost. Much of the US tax prep industry when it comes regular W-2 workers is just playing on fear or making it sound difficult so you "need our simple solution" or what have you.
All democracies have complicated tax codes, it's an inevitable result of spreading power out more. See CGP Grey's video "The Rules for Rulers". The problem in the US is that somehow lobbyists managed to make it literally illegal for the IRS to tell you what you owe them, even though they still have to calculate it themselves to check your work.
@Custos Vitiosus But what about, like , the whole I.C.E. situation? We have modern concentration camps too, my man. And, uh, most Australians are free to go for a drive right now, too. Just saying.
Fun fact: most other countries do your taxes for you. Tax companies just lobbied against it. Fun fact 2: Our founding fathers would have been at war with the government by now.
Hasan Minhaj did an awesome job trying to help us consumers try to steer around the mess. This was a fabulous sarcastic to-the-point take covering most of the same points and delivered by Roger, which is always fabulous. Thanks for making more people aware they're getting scammed!
As a French person, I get a mail every year to remind me to check my tax declaration. Connect to the government website, check the pre-filled declaration which takes me less than 5 min. Don't make any modification because it's already correct and confirm. That's about it.
Or when the IRS sends you a letter promising a paper tax refund check is in the mail due to an error in the calculation and then ... you just never get it heh
They did that to me last year, just reduced my refund by $600, with no meaningful explanation, and I had Turbo Tax do my return, so it wasn't a mistake on my part.
@@gregb6469 That sounds very much like you claimed the $600 stimulus credit and were not supposed to (presumably because you already got the stimulus money)
Damn. This is soul crushing. I pay hundreds every year so I can pay the government what I owe. Even so I have still gotten fined and penalized for errors. When I underpay I am slapped with penalties and charged for missed interest. Why isn't the IRS required to calculate everyone's bill? It really us incredible BS. I don't mind paying bills but I should not gave to guess at how much I owe.
I think there might be something wrong with me. I actually look forward to Roger's videos which just cement the facts that I already know that everything is screwed and we are being snow blowed over. Why do I like these?
And whats worse, it would be FAR cheaper and easier for the government to do taxes all on its own..they already have ALL the paperwork after all. But billion dollar corporations would be cut out, so that could never happen..
Jack Hunter and Ryan George, the two Gods of UA-cam. I dont care what the videos are about, I'm going to watch them and I'm going to enjoy every second...Every. Single. Time.
You know what. I actually just did the math myself this year. It was almost exactly as annyoing as doing it through turbo tax and it did not hit me with pay walls and other bull shit.
I think the funniest thing about these videos is that since most of these companies will just put ads on videos tagged with their general content, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be an ad from one of these companies that plays after the video.
As a tax preparer myself, I can vouch for how hard this shit is for me as well. To even get a CPA license basically requires a masters degree and years of experience. The system is definitely rigged by the rich, the accountants, and tax attorney's that are trying to make sure the profession stays relevant.
Accounting is much more than tax preparation. I agree that the AICPA is gatekeeping the system but it's not right to blame your local bookkeeper for these backwards practices
and here you are, on the internet, skreeing. as someone who has been to actual war zones, watching children die in thier mother's arms from starvation - you're rich compared to most people and yet here you are, its someone elses fault
@@markomib as someone who's been homeless in LA, San Fransisco, and Miami, I can say with certainty that the homeless people in this country are not starving for food; they're starving for love. People feed the homeless every day.
I don’t mind the math, it’s the yearly changes and new rules, laws, requirements they popup while filing. Even using TurboTax or others, at times, you just keep clicking because you want the pain to end!!!
In Austria taxes are already deducted from your paycheck. At the end of the year, you go to a government funded free website and enter any deductible amounts or just check some boxes for flat deductions like commute to work. And voila, the government will transfer all the taxes you paid to much. This applies to employees in this case.
Fortunately, our tax process is the only thing about our system that's fucked up and clearly inferior to the way that every other wealthy country operates, but sticks around anyway because somebody is making a lot of money off of it staying that way. ...*cough*
Nothing worse then paying for something the government already has the answers to. All they literally have to do is send a form to document any additional income you may have made in the year and return it.
Why the fucc am I just learning about this channel? And why the fucc does this channel have under 5 million subscribers. This whole series and channel has me thinking totally different about a lot of things. Pure genius. Well calculated. Well put. Salute
Didn't mention that many of the professional tax preparers that pop up Jan-April only have about 6 weeks of training, which the company makes them pay for.
Yep. I worked at one of those places and it is a MAJOR rip off. People come in who can't afford to lose any money on a refund and pay over $100. I got in trouble for passing out our coupons for our store because it bit too much into the massive profits they made. Yeah, letting a single parent with two kids save $20 is just too too much. And yes, it is only 4-6 weeks of training and the people they got to do it, WHEW!! I wouldn't let them touch my taxes for free. And your private info? Locked in file cabinet in the back but if someone knew you or your family..well, the key was literally right beside the file cabinet and the room was at the back. I don't know how many times giggles were heard from back there. Not as bad as the payday loan company I did work for (think maintenance, not ripping off poor people). They used the same computers that had people's personal info on it to surf "STUFF", ahem and got a horrible virus, people's info was exposed, hundreds of people, and the store didn't even inform their customers. SS #s, DL info, address, job stuff, all of it was caught up in ransomware.
@@JustTheTruth-Please I mean I worked at one of those places after college and I agree that the cost is really high, between 50-100. But we weren't giggling at people's returns and weren't browsing the web. We barely got any hours. And it was like 5 of us there and I was a college grad at the time with an accounting degree and the rest were people without any financial or accounting experience. I still kind of kick myself for not getting the gold and having a certification that doesn't expire. But yeah you're mostly paying for the textbook. That's what they told me. And we didn't have a sign waver so I did that when there wasn't enough customers. It's funny, at the time I felt really confident in my accounting skills, and I only handled one case in those 4 months (yeah sept-dec is unpaid but I'm putting it on my resume) one case that was "difficult" or detailed. That usually goes to the supervisor on duty. But the one case I did get was this guy who had a bunch of donations and other situations but he had it so organized it was just like punching numbers into a computer. But yes I always felt bad about the price.
@@MyNameGoesHere I never said you or your co-workers were browsing the web or giggling. I was speaking of my 5 years of experience of working at a well known chain of tax prep service providers and doing contract maintenance at a payday loan company. My comment wasn't about everyone's experience everywhere. You must know that...
@@Vohlfied That's where most of our taxes go anyway, to corporate subsidies so places like Walmart can pay their employees an inappropriately low wage because they can then qualify for welfare and then we have to pay their employees, instead of them having to! Brilliant! Heh
Oh Rodger. What would I do without you brutally detailing every aspect of this dystopian nightmare? No really. I need you to tell me what to do and think!😆😂😭
I have grown to love the hints you post. I love the part where a ton of people sarcastically guess the wrong answer with all the misplaced confidence they can muster.
Forgot about this channel due to being subscribed to 600 channels & playing MMOs, but last I checked here, Roger hadn't done a video in years. So glad you brought him back. Guess I have so catch-up binge watchng to do.
This is me this year. I started my own business and did a consult with two different CPAs to see what they said the same, and what they said different. Neither of them explained much well, sadly. I just need to make sure all my business write-offs are legal. Don't want to get in trouble for that.
@@TheBigNoob It definitely depends on who you're working with. Mine is great and always willing to answer questions. They'll even take care of other small businesses needs, for a fee of course.
Sounds sensible, Also Ya, I do the same. 🍷👍 The way I figure, it just works as the IRS seems to be almost magically less bothered and turns a blind eye when your Taxes are taken care of by a registered CPA. I swear I don't know how this works except it does!
Fear of jail also makes people do the IRS' job for them. Friend of mine just stopped paying taxes and they didn't notice until 7 years later where he just apologized, payed that _one_ year, then has been doing the same again.
Remember the days when you could just go to the post office or the public library to get a paper form that you could fill out and have a spare for yourself in less than an hour? It was just a couple years ago. The tax software companies want me to pay $60 to use them for state taxes, but my state has a flat tax and it gets taken out of my paycheck, so neither I nor the state owes money. They shouldn't make it that hard to get the paper forms.
Kudos to Roger for highlighting issues which no-one talks about. I used to think this is an issue just in my country as tax filing website is just so complicated for a common man to file return. But turns out it is an issue in USA as well. Humans are the same after all.
Holy, I'm actually going to file my own sole proprietor tax return now, thank you for this warning. I'm in Canada but that manipulative "free" tax return company also exists in Canada too.
USA here so obviously could be completely different, but sole proprietor is one of the last company types you want to file as here. It doesn't insulate you personally from damages caused while you are working.
In Canada CRA Volunteers will literally do the taxes of most people. No charge and the people doing them are the same people who check them so they do them right
I was literally just telling a friend of mine how the government (like so many others already do) could literally just send is the paperwork filled out and all we'd have to do is check it and sign at the bottom... but companies like this lobby for them to not do that. Infuriating.
The crazy thing is that most people don't even bother to look at the form. A 1040EZ was mostly your name and address and then just the info from your w2 and a 1040A is the same, but now you have kids in most cases. The rest was fill in from the instructions and your bank account if you wanted direct deposit. It really is that simple for most people to do it by hand and a calculator and with the free software apps its just answering questions...
Roger you missed a huge fact! Taxes could be a lot easier in another big way. Other countries have automatically filed taxes so people in Canada and whatnot don't have to file taxes from scratch. All of your information is already entered and all they have to do is answer basic questions about changes, like if they got married, had a child, gave to charity, etc. This could be the same case here, as the government already has your W2! It was digitally reported to the IRS at the end of the year by your employer. BUT we keep our taxes complicated for no reason to help out Turbotax.
I wish Roger would have mentioned "Return Free Filing" (RFF). In USA, the IRS computer does your taxes and compares it to whatever you send in. If their computer determines you owe more than you calculated, you get contacted. The key here is the "government's computer does your taxes". With RFF, the government mails *you* a copy of their tax calculation. You only need to file a return if you dispute the IRS calculations. Many countries around the world already do this. Every few years, RFF bills get introduced into Congress, but are lobbied *very* *hard* against by tax prep companies.
California has a free and fairly straightforward CalFile for its state returns, but the tax calculator corporations lobbied to make sure it's not marketed as well as it should. I'm sure some other states have the same issue.
I still fondly tell the story of the local network news outlet that cobbled together returns for a fake family, then took the returns to four different accountants. All four of them came up with different answers about how much was owed. Then they took the returns to the IRS itself. Sure enough, a fifth, completely different answer.
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@@andrewfuller4883 It wouldn't help to give you the free filing URL today in 2021, you will need to know whatever it becomes in 2022. Even then there won't be any guarantees that it will remain the same.
Not a single person in history has ever agreed to pay taxes, they are forced to. It's a legal form of stealing, there is no other way to describe it. Roger did an excellent job of portraying that.
Indeed, taxation in dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies are theft, no different than the mob's protection money. By contrast, democracy is government by the people for the people. The people you elect are people who work for you. True democracy holds government accountable by making their every action transparent: the government leaders' finances are openly scrutinized by the public, their spending, their income, their expenditures are all open for all to see. Unfortunately, American government has been hijacked by an elected official who blocked all scrutiny into the finances, allowing rampant corruption to steal our hard-earned collective money that should have gone to the collective to fall in the hands of liars and grifters. Over a hundred billion dollars was stolen from the relief fund during the former administration. The government was so corrupt that they didn't even want to divulge where the money went. So yes, taxation under an opaque government is theft. But taxation in democratic government is simply the people collecting money to provide for the people infrastructure and services that would require cooperation of everyone. It is important to hold elected officials accountable, democracy is everyone's job. Democracy fails if elected officials are paid by private interest through bribes, even legal bribes like campaign donations. At that point, the elected representatives no longer represent the people, but represent the people who bribes them the most. This is why things like 'citizens united' is so extremely damaging to democracy. A democracy where democratically elected leaders are paid for by private interest is not a democracy, it is a sham. Intuit bribes your officials with millions of dollars to ensure they can continue to advance their business model that relies on government keeping the tax system as complicated as possible. Ever wonder why there's no equivalent of TurboTax in Europe?
I don't think it's stealing. It's the cost of living in a society. You can move to the mountains off the grid and live as a hunter gatherer if you want.
Oh we have something similar in Poland. Polish tax office is brutal here, they actively try to f*** you over. It is survivable for most regular folk, but if you have a small business or are self employed, oh boy they will have a field day with you. One of my favourite stories is two women (undercover tax inspectors) crying to a mechanic to fix their car... they had a broken lightbulb. Mechanic just unscrew bulb from his own car and installed in theirs. When the women insisted to pay him he accepted 10PLN ( around $3?). It was after hours so he couldn't print a receipt with VAT tax so the women revealed themselves as tax inspectors and wrote him a fine. The case landed in a court, tax office lost but wanted to appeal so at that point minister of finance himself had to step in and say "Stop it you are embarrassing us all!". Cherry on the top: The local tax office responsible for this provocation only year prior got the title of "The friendlies". Also the definition of taxable benefit is so wide that some tax offices where debating should they treat taking a poo at work as benefit (you save on toilet paper and water!) .
As a Canadian, it's odd seeing Americans ranting about Turbo Tax doing all sorts of weird unsavoury things in the comments. Our localized version of Turbo Tax is boring and fairly quick to use, although it does try in a pretty lame-ass way to encourage you to have one of their people advise you. Thing is, unless you have a tax situation complex enough that you really should have an accountant, filing your taxes in Canada is mostly just a dull but simple exercise in basic math and organizing your paperwork.
Me, living in Peru (a third world country) where the government sends you a card annually with exactly how much money you have to pay and your monthly income taxes are automatically deducted: wow.
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This is so accurate. Fucking Turbotax is screaming in my face for four months about how free it is to file with them, yet it seems impossible to find the free option.
Now if you had a video about "honest" CPAs that would be unbelievable. The fact my CPA actually takes even the time to sign our tax book is barely believable. Reality is they have their minions take my hours of work and throw the numbers into a spreadsheet and in 10 seconds pops out all the tax forms.
I’m not sure what you do to need a cpa? I’m a cpa and loathe taxes myself and am not in the tax field. Years ago I’d say just use turbo tax as I myself did as a cpa. This video basically explains why I quit using it and making it harder than just doing it yourself. You shouldn’t need a cpa unless you own a business to file taxes and that my opinion.
@@briank5877 I'm also a CPA and I'll agree that most people don't need a tax prep service. The ones that do, need a CPA to help them min/max & plan things out throught the year. There should be no horrible surprises when the return is put together. H&R Block is a total ripoff.
@@matts.1443 I’d like to add there are 3 different types of cpas tax, audit and corporate. It’s funny when talking to people they all assume you can do their taxes😂. In addition, the standard deduction is so high these programs they pay for ask questions that won’t matter 😬. Now importing my 1099 years ago when I had a thousand trades and wash sales might be worth the aggravation as it was with me.
@@dominicfucinari1942 Oh you have no idea. I'm finishing up the process of getting the license myself, and the amount of general knowledge I needed to pass the exam, but will likely never use in practice is insane. Even tax alone has so many different areas and entity types one can spend their entire careers becoming experts in while still knowing no more about the 1040 than a non accountant.
I’m a little upset they didn’t go into the H&R Block aspect of scamming people out of their money by fronting return money but paying them less to get it early.
It's not really a scam, that's just a loan. Like a payday loan basically, just with a different guaranteer. And yes payday loans are scams. So then I guess yes scams
@@dynomar11 It's a scam. The return time when you combine electronic filing with direct deposit often takes about a week (maybe two). The amount H&R Block pilfer from the people's pockets for a one week loan is criminal.
@@VaultBoy13 except it's optional. You don't *have* to get your refund that second. They're preying on people who have a grotesque need for instant gratification. You've waited this long for a refund, what's another few weeks (especially if your return has errors that lower your refund and then you own HRB aand the IRS - which I've seen many many many times)?
In USA, a good rule of thumb is "If something doesn't make sense or it's impractical, someone is probably lobbying to keep it that way for profit"
^THIS
Yup. An example a good friend of mine noticed is how public transportation (urban, suburban, and rural) over here in the US is woefully underdeveloped compared to many other countries. And it's most likely because of the large car companies.
@@Animalace3 There's a saying for that "Cities weren't designed around the car, they were bulldozed to fit the car" which is true and very obvious if you compare photos of cities 100 years ago with today, specially Houston.
True! Anything that can make money were gonna be exploited in US & they'll make sure that it stayed that way. US is runned by corporates & capitalists for themselves. The Electoral College system made it so they can push politicians around, although the founding fathers didn't meant to be that way, but they've made sure it to maintain so they can exploit its loopholes. They can revise it for the 21st century but didn't do it so Presidential Candidates beg in their knees to be elected in exchange for more favorable benefits for capitalists. No body wants to talked about it but US is headed for Mega Corporations route if given enough time in the future.
Note: Mega Corporations is a government system in the game Stellaris where it is run by the rich for the rich.
@@Jose04537 You mean "Cities in US were design for Ford". Just watched a documentary on how many countries have superb & wonderful planning in coordination for public transportation but not in US. Ford owned US transportation.
"As a citizen of this country, you are required by law to pay taxes."
"Ok, do you know how much I owe?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to tell me?"
"No. You have to figure it out for yourself. And if you get it wrong, we will throw you in jail."
Yea, and since America is bought and paid for by corporate lobbyist, we will never not have to do our taxes.
@@Dustinavollmar A lot of nations does tax prep free. My country (Chile) was the first to do it since the 00's with income taxes, and since last year also with monthly sales taxes.
If you have a small company, you can generate bills or invoices for free in the tax service's site (also available for freelancers), and all that information will be use for monthly taxes. Or you can buy a paid system, but all the information is sent instantly to prepare the forms.
@@Dustinavollmar There's quite a few countries that just send you a bill along with the calculations and you only need to file paperwork if it's not right and pay the bill. There's no reason why the US couldn't do that as the IRS already has virtually all the information to do most of the tax returns for the taxpayer. For at least half of the taxpayers, the IRS has 100% of the information to file already, and they largely just compare what you send them to what they already have and decide whether or not to audit. It's ridiculous.
Then because they're wasting that money dealing with lower income personal income tax returns, it makes it that much harder to audit the rich people that are withholding huge sums of legal tax obligations.
It is actually a citizen DUTY to pay taxes. Nobody "likes" to pay taxes, but when you see the return via strong social programs it makes sense to me. Even if I had the choice to be the only one that did not need to pay taxes, I would probably decline such an offer tbh.
@@Lobos222 You've missed the entire point. Yes, taxes are necessary to keep a country running. Other countries have taxes. But those countries also don't have an incredibly complicated tax system that requires its citizens to spend even more money to hire someone to help them figure it all out.
And, guess what, that system is kept in place because of the millions of dollars those businesses throw into lobbying and straight out bribing our law makers.
"God has nothing to do with this. My name is Roger."
They can hear me laughing on the other side of the globe 🤣💀
Ohhhh that was you? Ok that explains that.
MOO- HOO- HA- HA
@@TitularHeroine can i join in on the mu hahahas? Roger would be out of a job here in the UK where normal workers don't file tax returns and businesses tend to hire accountants.
@@AndrewHalliwell Yeah but we already did ours, yours has to sound like an animatronic funhouse skeleton
he seemed downright angry at the implication
A few years back the IRS literally sent me a letter informing me I received 14 cents too much, due to improper filing. Which then required me to use a secondary government website when I submitted my taxes to ensure I didn't defraud the government again. Over 14 cents
As an Irish man without having to deal with that broken ass system of taxing , that is genuinely so hard to believe or comprehend and I really want to believe you're making it up because I feel angry and sorry for you if that's true
@@irish_apex1094 It is probably true, I had recieved a similar letter informing me that I still owed a few dollars.
Not buyin' this.
I made a mistake in filing last year, not in the US, and just got a letter and the amount I had to transfer. I just took a picture with my banking app and that was it. This was about a few hundred Euros, not 14 cents.
I owe KY 25 dollars from 2 years ago so they're taking it out my check and I had to sign a form 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. KY literally sends me a check for $1.35 every year lol
In Sweden a man got so fed up with having to calculate his tax from all kinds of income every year so he wrote a program to do the job for him. Skatteverket (Sweden's version of IRS) was so impressed they bought the program from him and now use it every year to pre-calculate peoples tax.
The IRS knows what you owe. They hope you'll mess up though
@@NikoBellaKhouf2 And in Sweden they'll tell you exactly what you owe, or more often how much they owe you back. I did my taxes on the 3rd of April this year, it took less than 5 minutes, cost nothing, and I got about $650 transfered from Skatteverket to my bank account on the 9th.
In France too they tell you what you owe or are owed, you only need to verify the total salary of the year
I'm a tax collector by trade. This is stunningly accurate. Also, try operating a small business without stepping in a tax trap.
Amazingly easy if you are literate. Had to sell my first to avoid it being declared a hobby. Thank you standard mileage deduction for owning not more than four vehicles.
@@rayn1ful UA-cam is not normally where you go for tax advice....but since I'm a CPA in the US, I can try to help! I'm not sure what the equivalent to a social security number is in Canada, but the form sent to the government should have that ID number on it. If it's there, you should look up the company and try to contact them as to why they sent that to your government. If it's a significant amount and your government is hassling you, reach out to a local CMA for assistance.
@@rayn1ful claim identity theft. You're being railed and you haven't even realised it yet, lol.
I spent years as a tax auditor. I was thinking the same thing. Surprisingly accurate.
@@rayn1ful I agree wirh the other person, either you've been a victim of identity theft, OR, someone is currently trying to scam you. The fact that you can't reach this company sounds questionable. I watch a lot of scam baiting videos and such scammers will often change their phone numbers and just start up new scams. Also, check and see if the debt related to this company shows on your credit reports (in the US, you can get one free credit report from each credit bureau once a year, but not sure if Canada has a similar thing).
At this point, Roger should be considered a National Treasure.
True
A lot of satirists should.
Facts
@@zlpatriot11 👍👍👍
Or a public enemy
Imagine you going to Walmart.
Calculating the price of your groceries. Giving Walmart your money,
And making a receipt that they check to make sure you made correctly even though they already have a receipt.
That's how taxes work.
Making your own receipts
And, if you're rich, you walk out of Walmart with groceries without having to pay.
And the thing that makes me wonder is why do Americant keep on putting up with all this and not change it !!!
@@DarkForse Who knows? People choose to reelect the same broken, corrupted politicians each election. The politicians have the people too worried about polarizing issues that they get people to vote against their own self-interest.
Ever heard of accounts in the Cayman islands? Binance is there too!
Walmart already does that. I've used self-checkout every time I've shopped at Walmart in the last ten years.
Can we get a “If UA-cam was honest” video. Also you’re the best Roger.
Not unless they want to get demonitised/banned...
UA-cam: (Charging up the BanHammer)
Cracked: "Captain, they're charging weapons!"
@@awo1fman Probably wont happen but sounds like an amazing vid
It'd be demonotized in a heartbeat.
If “video hosting sites” were honest 😉
It’s a huge scam. I one over paid for a audit. I called the irs to check the status and the person on the other end was like “oh you overpaid. We owe you money” but they said it like “if you didn’t call to talk to us we would have just kept everything you gave us but you caught us in the act. Our bad
I love the way he utterly demolishes the FREE sign 😂😄
God has nothing to do with this.
My name is Roger
@@diegofoliene3288 it sounds like a line that Terminator would say while standing over some poor innocent soul lol
@@amber619pop Exactly hauahauahahha
"Pay three-hundred dollars, to continue for free." That's about correct.
she's dead wrong...it's actually $299.99.
@@Zebra_3 plus tax/ processing fees
This is why I learned to do my own taxes. It's actually not that bad if you take some time to learn and don't have extremely complicated finances.
And if you do have extremely complicated finances, you're likely rich enough to hire an accountant
I get W-2 and I'm single. I just have to remember which number goes where.
@Cynical Afflictional #ThisIsNotFinancialAdvice but I just gather my W2s and such, then sit at a computer and read the 1040 instructions, filling the form out line by line as I go. I don't rush my way through them, I give myself a block of few hours to do it in. Then I double check everything. If you're reading thousand page books to find a couple extra bucks the government might owe you outside of just following the annual instruction book, well what's the ROI on that time?
I've only once let someone else do my taxes, and that was only because my mother had already paid for it. It's also the only time my taxes were messed up.
@@zaxxon4 That too is why I just do mine online. I just have a W-2, nothing complicated. It hurts my heart when I see people, usually those on the lower income scale like myself, allow themselves to go to a tax prep location that's going to charge them money they really don't have and often can make errors, delaying money they desperately need.
As an accountant, it hurts me how accurate this is....also basically any time the government isn't regulating something like they should be, its because they are being paid to keep it that way
as a youtube commenter I believe that pineapple belongs on pizza.
@@spaghetti9845well, you don't hurt anybody this way so it is fine
@@spaghetti9845 amen
I just realized how much I DON'T miss working as a clerk at an accountant's office... E-filing is almost more frustrating than paper-filing income tax returns
@Blake Belladonna I doubt it. Charles and David Koch, Dan and Farris Wilks, the Federalist Society, and everyone else who created our one-Dollar-one-vote political system don't have much of a concept of BladeRunner (1st ranked on the Retro Top 40 Movies of '982) or They Live (40th ranked on the Retro Top 40 Movies of '988 against more than 250 movies made per year back then), and nobody ever told them the thick mist and neon lighting might make people more comfortable who watched them. Probably because it would raise too much suspicion if someone traced those aesthetics back to BladeRunner.
Yea, and even worse, thanks to the pandemic and the IRS having to work on reduced staffs due to CDC mandated social distancing requirements, paper returns take forever and a day to process. If you do mail the return in, be prepared to get a letter from the IRS a year an a half later saying you haven't filed.
@Blake Belladonna Unless you're making 6 figures, you probably qualify for the free filing option from intuit... assuming you can find it.
@Blake Belladonna I need to issue a correction anyhow. Like, literally the day after I posted that, I got an update from Intuit informing me that they opted to NOT renew their "Free filing" contract with the US government. I guess it was good for the year we knew about it...
@@chrisnemec5644 not just because of the pandemic funding has been slowly been cut for the irs for a while now. Recently they got approved to hire 5000 more people so maybe they’ll be a tad faster lol.
In other countries, the government does your taxes for you. Makes sense. Every other business in the US calculates my bill for me.
Yeah, then it's less obvious how much you're being screwed 😉
@@3nertia Um no, In actuality, the average US citizen pays more in overall taxes for what they actually get than any other nation. Yep, and by a massively wide margin. We pay the most and get the least while the wealthy get wealthier, the corporations get wealthier, and the other 99% foot the bill. USA! USA! USA!!!
@@tedwojtasik8781 Lol. You really believe that huh? You must not know much about taxes in general ...
@@3nertia Believe what, the truth? Of course I believe the truth. I never asked you or anyone else to take my word for it. Do your own research, you will find out the facts.
@@tedwojtasik8781 "Do your own research" - last refuge of a false premise xD
I already have - I'm just wondering when *you're* going to :)
Another episode of Rodger!? The gift that keeps on giving. I need Rodger to narrate my life.
Roger is the white Morgan Freeman.
Back in college I got audited by the IRS saying I owed them ~$800 because the school supplies I put down where not required (aka NOT in my syllabus). The main item of discrepancy was a $600 lap top. I argued that paper and pencils aren't on the syllabus for English classes, and a laptop is required for computer science courses. They still said I had to pay, or see them in court
I said see you in court.
Drove 3 hours to Los Angles, met with the IRS before I went to court with bank documents showing supplies I bought and courses I was taking. They were shocked I showed up, sat down with me, and they were right in the end... I did over calculate my taxes. I ended up owing them $27.
Months of back and forth emails with the IRS, me driving down to LA, them spending hours of time working my case to get $27. Government tax dollars at work.
In the end you not only wasted your time but most likely your money on gas, how much did they charge to fill your tank in cali? 😂
@@himecool3452 My time was wasted in the sense it was unnecessary that the IRS came after me. But if I didn't fight it I would of paid $800 rather than $27 (plus $40 in gas).
"to ensure the tax filing process remains brutally complicated" that is so on point.
@The Shah of Iran why should there be a middle man when it comes to paying taxes? it should be the government and the people, especially when it comes to individuals paying taxes, I under stand corporations or businesses wanting help on taxes as that's where it can and should be more complicated, but on the personal level there should be no middle man.
@The Shah of Iran Taxes aren't complicated for like 70% of people. They literally just have to pull data from their w-2 and subtract the standard deduction & maybe some credits. Easy to do in FREE software. Things get more complicated when you own a business, rent property, and trade stock because the Gov isn't keeping track of those items for you. Most of the time those things get more complicated to be in the taxpayers favor by allowing you to deduct expenses.
Most people can't even explain how tax brackets work or what withholdings on a paycheck are for (2 easy concepts) and pretend it's excessively complicated. Just wait to till you have to deal with the parts that ARE actually complicated...
So true! That being said, I've never paid anyone a cent to do my taxes. I've always done them myself on paper forms and see no reason to change. Complete forms, drop in mailbox, refund lands in bank account a few weeks later. Never had any problem.
Direct deposit? Pssh. I want a check in the mail. And I get it too, eventually.
With my diagnosis, and probably because the state I live in cares a little more about people like me than other states, they have people, paid by the public sector unless I'm mistaken, doing tax returns for me and everyone else with similar impairments. But the rest of the 1st world already exempts everyone, both neurotypical and autism spectrum, of fending for themselves in filing tax returns.
You filed a paper return and received a refund a few weeks later, even these last 2 years? I find that hard to believe. Wait, are you in the US?
@@dominicfucinari1942 Indeed, in the UK it's all done automatically by your employer, if you're not employed then you don't pay tax pretty much, we can earn £12500 (about $15000) before we have to pay any tax and that's enough to cover any welfare payments. You only have to self file if you're self employed/running your own business, but it's pretty simple even then.
Free Tax USA
I'm Australian and earning middle income. I file tax returns every year myself by clicking through the federal treasury website and checking all the details that it pre-filed is accurate. I provide a couple updates to my details here and there and correct one or two things here or there. I claim the standard deductions as I'm not rich so I don't have to keep a shoe box full of receipts. The whole process takes me about 40 mins most years.
Don't get me wrong, our tax code is insanely long and complex as well. We simply didn't allow accounting lobbyists to convince our law makers to intentionally make filing our taxes difficult.
Yeah, we could've had an easy system like yours, and a few years ago the IRS was ready to go live with e-filing straight through the agency, but tax prep companies bribed our politicians to stop it. Now, those companies run the "free file" systems the government is legally required to offer, but they're almost impossible to find and use. And if you need to itemize your deductions they FORCE you to pay for their service, even though it's not technically legal for them to do so.
Many countries make it far easier but it probably takes me an hour to do my US taxes with minor cost. Much of the US tax prep industry when it comes regular W-2 workers is just playing on fear or making it sound difficult so you "need our simple solution" or what have you.
All democracies have complicated tax codes, it's an inevitable result of spreading power out more. See CGP Grey's video "The Rules for Rulers".
The problem in the US is that somehow lobbyists managed to make it literally illegal for the IRS to tell you what you owe them, even though they still have to calculate it themselves to check your work.
@Custos Vitiosus Oh, you mean like sending American citizens to internment camps in WW2? Or others onto reservations on land no one else wanted?
@Custos Vitiosus But what about, like , the whole I.C.E. situation? We have modern concentration camps too, my man. And, uh, most Australians are free to go for a drive right now, too. Just saying.
Fun fact: most other countries do your taxes for you. Tax companies just lobbied against it.
Fun fact 2: Our founding fathers would have been at war with the government by now.
Hasan Minhaj did an awesome job trying to help us consumers try to steer around the mess. This was a fabulous sarcastic to-the-point take covering most of the same points and delivered by Roger, which is always fabulous. Thanks for making more people aware they're getting scammed!
As a French person, I get a mail every year to remind me to check my tax declaration. Connect to the government website, check the pre-filled declaration which takes me less than 5 min. Don't make any modification because it's already correct and confirm.
That's about it.
You forgot the part where you can legitimately qualify for a return and the IRS can just arbitrarily decide that you don't.
Or when the IRS sends you a letter promising a paper tax refund check is in the mail due to an error in the calculation and then ... you just never get it heh
They did that to me last year, just reduced my refund by $600, with no meaningful explanation, and I had Turbo Tax do my return, so it wasn't a mistake on my part.
@@gregb6469 That sounds very much like you claimed the $600 stimulus credit and were not supposed to (presumably because you already got the stimulus money)
@pianotm Arbitrarily or because you filed the taxes incorrectly?
@@gregb6469 Yeah, same thing. Turbo Tax, too!
Damn. This is soul crushing. I pay hundreds every year so I can pay the government what I owe. Even so I have still gotten fined and penalized for errors. When I underpay I am slapped with penalties and charged for missed interest. Why isn't the IRS required to calculate everyone's bill? It really us incredible BS. I don't mind paying bills but I should not gave to guess at how much I owe.
I think there might be something wrong with me. I actually look forward to Roger's videos which just cement the facts that I already know that everything is screwed and we are being snow blowed over. Why do I like these?
Couldn't put it better myself
Get the new Horton Reality checker. It'll help you realize that the world isn't screwed... or it might blow up. Buy now.
What other option is there other than to embrace the absurdity? Heh
Commiseration feels good man!
Probably so that you don't feel alone in suffering.
And whats worse, it would be FAR cheaper and easier for the government to do taxes all on its own..they already have ALL the paperwork after all. But billion dollar corporations would be cut out, so that could never happen..
Grifters have to get paid too, somehow.
@@pembebulut2781 very few, and those that do generally never pay taxes. So that's not an excuse at all.
@@pembebulut2781 thats absolutely BS. If they only pay in cash, its to hide income and is illegal.
That loading bar turn sentient, evolved, had an existential crisis and died in less than 10 seconds LOL
I'm so glad they brought Roger back.
“What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.” -Mark Twain
This reminds me of TurboTax...
Weird
You don't say
"Not surprised." - Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy video game.
"The irs doesn't have money to go after people who have money" LMFAO
Gah! Never lose Rodger for these videos, he is a treasure... That hopefully the IRS won't try to "collect" 🤪
WE WOULD MARCH ON WASHINGTON!
TurboTax: *You can file your taxes with us for free*
Me: *Oh cool thanks*
TurboTax: *It looks like you sold stocks, now you owe us $49*
No free meals son..! 😆
Jack Hunter and Ryan George, the two Gods of UA-cam. I dont care what the videos are about, I'm going to watch them and I'm going to enjoy every second...Every. Single. Time.
You know what. I actually just did the math myself this year. It was almost exactly as annyoing as doing it through turbo tax and it did not hit me with pay walls and other bull shit.
I think the funniest thing about these videos is that since most of these companies will just put ads on videos tagged with their general content, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be an ad from one of these companies that plays after the video.
And… it happened. Turbo Tax for the win?
As a tax preparer myself, I can vouch for how hard this shit is for me as well. To even get a CPA license basically requires a masters degree and years of experience. The system is definitely rigged by the rich, the accountants, and tax attorney's that are trying to make sure the profession stays relevant.
Accounting is much more than tax preparation. I agree that the AICPA is gatekeeping the system but it's not right to blame your local bookkeeper for these backwards practices
Not having to pay taxes is the best part of being unemployed and homeless.
❤
and here you are, on the internet, skreeing. as someone who has been to actual war zones, watching children die in thier mother's arms from starvation - you're rich compared to most people and yet here you are, its someone elses fault
@@markomib uh oh, look out, we've got a badass!
@@markomibWho?
@@markomib as someone who's been homeless in LA, San Fransisco, and Miami, I can say with certainty that the homeless people in this country are not starving for food; they're starving for love. People feed the homeless every day.
I don’t mind the math, it’s the yearly changes and new rules, laws, requirements they popup while filing. Even using TurboTax or others, at times, you just keep clicking because you want the pain to end!!!
In Austria taxes are already deducted from your paycheck.
At the end of the year, you go to a government funded free website and enter any deductible amounts or just check some boxes for flat deductions like commute to work.
And voila, the government will transfer all the taxes you paid to much.
This applies to employees in this case.
Well... This taught me just how screwed the US tax system is! Wishing you guys all the best from the UK.
Fortunately, our tax process is the only thing about our system that's fucked up and clearly inferior to the way that every other wealthy country operates, but sticks around anyway because somebody is making a lot of money off of it staying that way. ...*cough*
FWIH, Inland Revenue isn't much better....
@@frigginjerk the *only* thing??!! So, everything else is perfect??? 🤔
Inland revenue are pirates HMRC / Customs and Excise officers have more power than our police. That's Britain for ya.
@@notorioustori right?!? I guess our healthcare and education is A-1, top notch, & high tier.
Nothing worse then paying for something the government already has the answers to. All they literally have to do is send a form to document any additional income you may have made in the year and return it.
Why the fucc am I just learning about this channel? And why the fucc does this channel have under 5 million subscribers. This whole series and channel has me thinking totally different about a lot of things. Pure genius. Well calculated. Well put. Salute
Everybody got fired in 2017 and we went on hiatus for three years!
"But I owe money..."
"Get used to it."
Thanks a lot Roger. All these great years of letting the public, non 1% know how badly we get F'd every day.
Having a former accountant for a father helps a LOT.
Roger is a hero...the more I watch him the more I am contemplating my life and possibly leaving the country !!!
Who needs consumer reports when we've got Roger
Didn't mention that many of the professional tax preparers that pop up Jan-April only have about 6 weeks of training, which the company makes them pay for.
Yep. I worked at one of those places and it is a MAJOR rip off. People come in who can't afford to lose any money on a refund and pay over $100. I got in trouble for passing out our coupons for our store because it bit too much into the massive profits they made. Yeah, letting a single parent with two kids save $20 is just too too much. And yes, it is only 4-6 weeks of training and the people they got to do it, WHEW!! I wouldn't let them touch my taxes for free. And your private info? Locked in file cabinet in the back but if someone knew you or your family..well, the key was literally right beside the file cabinet and the room was at the back. I don't know how many times giggles were heard from back there. Not as bad as the payday loan company I did work for (think maintenance, not ripping off poor people). They used the same computers that had people's personal info on it to surf "STUFF", ahem and got a horrible virus, people's info was exposed, hundreds of people, and the store didn't even inform their customers. SS #s, DL info, address, job stuff, all of it was caught up in ransomware.
@@JustTheTruth-Please I mean I worked at one of those places after college and I agree that the cost is really high, between 50-100. But we weren't giggling at people's returns and weren't browsing the web. We barely got any hours. And it was like 5 of us there and I was a college grad at the time with an accounting degree and the rest were people without any financial or accounting experience. I still kind of kick myself for not getting the gold and having a certification that doesn't expire. But yeah you're mostly paying for the textbook. That's what they told me. And we didn't have a sign waver so I did that when there wasn't enough customers. It's funny, at the time I felt really confident in my accounting skills, and I only handled one case in those 4 months (yeah sept-dec is unpaid but I'm putting it on my resume) one case that was "difficult" or detailed. That usually goes to the supervisor on duty. But the one case I did get was this guy who had a bunch of donations and other situations but he had it so organized it was just like punching numbers into a computer. But yes I always felt bad about the price.
@@MyNameGoesHere I never said you or your co-workers were browsing the web or giggling. I was speaking of my 5 years of experience of working at a well known chain of tax prep service providers and doing contract maintenance at a payday loan company. My comment wasn't about everyone's experience everywhere. You must know that...
My state counted the federal stimulus as regular income, so the federal gov determined I underpaid federal taxes. They kept $600 of my refund.
Taxation is Theft!
I didn't get a refund, but us and our unborn children will be paying for it.
Google got a refund, and they didn't even pay taxes!
@@Vohlfied That's where most of our taxes go anyway, to corporate subsidies so places like Walmart can pay their employees an inappropriately low wage because they can then qualify for welfare and then we have to pay their employees, instead of them having to! Brilliant! Heh
Oh Rodger. What would I do without you brutally detailing every aspect of this dystopian nightmare? No really. I need you to tell me what to do and think!😆😂😭
I have grown to love the hints you post. I love the part where a ton of people sarcastically guess the wrong answer with all the misplaced confidence they can muster.
Thanks!
Forgot about this channel due to being subscribed to 600 channels & playing MMOs, but last I checked here, Roger hadn't done a video in years. So glad you brought him back. Guess I have so catch-up binge watchng to do.
I haven't been loving these videos lately but this one was really good
If you are self employed pay an actual accountant to do your taxes. The headaches it saves you makes it totally worth it.
This is me this year. I started my own business and did a consult with two different CPAs to see what they said the same, and what they said different. Neither of them explained much well, sadly. I just need to make sure all my business write-offs are legal. Don't want to get in trouble for that.
@@TheBigNoob It definitely depends on who you're working with. Mine is great and always willing to answer questions. They'll even take care of other small businesses needs, for a fee of course.
Sounds sensible,
Also Ya, I do the same. 🍷👍
The way I figure, it just works as the IRS seems to be almost magically less bothered and turns a blind eye when your Taxes are taken care of by a registered CPA. I swear I don't know how this works except it does!
Fear of jail also makes people do the IRS' job for them. Friend of mine just stopped paying taxes and they didn't notice until 7 years later where he just apologized, payed that _one_ year, then has been doing the same again.
Remember the days when you could just go to the post office or the public library to get a paper form that you could fill out and have a spare for yourself in less than an hour? It was just a couple years ago.
The tax software companies want me to pay $60 to use them for state taxes, but my state has a flat tax and it gets taken out of my paycheck, so neither I nor the state owes money. They shouldn't make it that hard to get the paper forms.
Kudos to Roger for highlighting issues which no-one talks about. I used to think this is an issue just in my country as tax filing website is just so complicated for a common man to file return. But turns out it is an issue in USA as well. Humans are the same after all.
Love it! I'm a tax accountant and this is all true! 💯
2:41 When IRS contacts you...Knees weak, arms are heavy
Holy, I'm actually going to file my own sole proprietor tax return now, thank you for this warning. I'm in Canada but that manipulative "free" tax return company also exists in Canada too.
In the UK you only need to do a tax return if you are self employed. It's pretty easy to do online through the government website
USA here so obviously could be completely different, but sole proprietor is one of the last company types you want to file as here. It doesn't insulate you personally from damages caused while you are working.
In Canada CRA Volunteers will literally do the taxes of most people. No charge and the people doing them are the same people who check them so they do them right
I literally got a Turbotax ad on this video. The algorithm is working good as ever, I see.
I was literally just telling a friend of mine how the government (like so many others already do) could literally just send is the paperwork filled out and all we'd have to do is check it and sign at the bottom... but companies like this lobby for them to not do that. Infuriating.
The fact that tax time falls right after the holiday season is an even bigger eff you to the common people.
This is the most accurate one yet. I literally forgot to even laugh as it seemed like an internal turbotax training video...
The crazy thing is that most people don't even bother to look at the form. A 1040EZ was mostly your name and address and then just the info from your w2 and a 1040A is the same, but now you have kids in most cases. The rest was fill in from the instructions and your bank account if you wanted direct deposit. It really is that simple for most people to do it by hand and a calculator and with the free software apps its just answering questions...
Roger you missed a huge fact! Taxes could be a lot easier in another big way.
Other countries have automatically filed taxes so people in Canada and whatnot don't have to file taxes from scratch. All of your information is already entered and all they have to do is answer basic questions about changes, like if they got married, had a child, gave to charity, etc. This could be the same case here, as the government already has your W2! It was digitally reported to the IRS at the end of the year by your employer. BUT we keep our taxes complicated for no reason to help out Turbotax.
Actually, there was such a proposal in congress about that, and of course, tax preparers threw a bunch of money around and it died in committee.
The best part was, after the video was an ad for TurboTax 😂
You should do, if the government and politicians were honest about how they waste your taxes
By "waste" do you mean "give to their corporate owners via subsidies"? Heh
I think they're trying to keep these under four hours, haha.
3:27
Person: "Does anyone care if I make a small mistake?"
IRS: "So you have chosen death?"
Thanks Horton for being the honest antagonist everyone needs.
Love how the pre video ad I got before this was for TurboTax, thanks algorithm!
I wish Roger would have mentioned "Return Free Filing" (RFF). In USA, the IRS computer does your taxes and compares it to whatever you send in. If their computer determines you owe more than you calculated, you get contacted. The key here is the "government's computer does your taxes". With RFF, the government mails *you* a copy of their tax calculation. You only need to file a return if you dispute the IRS calculations. Many countries around the world already do this. Every few years, RFF bills get introduced into Congress, but are lobbied *very* *hard* against by tax prep companies.
California has a free and fairly straightforward CalFile for its state returns, but the tax calculator corporations lobbied to make sure it's not marketed as well as it should. I'm sure some other states have the same issue.
It's funny to pay someone to read out what is on a computer screen on a website to "do you taxes for you".
I swear the Roger catchphrase is never gonna get old
That card for "If Megachurches were Honest" at around 04:00 while Roger's talking about "handing millions of dollars to government officials"...
Universal rule : if someone makes things more complicated then necessary it's either manipulation or a scam...
I still fondly tell the story of the local network news outlet that cobbled together returns for a fake family, then took the returns to four different accountants. All four of them came up with different answers about how much was owed. Then they took the returns to the IRS itself. Sure enough, a fifth, completely different answer.
Wesley Snipes wishes Roger would've been his lawyer.
There in the corner at 0:55 is that Roger in a space cap shooting a toy sticky gun? LMAO
WHAT?! NO!?
God has nothing to do with this. My name is Roger. … well, my nightmare fuel tank is full.
""God has Nothing to do with this."
"My name is Roger"
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Fun fact for you muricans... most of your tax goes to drones etc.
Do y'all have the Real website to file taxes for free?
the dig at the awful geico commercial
@@andrewfuller4883 Not that I'm aware of
@@andrewfuller4883 It wouldn't help to give you the free filing URL today in 2021, you will need to know whatever it becomes in 2022. Even then there won't be any guarantees that it will remain the same.
Not a single person in history has ever agreed to pay taxes, they are forced to. It's a legal form of stealing, there is no other way to describe it. Roger did an excellent job of portraying that.
Indeed, taxation in dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies are theft, no different than the mob's protection money. By contrast, democracy is government by the people for the people. The people you elect are people who work for you. True democracy holds government accountable by making their every action transparent: the government leaders' finances are openly scrutinized by the public, their spending, their income, their expenditures are all open for all to see. Unfortunately, American government has been hijacked by an elected official who blocked all scrutiny into the finances, allowing rampant corruption to steal our hard-earned collective money that should have gone to the collective to fall in the hands of liars and grifters. Over a hundred billion dollars was stolen from the relief fund during the former administration. The government was so corrupt that they didn't even want to divulge where the money went. So yes, taxation under an opaque government is theft. But taxation in democratic government is simply the people collecting money to provide for the people infrastructure and services that would require cooperation of everyone. It is important to hold elected officials accountable, democracy is everyone's job.
Democracy fails if elected officials are paid by private interest through bribes, even legal bribes like campaign donations. At that point, the elected representatives no longer represent the people, but represent the people who bribes them the most. This is why things like 'citizens united' is so extremely damaging to democracy. A democracy where democratically elected leaders are paid for by private interest is not a democracy, it is a sham.
Intuit bribes your officials with millions of dollars to ensure they can continue to advance their business model that relies on government keeping the tax system as complicated as possible. Ever wonder why there's no equivalent of TurboTax in Europe?
I don't think it's stealing. It's the cost of living in a society. You can move to the mountains off the grid and live as a hunter gatherer if you want.
This is all too true! The tax prep companies Lobby for complicated laws that Layman cannot understand. Just shows that we have to depend on them.
A refreshing source of REAL news.
Another one of these that are utterly incomprehensible to us non-USAians.
Even as a citizen of the US, even I don't understand haha 🤣
It blows my mind, I’ll never understand it.
Oh we have something similar in Poland. Polish tax office is brutal here, they actively try to f*** you over. It is survivable for most regular folk, but if you have a small business or are self employed, oh boy they will have a field day with you. One of my favourite stories is two women (undercover tax inspectors) crying to a mechanic to fix their car... they had a broken lightbulb. Mechanic just unscrew bulb from his own car and installed in theirs. When the women insisted to pay him he accepted 10PLN ( around $3?). It was after hours so he couldn't print a receipt with VAT tax so the women revealed themselves as tax inspectors and wrote him a fine. The case landed in a court, tax office lost but wanted to appeal so at that point minister of finance himself had to step in and say "Stop it you are embarrassing us all!". Cherry on the top: The local tax office responsible for this provocation only year prior got the title of "The friendlies".
Also the definition of taxable benefit is so wide that some tax offices where debating should they treat taking a poo at work as benefit (you save on toilet paper and water!) .
For those who live in what used to be the Soviet Block, the IRS is the same as the KGB.
As a Canadian, it's odd seeing Americans ranting about Turbo Tax doing all sorts of weird unsavoury things in the comments. Our localized version of Turbo Tax is boring and fairly quick to use, although it does try in a pretty lame-ass way to encourage you to have one of their people advise you. Thing is, unless you have a tax situation complex enough that you really should have an accountant, filing your taxes in Canada is mostly just a dull but simple exercise in basic math and organizing your paperwork.
Me, living in Peru (a third world country) where the government sends you a card annually with exactly how much money you have to pay and your monthly income taxes are automatically deducted: wow.
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What I found to be funny was the fact that I got an ad about tax write-offs before the video started. 😂
If I could have a request, it would be "If cruise ships were honest".
True, and how much of their staff is from dirt-poor countries and they pay them below minimum wage even for their homeland.
This is so accurate. Fucking Turbotax is screaming in my face for four months about how free it is to file with them, yet it seems impossible to find the free option.
Imagine having to go to school for 13-17 years and not being taught one of the basics of money and taxes... oh wait.
With US’ current tax codes, you would need more than 13-17 years to even read through it all.
This is my dude right here. I watch every upload from this channel
Now if you had a video about "honest" CPAs that would be unbelievable. The fact my CPA actually takes even the time to sign our tax book is barely believable. Reality is they have their minions take my hours of work and throw the numbers into a spreadsheet and in 10 seconds pops out all the tax forms.
I’m not sure what you do to need a cpa? I’m a cpa and loathe taxes myself and am not in the tax field. Years ago I’d say just use turbo tax as I myself did as a cpa. This video basically explains why I quit using it and making it harder than just doing it yourself. You shouldn’t need a cpa unless you own a business to file taxes and that my opinion.
@@briank5877 I'm also a CPA and I'll agree that most people don't need a tax prep service. The ones that do, need a CPA to help them min/max & plan things out throught the year. There should be no horrible surprises when the return is put together. H&R Block is a total ripoff.
@@matts.1443 I’d like to add there are 3 different types of cpas tax, audit and corporate. It’s funny when talking to people they all assume you can do their taxes😂. In addition, the standard deduction is so high these programs they pay for ask questions that won’t matter 😬. Now importing my 1099 years ago when I had a thousand trades and wash sales might be worth the aggravation as it was with me.
@@briank5877 This is actually the first I've heard of separate divisions among CPAs.
@@dominicfucinari1942 Oh you have no idea. I'm finishing up the process of getting the license myself, and the amount of general knowledge I needed to pass the exam, but will likely never use in practice is insane. Even tax alone has so many different areas and entity types one can spend their entire careers becoming experts in while still knowing no more about the 1040 than a non accountant.
“God has nothing to do with this, my name is Roger” was heavy as fuck ngl
I’m a little upset they didn’t go into the H&R Block aspect of scamming people out of their money by fronting return money but paying them less to get it early.
It's not really a scam, that's just a loan. Like a payday loan basically, just with a different guaranteer. And yes payday loans are scams. So then I guess yes scams
@@dynomar11 It's a scam. The return time when you combine electronic filing with direct deposit often takes about a week (maybe two). The amount H&R Block pilfer from the people's pockets for a one week loan is criminal.
@@VaultBoy13 except it's optional. You don't *have* to get your refund that second. They're preying on people who have a grotesque need for instant gratification. You've waited this long for a refund, what's another few weeks (especially if your return has errors that lower your refund and then you own HRB aand the IRS - which I've seen many many many times)?
I thought H&R was free. It isn't?
@@VaultBoy13 you read my entire post?