This Industry Shouldn’t Exist
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- Опубліковано 22 вер 2024
- The IRS is running a direct-file pilot to get around paid tax preparation services like Turbotax.
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So in the UK its actually your employer that sorts out your taxes and pretty much the only time you have to do your own taxes is if you're self employed
In the US, employers withhold taxes for the iRS but they don't have nearly enough information on employees to do it all and no one would trust them with that much information
@@markcorneliuslauI'm guessing that the US tax system is far more convoluted if that's the case.
Over here your employer only needs your basic details (name, national insurance (social security) number & address) plus your salary and work-based deductions e.g. private pension, to work out your basic tax.
The government will then sort out the rest and you'll get a (usually digital) annual breakdown plus monthly payslips from your employer.
@@ad3z10 Long story short, there's a lot that effects how much you owe, included but not limited to what you spent your money on. It's less "convoluted" and more "extremely exhaustive", but I'd blame literally nobody for calling it convoluted.
It's this type of stuff that is (usually) what people mean when they're claiming billionaires pay almost nothing in taxes. They just know how to exploit the system to pay proportionally less than others.
In the Netherlands it they can see nearly everything. When you enter your social security number, they already have employment incomes, bank account balances, debts, children and dependants details. You just have to confirm, or change details that are incorrect, and send.
@@Naokarma Tax avoidance is unfortunately a thing here for the super rich as well.
Looking at my last payslip though I'm so thankful for the automated system as I've got nearly a dozen adjustments which would be a pain to correctly apply myself.
I wish we would simplify our tax code rather than trying to build more complicated software solutions. Taxes should be easily understood. The more complicated it gets, the more loopholes exist that disadvantages us.
Praised be the Jenga tower of exceptions. It supports the jobs of structural engineers.
are you either mittelbar or unmittelbar zulagenberechtigt - decide now, worry the rest of the year until next taxes.
if you think us-taxes are bad, come do them in germany, where you are supposed to know which additions you need before you even started.
As long as societies are complicated, good taxes will unfortunately be complicated.
simple taxes will have all sorts of unintended consequences.
Or do as the rest of the world, and let the IRS do its job and send the taxes to people and people can look it though for errors and deductions.
Taxes in Portugal are a dream lol. For pretty much anyone with 1 full time job, just open the page, chheck all info, confirm. Done.
If it is a LEGALLY REQUIRED ACTION, it should NOT HAVE A PRICE. Otherwise, it becomes LITERALLY illegal to be poor.
Filling for taxes everywhere else is so simple, and when presented in the US they go "what about my deductibles and returns?" as if that wasn't a thing everywhere else, you just get the email/letter with what the government has you owing in taxes and you just confirm or send an appeal for deductibles and returns, that's it, no bs, no endless amount of forms and papers.
You just made it even more complicated
@@markcorneliuslauwat
@@markcorneliuslau What about it is more complicated? Its just making the IRS do the job it was already doing.
@markcornelius5291 how is that more complicated than guessing a number that the IRS already knows and having to file a ton of paperwork and hope that you get the right number
@@Fenriswaffle Look. We can't be expecting the IRS to do one more job. They're too busy training agents how to use guns and running audits on the lower - middle class to send out a letter/email to the 220~ish million people who may or may not have paid taxes.
How most people do their taxes in Norway. Wait for the government to tell you online what they are. Ignore it if everything looks good. Change it online if there are mistakes. It baffles me people do it differently.
Same in Finland, but you also get an official paper in the mail.
The US Government has so many laws that directly screw over the average citizen. It's hella frustrating.
i really wish canada would get on this bandwagon. It's not as bad as the USA at least. I just go to one of like 3 or 4 free sites, import all my data from CRA and press send, that's it. Frankly, given i don't add any information at all, the third party site should not be needed at all, there is ZERO reason it can't be like norway or finland...but it's at least not as bad as the USA where the free sites are basically impossible to find and the tax code is, i'm told, many times more complex and frustrating.
What's even better is even though I was born and live in the UK where the tax system is super easy because I'm a dual citizen I still have to file US taxes. They make this so complicated that I end up paying one of these tax companies £100 just to tell the IRS I owe them $0.
It isn’t that complicated
@@markcorneliuslau for someone who's never lived in the US. Filling out forms that aren't designed for someone living outside the US it very much is
@@gh_picsas an American, i can say that math is very confusing and complicated
I live in India where it's a mix of European and US tax systems. But as pointed out by someone else, if you're a salaried employee, your company deducts taxes and you get a quote for your deductibles which gets refunded at the end of the financial year.
If you're self employed, it can be a little confusing, but we have services that will do all the paperwork for you and it costs about $10 and you're done.
In fact a lot of people prefer to opt for the tax services at $10 coz it's so much easier and it's once a year.
Why is everything in the US either complicated or if you want to simplify the process, extremely expensive?
Here in Belgium we have a digital tax submit system, and all i have to do is press "comfirm" after checking for exceptions, it will even prompt you to check some exceptions if you had them in your taxes from the previous year. Things such as foreign bank accounts. It takes me literally 15min to do my taxes.
So your idea is definitly possible, some countries are doing it with no problems.
15 minutes? It doesn’t take that long now
These days when I have to fill in the deductions for kids (childcare costs, camps etc.) it takes a bit longer but everything is super clear and convenient to fill in.
And you trust that? lmfao
@@3nertia he said he checks it first
Whats crazy is that here in puerto rico part of the us we dont have to do anything but sign in to the website and verify the information is correct if filling basic taxes. Moved here from the states and was shocked how fast and easy it was
In sweden you just confirm the taxes... Can take less than 5 minutes.
Here in Brazil, it's been free for as far as I remember. The IRS provides you a software to fill out the necessary files and file them electronically. Not like everyone knows how to do taxes, but you usually hire consulting from some Accountant.
And they're starting to provide pre-filled forms as well with the data they already have about your job earnings, which is kinda the "just confirm" they mentioned.
There are at least three technological things that I think Brazil got right in my point of view. Government web services (Receita Federal, Carteira de Trabalho, CNH, and others), electronic voting system, and PIX.
does it require windows XP or internet explorer?
@@ChrisWijtmansSurprisingly, no. Only Java.
@@ChrisWijtmans They provide a lot of options, varying from the JAR file to installers for Linux, Windows and macOS with Java bundled.
An app for Android/iOS and a web version are also available, but the desktop version is the most complete and easy to use (in my opinion).
It's so bizarre that taxes in the USA are so difficult. In Poland the government fills your tax forms for you, and you can always go to a website and modify the form with deductibles.
That requires a level of trust in governmental organizations that simply *does not exist* in the US. Look up the history of why the Social Security Number is such a big deal in the US, and you'll start to see the issue.
@@watchm4ker In Poland nobody trusts the government, but at least when it comes to taxes they are competent because they want money. And it's all done automatically by computers, so there's no space for human error.
But even before that, taxes were very easy. You had electronic forms that literally told you stuff like "this value is in the field 23 in the form PIT-11 from your employer".
@@watchm4ker Seems like an illusion of control thing to me. I mean it's not like you can change anything.
@@watchm4ker What level of trust? you verify the information they give you and correct it or add to it if needed. We're literally doing it the other way around in the US where we give them the information and they verify it with the information they most likely already have and if you mess up then you get penalized for it. Social security have nothing to do with the completely useless middle men we have now in the US. Tax firms should be focusing on the people who actually need their services instead of forcing themselves on everyone who has just a regular 9-5 job and no other income.
Germany has had this for a while, direct digital submission to the tax office. Taxes are still not very user friendly to do with dozens of exemptions and deductions, so software still exists and flourishes that does a guided tour through all the points.
Yep, no excuse for the situation, but good ones start at around 20€/year.
But the system is indeed in dire need of cleanup which won't happen because of the loopholes.
I'm surprised Germany has that kind of non user friendly system, your culture carries the stereotype of efficiency. In Australia, we have a similar system, but a lot of it is just prefilled, so all i need to do is check the amounts against my record (most of the time they're correct, since banks/employers report the same thing to the Tax office as they do to individuals). Theres only about 4 codes I ever need to fill out, and their meanings are literally shown on the screen in a side bar.
It takes me less than a minute to do taxes in Finland, Goverment just sends a paper that i check, if it's right i just ignore it, if not then i tell them online what is wrong. They overprice it a bit so don't need to pay anything and at somepoint they send you the overpaid amount back.
The other problem when it comes to taxes here in the States is the monstrous amount of tax codes and their stipulations. Some legislators have been butting heads with the IRS trying to get them to simplify the tax codes so the average taxpayer could understand them and more effectively file them.
It should be as simple as "you paid us this much. Here's your expected deductibles. Here's how much is owed to you/us." As it stands, the system is just one more way the fed can fuck over the average citizen.
even that shouldn't be needed. the IRS already has all your info. just send me either a bill or a cheque and call it a day. No one should need to do anything, with the exception of if you need to file a claim for missing information (which in my experience doesn't happen as often as you'd think, the IRS or CRA (Canada) really does have all or most of your info). Make the tax code as complex as needed, it shouldn't matter, that's my issue.
@@TjPhysicist Filing taxes in the modern era is just a trap, straight up. The IRS knows how much I made, they know all my assets, etc. but if I don't have a perfect memory and/or record myself? JAIL
A similar one is supposed to be getting tested in Canada for lower income next year. Already seeing the lobbyist ads for "The CRA is going to steal all your money" in response.
I’ve always said it’s completely improper that an average citizen is responsible for their own taxes, with how convoluted and absurd the tax code itself is. Since the government already has all of our information reported from wages, etc., (and are already in the process of auditing and telling us we got it wrong anyway) they should simply process the returns and let us know when our refund is ready!
The only people who should be filing any sort of tax form are those who run their own business.
You'd rather have corrupt businessmen/politicians doing it for you? Hey, if you trust some asshole with an agenda and profits to be made to do the math for you, by all means ...
@@OutLanderUSN And only big businesses at that!
Here in the Netherlands is almost entirely automatic, you usually just need to check if everything is correct and then send it to them. It usually doesn't take more than an hour, and can be done entirely online.
F'kin agreed! Taxes should be a zero effort thing for people filing, and there should 100% be a free, click-through tool that takes your T4s or whatever and just handles it. As someone who lives in Quebec and has to file 2 returns a year, it's a total joke. The fact that a whole industry has to exist for the government to force people to fill out forms correctly means that the system is absolutely upside-down. We should have whatever the UK uses and get out of the 1960s with our tax form requirements.
Or, we could get rid of the individual tax return and go with UBI instead.
Oh boy when I saw the TurboTax Logo I knew this was gonna be a good video
What Luke said about "here's your taxes, does this look wrong" that's how we do it in Norway. Once a year you get a letter that asks if there's anything you'd like to add, like inheritance or large gifts etc, the rest is handled by your employer since they are the ones moving the money.
The US tax system is honestly baffling, they know how much you need to pay but they make you figure it out for the off chance that you get it wrong and charge you a disproportionately large fine
and you know what they call that?
FREEEEDOOOOMMMM!!!!
That's not really true unless you have the most simple of situations. They do not know how many deductibles you have, how much untaxed income or how you want to depreciate your assets. For example, the government has no idea how many miles you drive for work, if you have a home office, if you pay a caregiver, if you had medical expenses and so on. Get a little more educated on the topic.
@@handlealreadytaken The vast majority of people don't even deal with that stuff. Literally most people will take the standard deduction and take whatever exception that applies to them. The process can be greatly simplified without the middle men charging for them. You can add or correct the information the tax agency give you in other countries. I literally just take the standard deduction and use the college tuition exceptions in the US. I don't need turbotax for that nor should most people that don't run a business or a side hustle.
@@Shadowninja1200 yeah and guess what the vast majority of people only take 5 minutes to do taxes
in Australia, your employer deducts some of your pay as tax on every paycheck, and when it gets to end of financial year, you can submit a tax return form where the tax office will tell you how much you get back, or if you havent paid enough how much you need to pay. Your public healthcare and student loans get deducted from this at that time (student loans work as a % of how much you earn). You do everything yourself, the only time you need an accountant is if you run a business or make mad stacks.
If the IRS does the checks and tracks your taxes, why don't they just work out your taxes
They do this as a means to screw you over if you write in the wrong number. It's another scheme to screw over the average citizen.
In belgium you are required to fill in a paper each month. So everyday you worked that month you are supposed to color that day in on the calendar om that monthly paper. This is to see if u are elegible for unemployment. The catch is you can’t make any mistakes on that paper( you need to request a new one when a mistake is made and can only ask for 1 replacement every year.) then they can just audit your worklpace randomly and check if you are filling in the paper daily. All these things are already known by the governement and are only required to do so they can carch people with dumb mistakes and suspend them from unemployment
A problem with the government just sending you an amount without filing is it takes away choice from the individual. For example There are people who are married but want to file separately, people who can claim dependents but don't want to, couples who have multiple children and want one parent to claim one child and the other parent to claim the other. There are also education deductions people can take and maybe the government can get info from state run universities, but what about private universities? Would the university now have to send the info to the government? No one should have to pay to pay taxes, but the misconception that it would be so easy to get rid of the filing system is ridiculous.
Turbo Tax files federal taxes for free, but I have to pay $40 to file my state taxes every year. The only reason why I continue to pay this is because they have 4 years of information from me and my employer already sends info to inuit. So my tax filing process is super quick. Only takes 5 minutes.
I switched to freetaxusa last year and it works so much better. All you gotta to is download your turbo tax stuff and import it to another program. It's pretty easy. Takes like 5 minutes. I also got more money back on freetaxusa vs turbo tax....somehow.
In france, basically at tax time, its basically just a matter of you clicking that confirm button and if there are errors, like say it still shows 2 children even though one is now too old to be at your charge, then you change it yourself and then it recalculates your taxes itself.
Or say you declare stuff for tax reduction then you have to do it at this time.
And then you can setup automatic payment for taxes and it's taken care of by your company, it's straight up taken out of your salary and all the money you get on your bank account is yours and nothing more is going towards taxes.
Here in belgium you just press confirm unless there is something you haven't filed and it should be in there.
The Netherlands does that. They fill in everything they know and ask you if thats okay, confirm or adjust where needed
Estonians can submit their taxes with 2 minutes*. One of many benefits of e-residency.
*you still need to check them and file any missing info
In Australia.. it is that simple and automatic..
Basically we login, click the next button maybe 2-3 times to confirm our bank details and work tax paid, we have a section of we need deductions, we click agree "I'm not lying and definitely not trying to scam the tax office" then hit submit.
Within a week the tax return is back in your account.
They already know how much you got paid from all your jobs, and they know where the funds went to.
They also know if you invested in any crypto or withdrew from a crypto firm, and they ask questions about that incase you made a profit or loss (tax deduction).
It's fully free and automatic here.
FYI, it's been free and digital directly with the government for the past 15 years.
Year's ago when IRS started requiring SS# to claim dependents. All dependents under 5 required a number. 10 million dependents disappeared from the tax rolls in one year.
My total amount of effort dealing with taxes for the four past years has been to click on a button that says "approved" once every year. Only time I have to do more than this is if there is a change that has not automatically been reported to our version of the IRS.
In Austria if you're and employee there's an app that lets you just upload all the receipts that you want to apply for a deduction. Otherwise the taxes are just done automatically. And there isn't anything that I know of that can't be done online, not even for complicated company or self-employed filings, including applications for various forms of child support, business grants etc.
Singapore
The government sends emails, physical mail, sms (yes, all 3) to inform that you need to pay your taxes.
Its already calculated and detailed out, so you just need to go online, check then click confirm and pay.
Whole thing can be done in 10 mins.
H&R block used to be a tax company intended for small to medium size business but really hit it big in the 1980's when they started filing taxes for individuals. mostly due to to the time period that novices were investing in the stock market and needed help with the tax laws regarding it. after that they (and other companies that sprouted up) started lobbying the government with new tax legislation to make it more complex tax code to solidify a multibillion dollar industry. i mean it practically parasitic, the tax code should be simple enough to fill out on a post card. my proposed tax code: pay your taxes. no deductions, loop holes, breaks, ect. nothing. if you need to add those to make your country livable your taxes are too damn high.
There are legitimate reasons for deductions, such as people who are self-employed who might be paying for work expenses with their personal bank account, but I see where you are coming from
In Poland for a few years already it is just like that - you get presented with your taxes and confirm if it is OK. If you are an employee, your employer submits all the tax documents monthly so it's all calculated (even with multiple employers). You only need to edit the tax thing if you have some deductibles or other sources of income.
We have that (personal IRS submission) in Portugal for several years.....
There is no reason people who take the standard deduction should need to do anything. You should get a letter from the IRS letting you know what your tax bill or refund will be and how it will be delivered. If you believe changes should be made, you have until April 15 to submit the appropriate forms for recalculation.
I live in Brazil, here we never need third-party companies to send income tax, the Federal Revenue Service (equivalent to the IRS), has always received income tax forms directly, and since 1996 has provided an electronic version of the form in diskette, in 2006 it began to be provided directly on the Federal Revenue website, and since 2012 the printed form is no longer accepted.
Where I live the government lets you log on to their website, you validate the prefilled information and add only if they missed something and then you confirm. Unless you have some complicated situation, this takes 5 minutes max nowadays.
From the the same brain parents of "privacy Zuckering" we bring you, "Warenty Sabastianing"
Nice to see the US is somewhat joining us in the 21st century. Here in Finland you fill out a "tax card" on the Tax administration's website. You give an estimate for the full year's salary, and all other income streams. It's very precise, if you have complicated taxes, but it's easy to get more info about everything, so see if it applies to you. The website gives you a tax card with your personal tax percentage and max limit (after which your percentage gets higher) as a PDF that you email to the employer, and/or you can ask it to send it directly to the employer (not all employers support this). Your employer(s) always report salaries directly to the Tax administration, so next spring when it's time to check the taxes, regular salary corrections are already there. Then you just put in any deductions and missing income and you're done. Tax returns for the previous year come in July. And if you've had income the previous year, the Tax administration will automatically make a new card with the same amounts in January for the starting year, but you can then change it. If none of your income changes after some year on the job, you never have to do anything after that.
They started doing exactly what Luke said in italy this year. They now present to you everything already done for you and you have to say if it's right or not. If it's right then you just need to confirm it, if not you then have to do it yourself. But if you are employed you only need to do this if you had some reimbursable expenses (mainly healthcare related). You need to manually pay your taxes only if you are self employed here
Fascinating that dark patterns emerged shortly after mobile OSes and apps were introduced and marketing took over all business directions. I'm sure that's totally unrelated.
The only reason as an Australian that I pay for a tax accountant is because you get to pay your taxes in May instead of October if you do that. I definitely get more benefit from offset interest on my mortgage holding what I owe the ATO in my own bank account than what I pay the tax accountant to fill out the little bit of information not already pre-filled into my tax return by the government! But anyone who doesn't deal with untaxed-at-time-of-acquisition/sale shares (either directly or as part of their total compensation package) should _definitely_ just use the super easy and completely free online filing option the government's been providing at least since I've been old enough to have non-cash-based income!
Abouyt industry that shouldn't exists... Here in Québec - Canada, is so hard to get appointment with some public services ( like DMV, consultation with a doctor, talk with the public health insurance and etc.) that some companies offers a service to wait in the line for you, or if possible, they will book the appointment for you.
That's right, company with lots of telephone operators that calls the gov. department that you wish on your behalf.
Just to give examples of how ridiculous it is, if you want to see a doctor, you have to book in the gov's booking site, but you have to access the site in predefined hours of the day, and keep refreshing the page until a slot appears, if you're lucky.
Those companies does that for you.
In Hungary we have an electronic system which automatically does your taxes for you with the exception of the reductions (like having 3 children).
Not sure about the EU, but the UK is simple. Companies declare your income to HMRC (His Majesties Revenue & Customs, yes it's a stupid name) and taxes are sent from the company to the government, then the company pays you whatever you have after tax. HMRC then calculates your income each April and sees if you overpaid. I did, and got a nice £700 cheque this year, no cost, not forms, nothing. Free and easy for us workers
Ah, but you see, businesses in the US have the option of hiring lobbyists to convince our legislators to shift the burden of compliance to individuals, rather than the major corporations themselves. That way they can avoid the costs of maintaining compliance and pass on the profits to their shareholders. The law in the United States means that corporations' first and most important legal duty is to maximize return on investment to shareholders, and because insider trading regulations don't apply to Congress, members of Congress own a lot of stock and profit mightily from it.
"Dark UI Patterns" has been a phrase in the UX industry for decades.
Doing taxes sucks in the USA because even "simple taxpayers" have at least 3+ documents that all go into their own sections, and if you have multiple revenue streams, or more complicated taxes, you're better off getting an accountant to file your taxes. I literally pay $200 every tax season to have an accountant sort my tax documents and make sure I'm not getting screwed over, or I screw myself over.
I paid $19,000 to pay my taxes last year. It’s insane just how much detail gets turned over. I have a lot of real estate and rather than just saying “together my properties brought in $y income, and had $x expense, so I made $z”, I have to literally turn over specific income statements (each 100s of line items) for 2000 units (made up of 50 buildings)
Don’t even get me started on having to capitalize some expenses. 100s of purchase are not simply taken off against the income, but have to be depreciated over time. And the number of years they get depreciated over depends on the item bought.
It’s all so stupid.
In Scotland those in employment have their tax and national insurance taken automatically, calculated by their employer and paid directly to revenue and customs with the employee paid the difference. If you are self employed or running a business, then HMRC has an API which is opensourced to all accounting software companies. So basically if you have even a basic accountancy/invoice software, it generates and electronically sends your tax return to HMRC. Accountants only really kick in when you have a large company or are the CEO of a large company - or have a medium - large scale business (but by that point you should already have a robust accountancy software anyway).
In Estonia doing taxes goes like this: 1. Press confirm
2. done.
In Lithuania, the employer sorts out the taxes, and usually once a year you confirm if everything's correct electronically and declare it. If you have multiple jobs, or are working independently you can declare additional income, etc. It's quite easy and fast to do. You can declare income every month if you wish, there are many options.
Tax filing companies are an interesting phenomenon. On one hand, they enable the government to have extremely complicated tax code whilst still allowing for the public to accurately submit their taxes. On the other hand, as these companies got bigger, they lobbied the government to keep tax code complicated and to ensure that filing your own taxes is an extremely difficult and complicated process, essentially cementing themselves as mandatory.
In Poland I login to a tax website once a year, press confirm, and get my return to my bank account.
I don't understand that people find it a responsibility to file your taxes, it's the government that want your money, why are you the one responsible for filing it!?
Lol my taxes filing consists of clicking next on a bunch of prepopulated fields.
Whenever you have to ask "why is there some weird deadline or hoop and why isn't this automatic?", the answer is always "because someone high up benefits from it not being so". Whether it is because it lines the pockets of a corporation (eg. tax filing), or because it simply excludes the poor (they're too busy not drowning to remember to jump through all the hoops in time).
I think people miss a point here, that even in the UK we do have tax software its just unlike in the US, its not advertised to employees, who don't need it, its advertised to corperations and self-employed people as a way to help them with their taxes so even if the US changed the system to be more like the UK, or where people can submit information themselves online, tax software wouldn't be made entirely redundant as a service, it'd just shift to a more corporate style
In Europe all your taxes are pre-filled, you just need to acknowledge or make changes.
1:06
I remember stumbling into the version of TurboTax accidentally years ago.
The US tax system is so complicated that it literally contains a circular dependency. Excel literally does not support US tax law.
Australia has had eTax for about as long as we've had ADSL. Yes it's free, but it is an infinitely branching set of forms and sub-forms. Many fields have descriptions that make no sense to non-tax accountants, then link to help documents that are 30 pages long.
I'm self-employed and pay to use an accountant solely so that she can tell me what I need to do for 10 minutes per year instead of spending hours and days banging my head on me desk.
The windows 11 one is especially annoying it literally happened to me today and my pc does not even meet the basic system requirements for windows 11
What I've ran into is if my tax filing requires _anything_ other than a simple 1040EZ, then I'm paying. Received interest? Pay. Have an IRA? Pay. I've been able to file my state taxes for free for years however.
There should be a sales tax instead of an income tax. No confusion for your average person who is just trying to not have the IRS hound them and it presents the opportunity to get rid of double taxing. Obviously the government won't be happy since it will make it more difficult for them to hide how much they are charging people in taxes but who cares about the government being happy?
Belgium has this sort of tax website where people can 'simply review and confirm', but it's really not that simple, because it's just as confusing as the former paperwork, you don't get your tax return (if any, usually not) back sooner than before it was 'automatic and optimized' and often times there are slight deviations in the numbers that result in people paying more taxes than they should, basically forcing people, of which the majority are not computer adept, to jump through the same hoops but in reverse with an added risk of paying up to 20% more taxes if you're not careful. One example of this are transactions that allow for tax reduction, like gifts to registered charity orgs, that are very often not pre-filled, despite the government being aware of these gifts, because the registered charities pass this information on to the tax service. Governments have their own class of dark patterns and no one ever talks about it or gets ruthlessly canceled when they do. I know I've seen my share of shadowbans for simply speaking truth...
As a longtime UX and now Service Designer I can assure you that dark patterns exists as long as business itself. Only getting properly named when UX became properly established as an actual profession.
In Portugal if you don't do your taxes the gvmnt will do them for you. Everything in the IRS platform is pretty much to confirm that the data they have is correct and to add other deductibles thta might not be well categorized in the system. Oh, and also to share some to a charity...
Meanwhile in EU, login to IRS. It automatically tells you here is your property, here is what you made last year, here is your car. Do you agree? Yes. Here is your tax return or what you owe. Literally 5 mins
Bait and switch predates the internet. Used car sales used to do this so often that its actually illegal in places. They would advertise a car in the paper at one price, then you'd arrive and that car would have "just sold" but they have a similar one with a little more equipment for a bit more. An associated term is "loss leader" its the act of using a car being sold at a loss to get people into showrooms where you can hopefully upsell them into a better car. You take a loss on each of the low priced cars you sell, hoping that it balances out or even tips in your favor when you account for the cars that have been upsold. For instance you offer a chevy sonic base at 2k under its MSRP, then for each of those you sell, you upsell 2 or 3 people into a cruze or something thats much more money and often marked up slightly. The 2k easily gets eaten by the extra 1.5k you made on the cruzes.
When has it ever cost money to fill out IRS forms and mail them in?
taxes done automaticly there in denmark......
Every year it gets harder and harder to find the truely free tax filing options. Many of them claim its free but then put a bunch of silly ass requirements in front of it that of course only tell you once you filled out everything. The company I used 2 years ago I tried to use last year and NOPE your not in the right state.... Then found another company that allowed free filling in my state. Its a big ass game that you have to play. If you qualify for free filing you should be able to file for free. I am glad the IRS did this as its a long time coming and most US citizens don't need tax software as they are doing simple returns anyway.
In NZ your employer pays your tax. You don't receive it in the first place.
In Australia our taxes are done by our employers, I still use a tax agent so I dont need to deal with our tax departments BS if there's any issues
If you only have a single job and a few small deductions there isn't really a reason to use a tax agent. It is as easy as changing a few boxes and confirming and you'll see a tax estimate immediately on your screen. Never had an issue with it
Oh, there are many industries that shouldn't exist, but do because if there is any way to make money, someone will find it and keep on milking and then commit regulatory capture to keep themselves in business.
"This should just be automatic" it isn't automatic because it's to give people in politics an advantage over others without allowing everyone to benefit from it. Kinda like how US Congress gets top tier health insurance, but no other government employment in the US does.
The part of the US tax system that baffles me is that they don't list it on the sticker for goods. You grab something off the shelf that says $5, take it to the counter and then they calculate the tax... Why???
The shop doesn't move day to day. It's in the same place in the same state day in day out. Surely they know the taxes that will apply at checkout. So include them in the price and put that on the sticker so I know what the hell I'm going to pay before I get to the counter. It makes a tiny modicum of sense online, but in physical stores there is no excuse for it.
Why taxes vary so much from one state to another baffles me. Here, tax is the same no matter where you are. It's simple and easy.
because FREEEEEDOOOOOMMM!!!!
Each state is basically its own country that just agreed on a federal government
I'm so happy New Hampshire is in the pilot, probably the State where it took the least amount of effort from the State to join but still.
If we went to a pure sales tax we wouldn't need tax returns.
I wish we had that here, my parents spend what, $70-80 CAD a year buying the Turbo Tax license to file electronically. Just make it free, these companies only exist to make money off of our tax filings. Some don't even file, because they can't afford to.
In the UK we have PAYE, Pay As You Earn.
No need for tax returns.
We pay as we earn too. The system only exists to screw over the average citizen.
Hey! Now 13 states will be somewhat in the same level of Brazil's IRS system.
they know exactly how much you did but they when you file a tax report smh
Taxes should be automatically done for you. The IRS, CRA etc have more info on your earnings than you probably do.
They shoud file it, send you a letter or email to review it to confirm the numbers and refund/owing, and that's it.
Even for people with complicated taxes, they should be allowed to download the auto-filing and then work from there with their accountants or whatever, or simply submit their own filing to overwrite the auto one.
Any other system is BS.
Just have a VAT, set to the amount the government needs to pay for the services that we feel should be paid collectively? And be done.
No need for a giant IRS apparatus
Wait, so you don't just have your employer pre-fill most details and then you add anything missed and then just click okay?
That's cringe.
One of the first stores I remember going to was a Cricket flip phone store, and next door was a building labeled H&R block. My father (bastard, son of a bitch, and a motherfucker) always told me H&R was an adult thing and that I'd understand when I was older. I'm 26 now and I still don't understand what H&R block does.
As a European, the idea that you not only must file your taxes yourself (even if you are regularly employed without any side income) but also have to PAY for it is truly astonishing
08:00 Taxes should be free to do and automatically done by the government for you, only requiring your intervention if random changes in your financial life has happened like buying or selling a house, car, or other larger financially changing things, or if you have gotten a job or lost your job, etc. And all of the taxation information for you should be easily found on a "my page" page at the government's taxation organization's website, where you should be given full access to editing each and every field so you can easily change fields based on the changes in your life that affected the various fields.
Census means they know how many kids THERE ARE, not how many kids YOU HAVE. Don’t get me wrong the government and their corporate sponsors know EXACTLY how many kids you have and they know how many kids you’re GOING to have.. but they can’t SAY they know
I can't believe everyone in the US has to file taxes. In South Africa, people who earn under s certain thresh hold pay nothing and don't have to file.
There's a threshold here where they pay, but they receive a massive return every year. So they ultimately end up not paying.
That's how it's in Mexico, there's no financial education, but options exists
It's completely uncecessary unless you have super complicated taxes, but the only reason people have such complicated taxes is because inept government officials wrote an unbelievably convoluted tax code that you need a degree to fully understand.
Roach motel was those crappy rooms that my low per diem could afford me.
Us your federal is free but you pay for state. And if you get let go from a job that you had a 401k then you are just straight up paying to file both fed and state. No free filing.
In Australia the workers pay the taxes and the big companies get welfare.
Does anyone remember when mischief release the E girl dating and tax filing simulator lol