
Why doesn’t the IRS send me a tax bill based on the info they already have? - ingve
https://politics.stackexchange.com/q/30223
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olskool
The tax preparation companies such as H&R Block and Intuit spend a lot of
money lobbying Congress to keep this from happening.

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thathappened
This might be true but it's not needed.

I'm looking for the documentary about the US economy and the silent industries
that secretly prop it up.

Taxing people is work. To make an industry responsible allows both government
to not invest and risk additional losses but allowing people to overpay gives
them a surplus while allowing for those that make mistakes that cost the
government to recoup in justice fees.

I remember the video having lawyers asked what the most profitable industry in
America was, they all claimed the legal system when it was accounting.

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wmil
Things are more complicated than you think.

There are many SSNs in use by multiple people. It's an immigration issue so
the IRS turns a blind eye.

Also there's a larger number of cases where the address the IRS has on file is
incorrect.

So there's a huge risk of the refund going to the wrong person with pre-filled
returns.

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IshKebab
Yeah PAYE is really really hard and complex. The only countries that do it are
Germany and the UK and France (from 2018) and Australia and New Zealand and
Ireland and ... etc. etc.

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oarla
Population of: USA: 325 million Germany: 81 million France: 65 million UK: 65
million Australia: 21 million New Zealand: 4.7 million

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krageon
This is a tired trope, because this seems to forget that more people also
equals more resources to deal with more people. It's not a substantive
argument to just say "well there's more of us so this can never work", which
is what I assume you're trying to say here.

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matt_the_bass
California tried this for a trial of their state taxes. Response was
overwhelmingly positive. Yet lobbyist for big tax firms fight against it.

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mullen
It still there and very popular, but it is opt-in. However, the majority of
people who use it, opt-in.

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matt_the_bass
Oh, I didnt realize that still. Thanks!

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eip
"A silent weapon system operates upon data obtained from a docile public by
legal (but not always lawful) force. Much information is made available to
silent weapon systems programmers through the Internal Revenue Service. (See
Studies in the Structure of the American Economy for an I.R.S. source list.)

This information consists of the enforced delivery of well-organized data
contained in federal and state tax forms, collected, assembled, and submitted
by slave labor provided by taxpayers and employers.

Furthermore, the number of such forms submitted to the I.R.S. is a useful
indicator of public consent, an important factor in strategic decision making.
Other data sources are given in the Short List of Inputs.

Consent Coefficients - numerical feedback indicating victory status.
Psychological basis: When the government is able to collect tax and seize
private property without just compensation, it is an indication that the
public is ripe for surrender and is consenting to enslavement and legal
encroachment. A good and easily quantified indicator of harvest time is the
number of public citizens who pay income tax despite an obvious lack of
reciprocal or honest service from the government."

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oarla
The IRS doesn't always know everything. For example, they don't know how much
medical expenses were incurred in the tax year. If there's a centralized place
where all relevant expenses and incomes are logged, then maybe they should do
it for everyone. Else, it's going to be a problem going back and forth with
IRS over the right amount of taxes to be paid.

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MR4D
They don’t need to know that, though.

For instance, the irs could send you a statement with everything they know and
a total at the bottom.

You can either pay that, or if you think you should pay less, prove it by
filling out a bunch of 1040/1099/etc forms with supporting evidence.

Frankly, I’d love it. If it’s close enough, I think many people would pay a
bit more just to eliminate the hassle.

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kahnpro
There's no reason why they can't. If you're an employee and/or a student then
everything you do should be reported to the government, taxes should have
automatically been withheld, and the government should be able to figure out
everything on their own. They always double-check your calculations anyway.

Only if you're self-employed or have special situations should you need to
file anything, and even then, many of these situations can be something where
you tick a box or submit a document and then they still do everything
automatically.

The situation in the US and Canada is ridiculous.

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LorenPechtel
Disagree. For such people the government will generally have everything on the
income side. They won't necessarily have everything on the deduction side.

However, even partial data like that would be very useful. The IRS sends you
pre-filled forms. You can change anything that's wrong, add anything that's
missing. Do your taxes, or just submit the changes and let them deal with the
rest of it and send you a bill if need be.

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kahnpro
If you have things on the deduction side that the government doesn't already
know about, you can submit a self-assessment or an amendment. Deductions
themselves should be simplified.

You bring deductions up as if it's a problem but many other countries, like
the UK, do it this way without problems.

Most people here do not submit tax returns.

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OnlineCourage
Article 1, section 2 of the US Constitution prohibits direct taxation. If the
IRS sends you a bill, that's becoming a little more 'directy' because they are
just assuming that every single head had a W2 with no deductions outside of
the narrow info that they know and now you have to proove them wrong. Whereas
asking you what you think you should owe and giving you an opportunity to
present all facts is more of a levy, and much more just. What this person is
asking for on Stackexchange is just pure laziness and super narrow thinking
about what activities one could potentially get involved with in one's life.
Those who point toward H&R block as being at fault: well yes they would
certainly want to maintain a horrible IRS UX, but that is completely separate
from how taxes are levyed, which is constitutional. Also I love Sweden but
just because Sweden does it does not mean automatically the best solution.

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otterley
Article I Section 2 was amended by Amendment XIV (“The Congress shall have
power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived,
without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any
census or enumeration.”). The original text is legally void.

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swrobel
Grover Norquist.

