
Elizabeth Warren thinks the IRS should fill out your tax returns - ourmandave
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/04/13/elizabeth-warren-just-proposed-a-bill-to-make-tax-return-filing-way-easier
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drallison
Why limit this approach to tax filings?

Perhaps we should move to a federal banking system where the federal
government takes over the services currently provided by the Consumer and the
Merchant banking systems? Because all financial transactions would go through
the federated banking system and would be cross-checked mechanically, studied
by big-data AI systems for anomalies, errors, and fraud. Risks could be
substantially reduced. The accuracy of economic projections could be improved
because they could be based on real data. A Federal bank account would become
a birthright. Bank accounts could be merged with Social Security and Health
accounts.

If this were to happen, Federal Cybersecurity would need to be improved
significantly.

The implementation would need to be operated and managed directly by the
Federal Government and NOT SUBCONTRACTED to commercial enterprises to ensure
systems integrity.

There is also the question whether, in this instance, financial information of
individuals, business entities, and the government would be entitled to
privacy and confidentiality. It might be argued that making all financial
information open and available to everyone would have positive benefits.
Others might argue that to do so would kill the free market. More study is
needed.

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paulcole
The IRS can reject my efiled return if the information I enter doesn't match
what they have on their end. So why not just save me the hassle of entering a
bunch of data if they already have it?

This seems like such an obvious no brainer that could save millions of people
hours of frustration. That's why I'm 100% sure it'll never happen.

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lakkal
Yeah. As part of buying a house a few years ago, I prematurely drained a
couple of small 401k accounts from previous employers to pay for some repairs.
That was in Feb-March. Then a year later when I was doing my taxes, I had
received the appropriate 1099-whatever for only one of them - I either lost
the other, or it didn't get forwarded to my new address- I don't know. And by
that time, I had forgotten all about it. The following year (2015) I wound up
getting whacked for under-reporting my income in 2014 (house purchase was
2013). It's annoying that since the IRS knew about this (the 401k company had
reported it to them, of course), but I had long since forgotten. There must be
a better way.

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pmiller2
This is a great idea, if implemented correctly. In the UK, most regular
employees don't have to file a return because the correct amount is
automatically withheld. I'd love to never get another tax refund again and
offload the work of filing taxes to the government!

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ves
But why via witholdings? I don't take witholdings and then just cut the
appropriate check come April. They're basically a zero interest loan to the
government.

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pmiller2
Under the UK scheme, for an ordinary employee (basically the kind of person
the cheap and free editions of TurboTax are designed for), you're simply
paying your tax as you go. It's not really a zero interest loan to the
government; it's just paying off what you owe one paycheck at a time.

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blisterpeanuts
What about people who file Schedule C? The IRS isn't going to know about our
business deductions, expenses, etc.

~~~
paulcole
Those people continue as usual. Everything doesn't have to benefit everyone
equally.

