
If the IRS had discovered the quadratic formula... - evoxed
http://www.cs.amherst.edu/~djv/irs.pdf
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kijin
Whether you like them or not, a lot of thought went into designing tax forms.
It's a marvel of form design that any intelligent person with a pocket
calculator can fill them out by following simple directions. It could have
been much much worse, considering how complicated tax codes tend to be!

Of course, things get complicated when you have different kinds of incomes
with different rates and all sorts of deductions with different rules that
Congress cooks up every year. But that's what computer programs are for. I
hope they'll make bug-free and intuitive tax programs some day.

In the meantime, I like Canadian tax forms better. Federal and provincial
forms come in different colours, and the boxes seem to be more clearly
labeled.

~~~
sausagefeet
In Sweden you can pay your taxes with an SMS. Basically, from what I
understand, the taxes are so simple and the infrastructure already there for
the govt to know your income that unless you are doing something funky you
just confirm you taxes by sending a text. Quite nice.

~~~
qw
In Norway you don't need to confirm the taxes at all. You get a simple tax
form on a web page and if the information is correct you don't need to do
anything. If you need to correct it you just update the form online.

~~~
kijin
That approach might have disadvantages, especially with senior citizens and
poor people who might not have ready access to the Internet. They are the ones
who usually miss out when essential services go online-only. But then again,
we're talking about Scandinavia here, so the size of the affected population
and the severity of the problem would be a lot less than in the U.S.

~~~
jlouis
It doesn't really. If you are not able to access the internet you can go to
the government office and get it done, I guess. At least that is what we do in
Denmark. Or we send out a person with a laptop to the home of the old person
so they can be guided if needed.

That said, it is rather few where this is needed. Most old people over here
are intelligent enough to learn IT-stuff.

------
zht
it amazed me the first time that I filed for US taxes that it involved the use
of a look up table

~~~
drostie
Well, that can to some extent be expected -- trying to describe a progressive
taxation algorithm can be much more messy than just saying, "here, look it
up."

There are much more important WTFs. For example, there are two different tax
rates which you might be paying -- one for capital gains and certain
dividends, and one for income. The first is always taxed at a lower rate.
Meanwhile, you have a "deduction" -- an amount of money that you're allowed to
deduct from your return as if you'd never gotten it in the first place.

The IRS forms actually implement a worksheet which just says, "subtract your
deduction from your income, and if your deduction is larger than your income,
subtract whatever else there is from your capital gains."

At least, I _think_ that's what it does. As this article shows, you have no
conscious idea what the heck you're _really_ doing when the IRS invites you to
play Turing Machine.

~~~
chris_wot
I want to be part of a wonderful government system that gives me a tax
deduction that is greater than my income!

Actually, on second thoughts, I can't speak Greek so I think I'll pass.

~~~
drostie
Oh, that's easy. Just don't make more than a couple thousand dollars, then
your standard deduction in the US system will be greater than your income. ^_^

(Of course, the IRS doesn't actually let their forms go negative.)

~~~
chris_wot
I have not been acquainted with the American tax system - I live in Australia,
which has its own system with its own quirks.

What is a standard deduction? It sounds like you get an amount of money back
no matter what you paid. Is this true?

~~~
chronomex
The standard deduction is a way to account for progressive taxation at the
very bottom of the scale. The first $5,000-$10,000 of income isn't taxed. If
you've donated to charity (also paid school tuition, and other things) in
excess of that amount, you can itemize these and deduct them, in which case
you don't get to claim the standard deduction. Even if you don't have any
deductions to claim, you get the "standard deduction". This reduces your
effective taxable income.

You only get money refunded if you have a "refundable tax credit". Tax credits
lower your tax liability; refundable credits can lower it below zero liability
such that you are owed money. One common refundable credit is earned by paying
higher education tuition.

(It should go without saying that I'm not an accountant; I only play one on
the Internet.)

~~~
chris_wot
That's hidiously confusing.

~~~
narcissus
It almost sounds like it's similar to the fact that in Australia you don't pay
tax on your first $6,000.

The difference, though, seems to be that in Australia, _all_ of your
deductions reduce your taxable income whereas if Australia was using the same
tax system as the US, you would have to have more than $6,000 in deductions
_before_ actually affecting your taxable income.

That's the way I see it, anyway.

~~~
Turing_Machine
There are actually two separate things going on here:

1) Exemptions - each person gets $x worth of income before any tax is owed at
all. Roughly, this depends on your family size (there are many other nuances).
This sounds like your $6,000 rule. 2) Deductions -- these are allowable
expenses (business expenses, charitable contributions, certain types of
interest, and so on). You can either keep records and claim the actual amount
(which sounds like your system), or you can take the "standard deduction",
which is the IRS's estimate of the amount of expenses an average person might
have. The advantages of the standard deduction are that you don't have to keep
records, and the standard deduction may actually be more than your real
expenses if you don't have a lot of them.

------
waterside81
To get an even better picture of the internals of the IRS, highly recommend
reading The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. It's an unfinished book (he
committed suicide before completing it) but details his real-life journey to
becoming an IRS employee.

