If other country revenue systems can do this, why do you feel the US tax filing landscape is so different? As gamblor956 mentions in other comments, this is not a technical or practical limitation, but regulatory capture via statute.
> Denmark and Sweden, both small countries, operate tax agency reconciliation systems. About 87 percent of Denmark’s taxpayers and 74 percent of Sweden’s had their returns filled out by the tax authorities in 1999. Spain, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Iceland have also implemented tax agency reconciliation systems.
CalFile was purposely kneecapped in a fight with Intuit.
> Under the auspices of the Free File Alliance (FFA), Intuit, manufacturer of TurboTax, has been attacking state-run, free e-filing services for several years. The latest victim, Virginia’s successful iFile program, succumbed late last year. Through it all, the unquestioned crown jewels of state e-filing programs – California’s CalFile and ReadyReturn – have managed to survive. But this year, Intuit has ratcheted up its annual campaign to end the two programs. In the process, it is peddling some familiar falsehoods as well as some newly crafted misrepresentations.
> This article describes Intuit’s nine lies, the false arguments about ReadyReturn and CalFile that Intuit and its lobbyists have been telling elected officials, staffers, and nonprofit organizations serving California’s low-income communities. It also evaluates Intuit’s proposed Free File alternative to the state’s existing programs. For all of Intuit’s assertions – whether regarding the purported shortcomings of the state programs or the purported benefits of the Free File initiative – the article offers a point-by-point refutation.
>If other country revenue systems can do this, why do you feel the US tax filing landscape is so different?
Because we have 50 states that do everything differently?
As other people said, the federal government doesn't even seem to know basic info like if you are married, how many dependent you have, etc etc.
If we didn't have any states (or all states used like the same systems that could easily talk to each other) and everything was federal, then yeah it would probably be a piece of cake because all the info is already there.
But, we don't.. everything is done differently everywhere, and that affects the taxes.
The American political system isn’t uniquely more complicated than others; it simply doesn’t want to solve the problem. Lobbying by parasitical entities such as Intuit is the true reason. We could solve these problems if we chose to. We don’t.
I think it's more about the politics involved. You basically answered the question with the last quote in your response. It's all intuit, the enormous silent power they can weild through lobbying, and the disproportionately smaller power the tax payers have.
It's fucked up, and there's no end in sight.
Those senators love their money and power more than the people they purport to serve.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/how-are-countrie...
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-other-cou...
> Denmark and Sweden, both small countries, operate tax agency reconciliation systems. About 87 percent of Denmark’s taxpayers and 74 percent of Sweden’s had their returns filled out by the tax authorities in 1999. Spain, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Iceland have also implemented tax agency reconciliation systems.
CalFile was purposely kneecapped in a fight with Intuit.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1668912 | https://escholarship.org/content/qt1tw989zv/qt1tw989zv_noSpl...
> Under the auspices of the Free File Alliance (FFA), Intuit, manufacturer of TurboTax, has been attacking state-run, free e-filing services for several years. The latest victim, Virginia’s successful iFile program, succumbed late last year. Through it all, the unquestioned crown jewels of state e-filing programs – California’s CalFile and ReadyReturn – have managed to survive. But this year, Intuit has ratcheted up its annual campaign to end the two programs. In the process, it is peddling some familiar falsehoods as well as some newly crafted misrepresentations.
> This article describes Intuit’s nine lies, the false arguments about ReadyReturn and CalFile that Intuit and its lobbyists have been telling elected officials, staffers, and nonprofit organizations serving California’s low-income communities. It also evaluates Intuit’s proposed Free File alternative to the state’s existing programs. For all of Intuit’s assertions – whether regarding the purported shortcomings of the state programs or the purported benefits of the Free File initiative – the article offers a point-by-point refutation.