Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US?

Re:Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US? by tantalor on Friday April 14, 2017 @01:15PM (#14115647)

I don't mind the idea of figuring my own taxes, after all I can lookup all the numbers pretty easily, but the main obstacle to that is the tax instructions are impossible to parse.

We should require the IRS to release the tax forms in a machine-readable format, e.g., as open-source software. The human-readable instructions should merely be the spec. Other people can write nice interfaces on top of that. Then you can run the code on your phone to figure your taxes.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Filing Taxes in Japan Is a Breeze. Why Not in the US? by msound on Friday April 14, 2017 @04:18PM (#14116950)

In India, our income tax department accepts returns as an XML document, and tax prep software developers have built tools that basically help you generate the XML and upload it to the e-filing website.

PDF Link: https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/eFiling/Portal/StaticPD...

Other than this, the government run e-filing website also has a nice interface to do your taxes. It's fairly simple. Just fill in numbers and click Next Next Next Submit, and you're done.

[ Parent | on HN ]