Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ...
by grawprog on Friday March 15, 2019 @09:12PM
(#19405774)
Also in Canada. Yeah i know people that work under the table that do this. They'll report traceable sources of income while leaving untraceable income out. It's fairly illegal. It's actually one of the ways they get small time drug dealers, they'll go after them for tax fraud.
Personally, my taxes are simple enough that I could do them with the book if I wanted. I've found suitable tax software that doesn't cost me and is fairly easy to use. I'm not sure what it's like in America, but if you don't have a family, own property, run a business, or make a bunch of income from investments, doing taxes with a calculator really isn't that difficult.
Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ...
by mrmanner on Saturday March 16, 2019 @10:18AM
(#19407911)
They could use the information that others (banks and employers) report to them about your finances to pre-fill all the forms. That way you only need to add things that are missing and double check what’s there.
Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ...
by kazinator on Saturday March 16, 2019 @01:49PM
(#19409110)
Sure! And they could know about all your doctor's visits, so they could do your medical expense credits for you and similarly track every move you make in society. Oh, you paid for $257.35 on your VISA credit card ending in 1295 for prescription drugs this year: that's deductible!
Is that what we want?
Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ...
by mrmanner on Monday March 18, 2019 @07:43AM
(#19420283)
1) I specifically meant "the information they already have", so you would only have to add that which is additional (e.g. medical expenses).
2) There are probably less bureaucratic ways to deal with subsidising medical expenses. Single payer is the nuclear option, but also applying the tax credit in-store and letting the business apply could be a thing?
(I'm not in the USA, but Canada.)
You could lie on the tax return by not reporting income, or claiming some false deductions and credits; the difference could be thousands of dollars.
They will only be checking the false version for arithmetic or logic errors.
The result might be, say, having to pay $50 more due to some mistake, even when actually it should be $5000 more due to lying.
What this story is about is that the government could provide some service, like a website, where you can just put in your info and have it do the detailed calculations and form filling for you: essentially a government-run version of the software that Intuit and other vendors sell.
The government can't just do this without any input from you, though. They can't just send you a bill for you to agree with or dispute.