How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013)

Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ... by hjk05 on Saturday March 16, 2019 @07:44AM (#19407330)

That’s the way it works in Denmark. You get an email saying basically: “here’s a draft of you filling where we have filled out everything for you” you can then go and make any needed corrections and hit submit. Super simple straight forward system.

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Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ... by xtracto on Sunday March 17, 2019 @01:52AM (#19412452)

In Mexico it works more or less the same: All payments are invoiced and signed with a Private/Public keypair unique for the person/company and provided by the government.

At the end of the year, you go into SAT (Mex IRS) page to file your taxes and they provide you with a list of your money Input and Output, and they tell you how much you owe in Taxes or how much you are owed by them.

You still can add other things that were missed by the system.

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Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ... by flexie on Saturday March 16, 2019 @08:18AM (#19407459)

The Danish system is only super simple if you are a salaried employee. Once you run your own business it’s generally as difficult as the American system.

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Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ... by jeromegv on Saturday March 16, 2019 @08:29AM (#19407499)

Considering majority of people are employed it’s already a huge step forward. Can’t we at least get there first before we criticize them?

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Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ... by mrmanner on Saturday March 16, 2019 @10:14AM (#19407891)

The Swedish system works the same way, but as long as your own business isn’t too complicated it’s still quite simple to file.

You have to have your books in order anyway, and tax filing is usually as simple as copying over some numbers from the bookkeeping software and then Skatteverket (Swedish IRS) will suggest what is probably the best deductions and periodizations available for you. For my one man consulting business it takes less than an hour, and requires nothing more than having my accounting in order.

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Re:How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing ... by GuB-42 on Saturday March 16, 2019 @08:31AM (#19407504)

Same thing in France. Filling taxes for employees is essentially just clicking a button.

But if you are self employed, you have to hire an accountant. It is not a legal obligation but there are so many things that can go wrong that you are putting your business at risk if you don't.

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