Is it? That's how taxes work in pretty much every other country aside from the US. They send you a proposed tax and ask you to check if it looks correct.

It's just that in the US, companies like Intuit lobby to keep the tax code as complicated as possible so they can sell tax filing software.

Americans have grown up with complicated tax codes, so that's all they know. They don't realize it can be better.

It is not. This is how it works in Singapore

Your employer reports your income to the tax authority.

They send you a tax assessment, including any reliefs they think you are eligible for. If it's correct, you just pay the amount.

Otherwise you can file an objection. But for the majority of people, the assessment is correct.

Here in the UK the vast majority has very simple income (i.e. just salaries). The employer reports the income and taxes taxes and passes it directly to HMRC (our IRS equivalent). By the end of the year for the vast majority HMRC knows how much you've paid in taxes and how much you've earned, and automatically gives you a rebate in case you've overpaid, or adjusts your tax code next your to pay what you still owe (if it's not a big amount).

If you have additional income, dividends, gains and under certain other circumstance, you're liable to fill out a tax return (self-assessment as it's called). It's a very simple form that contains information that applies to the vast majority of those who need to do their self-assessment. After you've sent it back, they'll calculate if you've overpaid (and compensate) or underpaid (and require you to pay what you owe) or neither. It is trust based but they do audits up to 7 years back, and if have lied or made mistakes, then you'll be liable.

The few richest of the richest who fall outside the above two (they still need to do a self-assessment) probably have a completely different process but it doesn't matter because they have the resources to hire firms to figure it out.

They give you a space that you input it in, if there's something missing

how was that hard to figure out

> They give you a space that you input it in, if there's something missing

And someone working minimum wage with no overseas dividend income must manually read every space for these “missing” line items?

Seems like you’re wasting the minimum wage worker’s time.

Here in the UK, minimum wage workers do not have to do a self-assessment. Only certain circumstances require you to return a self-assessment, some of those circumstances include earning over 150k or having income beyond your usual PAYE income (e.g. dividends etc). A majority of workers don't need to deal with any tax returns or whatnot. At the end of the year they simply either get a rebate or asked to pay what if they've underpaid. Some of those who underpaid don't even need to worry as their tax code is adjusted to include what they owe in their next tax year allowing the payment to be spread over a year.

I think only the US double taxes its citizens like this.

In the case of this specific country, relatively easily since the country has enough clout to impose reporting requirements[1] on financial institutions outside of its borders.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...

If I earn income in another country i pay the income tax in that country. My home country does not care or know about it, like it should be.

Because AML/KYC laws and cross-country report requirements mean that the financial institution holding the funds reports them.

There is a ton of information sharing between financial institutions and governments.

It is not just FACTA (though that particular law takes things much too far)