Re:My Stripe Tax Story
by HWR_14 on Thursday March 03, 2022 @04:58AM
(#30539131)
> why do governments not make a habit of funding/creating really high quality tax software for businesses/individuals to use?
They do. We can leave aside the practice in many European countries to compute your income taxes for you, based on reporting by your employer and financial services. Even in the US, high quality software is provided for sales tax compliance. In fact, according to the Supreme Court, the presence of that software is one of the main reason they overturned their "no interstate online sales tax" decision in 2018. One reason was
> Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. This system standardizes taxes to reduce administrative and compliance costs: It requires a single, state-level tax administration, uniform definitions of products and services, simplified tax rate structures, and other uniform rules. It also provides sellers access to sales tax administration software paid for by the State. Sellers who choose to use such software are immune from audit liability.
Which, I guess to return to the point we set aside, is because companies can lobby for public software for their benefit, but tax prep companies can lobby against public software for their benefit.
They do. We can leave aside the practice in many European countries to compute your income taxes for you, based on reporting by your employer and financial services. Even in the US, high quality software is provided for sales tax compliance. In fact, according to the Supreme Court, the presence of that software is one of the main reason they overturned their "no interstate online sales tax" decision in 2018. One reason was
> Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. This system standardizes taxes to reduce administrative and compliance costs: It requires a single, state-level tax administration, uniform definitions of products and services, simplified tax rate structures, and other uniform rules. It also provides sellers access to sales tax administration software paid for by the State. Sellers who choose to use such software are immune from audit liability.
Which, I guess to return to the point we set aside, is because companies can lobby for public software for their benefit, but tax prep companies can lobby against public software for their benefit.