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Re:TurboTax is blitzing Congress for the right to tax YOU by kadoban on Monday February 20, 2023 @08:08PM (#34875171)
There should be no requirement to fill out any forms. The government should fill them out for you for your "okay" and only if there's issues should you have to do any more than that.

The only reason that this isn't how it works is because these companies have bribed our representatives to avoid it.

Re:TurboTax is blitzing Congress for the right to tax YOU by jacobsenscott on Monday February 20, 2023 @08:28PM (#34875313)
It isn't just turbotax - voting to adequately fund the IRS is political suicide anywhere but a handful of blue dots on a big red map.
Re:TurboTax is blitzing Congress for the right to tax YOU by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Monday February 20, 2023 @08:58PM (#34875534)
Which is ridiculous, because the IRS brings in $3 for every $1 of additional funding. It's the only government agency for which this is true.

Keeping the IRS small and weak literally only helps extremely wealthy people dodge the taxes they owe.

Re:TurboTax is blitzing Congress for the right to tax YOU by cuteboy19 on Monday February 20, 2023 @09:17PM (#34875653)
There is also a hazard in this line of thinking. The money that the IRS collects is owed only in the most legal of senses. In reality there is very little reason why any individual should forgo 30% of their income for not much benefit. Thinking of the IRS as a infinite money multiplier implies thinking of the people as a bottomless well of money.

The answer is not to keep funding the IRS until this ratio comes to a saturation point, but to reduce taxation till this ratio reduces to a more sane number

Re:TurboTax is blitzing Congress for the right to tax YOU by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Monday February 20, 2023 @10:20PM (#34876051)
> there is very little reason why any individual should forgo 30% of their income for not much benefit

You're right - extremely wealthy individuals should forgo 70%+ of their income for not much (individual) benefit.

Re:TurboTax is blitzing Congress for the right to tax YOU by kadoban on Monday February 20, 2023 @10:21PM (#34876068)
> In reality there is very little reason why any individual should forgo 30% of their income for not much benefit.

Other than the benefit of having a functioning society, and some sort of semblance of a safety net.

Re:TurboTax is blitzing Congress for the right to tax YOU by cuteboy19 on Monday February 20, 2023 @08:23PM (#34875275)
This is something that the Indian government has done quite well. Although the website has had some growing pains (68 million filings is apparently not that easy to scale to) it is getting better and works exactly as you described. It even looks quite modern and not at all like a typical government website.

Moreover they also created a parallel tax system that forgoes all the deductions for a slightly lower tax rate so it's very easy for simple filings to just hit the OK button.