Every country enacts social policy and subsidy through the tax code; the US is not special that way.

The US is special because the process of writing the tax code is corrupt. (Not uniquely corrupt, but certainly near an extreme among major countries.)

The US is also special because it has 50 states, all of which have their own thoughts about taxes.

Not to mention the almost 5K local income tax jurisdictions in the US https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/state/local-income-ta...

I have read several articles suggesting that the US does this more than most other countries, has a more complicated tax code as a result, and that is one reason why the US doesn't have more automated collection like most other countries.

But I don't have the articles at hand, and don't feel like an internet debate today, left as an exersize to the reader!

If the government can determine that my taxes are wrong, then they know the amount I have to pay. So why can't they tell me the correct number up front? (Yes, I know the reason why, but I still feel like it's a valid question)

The issue is the government doesn't and shouldn't know every possible detail of your life so if you're in a complex tax situation (most people aren't and can just take the standard deduction) you'd still need to do the preparations. But for the vast majority of people the government does already know what you're taxes should be because you're just taking the standard deduction which 87% of people did in 2018 and that number has grown slightly since then. [0]

For more complex cases where you have more deduction and income sources the government doesn't really know all the individual setups you may or may not qualify for and they only audit a small percentage of filers every year.

The reason it's been blocked is a mess of ideological and economic. Ideological from people who interested that want to make taxes more annoying so people are generally more anti tax and then they get elected and make cuts to the top percentages/businesses permanent while the tax cuts for the majority of citizens are temporary. This sets up a debt crisis when those 'temporary' cuts are also extended they can use to leverage for government cuts. On the economic side there's a huge amount of money made each year by preparing taxes for people too intimidated by the complexity to DIY it. So they ally with the generically antitax side to keep their business going.

[0] https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-tax-stats-at-a-...

I've always wondered if I could file some kind of freedom of information act request to get the IRS's opinion of what my taxes should be; and/or to get the source code to the IRS's program to calculate what their opinion of my taxes should be.

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That being said, my Dad worked for a few years at the IRS part-time before he finally retired. He loved it. (My Dad is one of those people who enjoys taxes and finds them soothing.) I concluded that the IRS is a white-collar make-work program. It also leaks a lot of confidential social information, because he got to see all kinds of tax returns from all slices of economic status.

They can determine your taxes are "fishy" and then demand further documentation. Say you declared you sold a car and profited, but seemingly under-reported the sale price. They'd show up and demand to see the bill-of-sale, maybe contact the buyer, etc. How would the government know ahead of time what price you sold the car for?

Most fraud about car sales is to claim a lower price in order to skip on sales taxes collected by the states' motor vehicle agencies. Not all states charge a sales tax on individual-to-individual sales. Here in Kentucky, the state constitution says that taxes have to be charged on the assessed value, so part of the annual registration is based on the assessed value (min $100 for boats or $200 for cars/trucks). I used to work for KY's Transportation Cabinet (combo DMV + highway dept).

I don't understand how this changes anything?

How would they know now?

These examples are silly, most people are not selling a car privately all the time and they can handle any reporting or changes when you transfer the ownership.

In many countries for the majority of the population they can and do determine how much tax should be paid, and many people don’t have to file tax returns.

What makes you think the government can determine that your taxes are wrong?

Most of that complexity does not matter for most people because the standard deduction is higher than you can reach through itemized deductions. Even home owners can usually get more via standard than going through the trouble of mortgage interest deductions.

Except for all those above-the-line deductions and credits that apply even if you take the standard deduction. Like the new tip tax credit and senior tax credit recently added to our already incredibly complicated tax code.

The tip tax credit is only for businesses though right? That's all I'm finding when I search for tip tax credit, so that's not a factor for individual filers. Senior credit is a bit more but it's still relatively simple to claim. That would also be pretty trivial under the government prepared initial return scenario too.

No it’s a deduction on personal income taxes for up to $25,000 in tip income, newly added by Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” https://www.thetaxadviser.com/news/2025/sep/details-on-irs-p...

Ok I just got confused because there is such a think as the "tip tax credit" as well which is an employeer side tax credit for tips above the catchup required to hit the true minimum wage.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...