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Comment by kowen | Hacker News Reader

I lived and worked in Norway for several years, and each year I received a pre-filled tax return from the government. If I recall correctly, I had three choices:

- Send a PIN code by mobile phone which acted as a digital signature to file "as is"

- Log in to central location on the Internet and click a button to file "as is"

- Sign it and send it in.

If I needed to make adjustments, then only the third option was viable (I only had to do that once).

It literally took me less than 5 minutes to verify and send in. Fairly painless - the only pain being in the amount of taxes I paid, Norway being a socialist country, and all.

The resistance from third party tax preparation companies and software providers reminds me of the Parable of the Broken Window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

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Pretty much the same in Sweden. But we can make corrections online on most parts; securities, real estate, deductions etc.

It's worth pointing out that Sweden has been doing the "simplified tax return" with all information prefilled for, IIRC, about 20 years. Internet filing is newer, but the basic method is really old.

It's really quite unfathomable to me how behind the U.S. is on these things (that and banking comes to mind). But maybe it's just the entrenched interests that are doing their damnedest to stop this from happening. It seems that here's one example when you can't argue that corporations are "adding value"; they have been making money due to the primitive IRS system and now they think they're entitled to it.

Yes, it's hard to fathom.

Don't tell anybody, I've heard there are also still using cheques in the US.

I rarely use checks anymore. However, the IRS will accept a check but not a credit or debit card. They are kind of dinosaurs in that regard.

(Though there is a way to pay them with a debit card through a third party for a small fee.)

I still file on paper. Why? Because it costs me a first-class postage stamp. E-filing has a fee of something like $15.

I pay my rent with check. That's the only way my landlord wants it (no cash, or any electronic way). I've seen (though rare) people paying with cash in stores (I live in LA).

Continental Europe also uses cash. But cheques haven't been seen for ages. I guess cash might just be a different kind of old-fashioned.

(Britain seems to get rid of cheques slowly.)

I lived and worked in Finland for a few years, ..., I had three choices:

- not do anything, in which case I agreed with the pre-filled tax return

- sign it and send it in, ...

Hello former fellow countryman. :)

We can do most corrections online now. The only major thing to complain about with the paperwork now is the taxation card describing how much of your wages should go directly to the government. Essentially, you tell the government how much you earn, then you get a card back with employment tax details which you have to give your employer. Since my employer knows how much I'm paid and the government knows how much I should be taxed, I'm basically just a paperwork delivery boy. They could just work it out among themselves in my opinion.

Hello current fellow countryman

The reason you need to give your tax card (skattekort) to your employers is because there may be more than one of them. In the event you hold two jobs, neither of your employers knows what the other is paying you, so they don't know your total income (and therefore don't know how much tax to pull.)

I know, but it should still be enough for me to tell the guy at the accounting that "this is my primary job" and possibly "I estimate earning 500k total this year.".

Though I'll be quick to admit the tax card is not a very big problem. :)

Here in The Netherlands, downloading a data file with your data for their tax application is possible since last year. The application even encourages it. On top of that, there has also been a Linux version for the past three years :)

Accountants need to eat too (to paraphrase a rallying cry of the music/creative industries).

Let them audit and consult instead.

Accountants are relatively talented people and should be doing useful work, not makework.

I Agree. My father is an accountant and hate doing taxes. He would much prefer a more simple method like this where it would be harder for errors to occur and avoid lengthy audits. He makes much less from those government audits than from other type work.

The complexity of the Tax code is also stupid. A lot of it could be simplified but that would eliminate government jobs quickly. Accountants won't care, there's a lot of lucrative work that still needs be done. In fact, most tax returns aren't done by CPA (or CA in Canada) anyway. H&R Block and others might be pissed and try to block this but they charge too much anyway.

Does the analogy work though? The fear in the rallying cry is that if musicians can't eat, they will stop making music, which means you can't have music anymore.

But if accountants can't eat, it's because there is less need for accounting, which is good for everybody except accountants.

The problem is that it is used as an axiom. It is always assumed there would be no music, but does anyone rational really believe that, or is it just music industry rhetoric? You can take the man out of the music but you can't take the music out of the man -- does anyone say something similar about accountants? (I personally think, and have experienced, that it's true about anything people are passionate about).

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